JANIE’S ALL SET TO STRAY INTO NIGELLA TERRITORY

Janie Dee is heading into nigella country — and there may be trouble brewing in the kitchen.

The Olivier award-winning actress, who is currently appearing in Follies at the national Theatre, will lead a touring production of Torben Betts’s new play, a tragi- comedy called Monogamy about a celebrity chef.

alastair Whatley will direct the work, which kicks off at the Festival Theatre in Malvern on May 5, before heading to the yvonne arnaud in guildford, the york Theatre royal and the Park Theatre in north london, where it will have a five-week limited season from June 6.

Playwright Betts said his play is set in the ‘perfect’ kitchen of a chef called Caroline Mortimer, who has made a success out of a Saturday morning cooking show. ‘She has perfect children — daughters and a son — and a perfect husband. The perfect life.’ But Caroline’s free-range chickens are about to come home to roost. Betts told me he began work on Monogamy before adapting a production of The Seagull for the Open air Theatre in regent’s Park, which starred Ms Dee. He then began to see similarities between Caroline and her son, leo, in his new piece, and arkadina and Konstantin in The Seagull. ‘i thought: Crikey! Janie would be ideal for this, because she was so good in that.’ His new play explores the mother and son relationship. ‘it’s very loving, but dysfunctional.’