Meal ticket
FOOD WRITER JAY RAYNER WANTS TO KNOW YOUR LAST MEAL AS HE VISITS THE NEW VIC. REPORTS...
WHAT would you choose to eat as your ‘last supper’? There’s no doubt it’s a meaty question to serve up to an audience. But food critic Jay Rayner intends to make a meal out of the answer in his one-man show My Last Supper: One Meal a Lifetime in the Making, which comes to Basford’s New Vic Theatre on Wednesday November 3.
The event sees the Masterchef judge examine our fascination with last meals. What he would have as his last supper is the question he’s most often asked by UK audiences.
Not only will he tell the stories behind what would be on his menu – how he was introduced to oysters by his late mother, or how he almost torched a hotel because of his love for snails – he’ll also get the audience to design their own.
“I guess you could say this is the story of one very hungry man in eight courses,” Jay said.
Stuffed full of tasty anecdotes from Jay’s own beloved memories sparked by food, My Last Supper provides audiences with a smorgasbord of culinary-inspired stories and comedy.
He said: “There will be a dramatic near-death experience on the surging seas in north Africa, eating snails in a wooden hotel in Switzerland and necking oysters in Louisiana.
“I’ve also included lots of audio visuals which I see as a second performer.
“They’re not slides exactly as that would basically be death by Powerpoint! No, I’d say they are more like video walls or backgrounds with visuals that reflect a story.
“With this version of My Last Supper I think the visuals create a personal memory room for me and so I’m sharing that experience with the audience.”
The show was actually launched in September 2019, and has visited a range of locations from Glasgow to Dublin and Edinburgh to New York City, ahead of visiting the New Vic. But everywhere the show visits, Jay promises a unique experience.
“The first half will be me talking about my personal experiences and putting together my last supper but then there’s a break and that’s when I will ask the audience to tell me what their idea of the perfect last meal is.
“You get a few who are trying to prove their connoisseurship and sophistication but then you’ll get others who say ‘my last meal would be my gran’s chicken soup’ and they’re the ones who understand that it’s all about memory and how specific foods can trigger certain memories.
“People always talk about ‘the journey’ but in many ways I hope that this show is exactly that if I’m honest.”
As for what would be in his last meal? Jay revealed: “Well oysters are certainly in there and I know they are not to everyone’s taste but then so are salads which quite baffles my son! He said to me: ‘Why would you put salad in there?’ And I said because I actually really like salad.”
Jay Rayner will appear at the New Vic Theatre on Wednesday, November 3 at 7.30pm. Tickets are on sale now, priced at £20, and can be booked by calling the box office on 01782 717962 or online at newvictheatre.org.uk.