Step into a world where cooking, memory, and imagination blur, and nourishment becomes something far deeper than what’s on the plate. In How To Make a Mess: A Totally Unauthorised Love Letter to Nigella Lawson, writer and composer Emily Rose Simons and performer Tanya Truman reimagine the kitchen as a space of transformation, where grief, desire, and self-discovery are worked through one recipe at a time.
How To Make a Mess: A Totally Unauthorised Love Letter to Nigella Lawson play at Upstairs at the Gatehouse 4th – 28th June. Tickets are available here.
This story sits at the intersection of grief and nourishment. How did each of you connect personally to the idea of food as a way of processing emotion?
TT: For me, food and cooking offers a distraction from stress and a chance to be fully present – focusing on the ingredients in front of you, thinking about what you’re creating and who you’re creating it for. In emotional moments, cooking gives me a gentle form of escapism, and also connection.
ERS: Time is incredibly important when processing emotions, and food, especially cooking, feels like you are moving yourself through that time which has given me a sense of control and achievement I have found valuable in the harder moments of my life. During my first trimester, I became quite debilitated and felt overwhelmed. Though my partner and I had been planning and preparing for a while, I felt a lot of fear and sadness whilst my body was unable to take in food and found it difficult to be awake for more than a couple of hours. I remember making orzo with frozen peas and sweetcorn. It was the first time I had cooked in weeks and I needed to ask my partner to take over the stirring at one point so I could sit down, but cooking and eating that very simple dish helped me feel like I was ok. I was going to be ok. We were going to be ok.
2.
The show brings an imagined Nigella into Anna’s inner world. How did you work together to build that relationship so it feels both comforting and complex?
ERS: I struggled with this aspect for the first few drafts. The relationship was definitely comforting but the Nigella I was writing was quite one-dimensional and the relationship didn’t hold enough friction to get Anna to the new state of being she needs to reach by the end. I have been doing The Artist Way on and off for quite a while now and one day I noticed in my morning pages that I was talking to myself in a comforting way, as if there was another person on the page telling me things I didn’t feel able to tell myself. My inner voice personified itself into the friend I needed that morning. I read through some past pages and there were all sorts of voices. Sometimes a stern coach, sometimes an argument between a meaner voice and a more empathetic voice, all sorts of voices. I realised that Anna’s manifestation of Nigella is not external, she’s not a well behaved stranger, she’s a personification of the inner voices Anna can’t consciously hold, and obviously that is going to be complex. I mean, the mind of someone who psychologically manifests a national treasure in their kitchen isn’t likely to be the simplest or most rational of minds.
TT: A big part of my work as an actor through the show’s development has been making sure Nigella’s presence feels comforting, playful, and FUN – without tipping into caricature or parody. It’s been about staying true to the essence of what she brings, what audiences know and love her for, while also allowing space for something layered and tender to emerge.
3.
Cooking in this piece becomes a kind of language. How do you translate something so sensory and physical into performance on stage?
TT: We actually bring some of the cooking live onto the stage, so the audience can experience that joy in real time – definitely don’t come hungry! There’s a well-known idea in musical theatre that when you can no longer speak, you sing. In this piece, when you can no longer sing… you cook!
ERS: Music is key to translating this magic. At times the cooking and the food are elevated almost to the realm of ballet, enhanced by David Merriman’s gorgeous arrangements. I know personally through writing this piece that it will make audiences hungry – I could barely make through an hour of writing this show without craving a snack!
4.
The musical celebrates letting go of rules and embracing desire. What does that idea mean to each of you, both within the show and beyond it?
TT: Developing this show has really shifted my relationship with food in a positive way. Growing up, I was surrounded by a lot of toxic diet culture and the “thin is in” mentality. It’s something I still navigate, as many people do, but this process has helped me listen more closely to what my body actually needs and wants. It’s given me permission to enjoy food, whether that’s cooking something simple, or creating something elaborate and delicious just because. At its heart, the show is about letting go of rigid rules and allowing yourself to experience more freedom and joy, both in food and in life.
ERS: Further to what Tanya has just said (and 100% agree!) I have felt this embracing desire rather than sticking to rules and restriction mentality has spread into a lot if not all aspects of my life; my relationship, our wedding and my approach to entering the cult of motherhood. Nigella’s recipes tend to feel more like guidance and comforting suggestions, and now I read most seemingly fixed ideas as such.
5.
There is a strong sense of intimacy in the story. How do you create a space on stage that allows the audience to feel part of Anna’s internal journey?
TT: As a two-hander, the show creates a real opportunity to connect deeply with both characters. Audiences might feel they already ‘know’ Nigella, or at least their version of her, but Anna is someone new to discover. Her relationship with this imagined Nigella allows her to access emotions that might otherwise stay buried, helping her to confront and begin to heal them.
ERS: Musicals are fantastic at expanding the extremely important, life-changing minutia. There is so much more permission for Anna to express what she is feeling moment to moment and bring us on this incredibly intimate journey. I am also a composer that likes to give characters and the actors playing those characters space to move through emotions and thoughts without having to always sing them. I like to think this allows us to stay with them and their journey in an intimate way without the character, the actor or the audience feeling over exposed. Through the writing of this show, I’ve learnt a lot more about the practicalities around this aspect of my writing, how much and when space is appropriate and what really does need to be said. In some of the later drafts, I almost felt like I was disrespecting the characters by pushing them to explore and verbalise deeper parts of themselves but I learnt that if they don’t go there, they can’t reach the version of themselves I want for them by the end of the show.
6.
Nigella Lawson’s presence is both iconic and deeply personal here. How do you balance honouring that recognisable voice while making the character your own within the world of the play?
TT: We’ve been very careful to bring Nigella to life through an essence – an aura or feeling – rather than a direct impersonation. In the show, she’s really Anna’s interpretation of Nigella. It’s such an honour to play such an inspiring individual who I greatly admire. I’m conscious of keeping her grounded and authentic, while also allowing her to feel expansive, born from Anna’s subconscious. As Anna’s journey evolves, so does her version of Nigella – she begins more heightened and gradually becomes more grounded as the story develops. This piece truly is a love letter to Nigella in every way, and I’m so excited to bring my version of her to life on stage.
ERS: Nigella Lawson is both iconic and deeply personal. Her first TV series brings us into her home, her first recipes are homages to her mother. I did a lot of research, especially through her interviews and her writing, whilst quietly keeping what we know about her private life in the back of my mind. I have also been allowing some aspects of the Nigella formed by our collective imagination into the show as well but never letting that get in the way of who she is: an incredibly smart, strong, vivacious and witty person who has been through a lot and loves deeply. At the same time, there are very few people in the world who really know Nigella and that’s the way it should be. Over the drafts, the more I allowed our Nigella to be funnier, goofier and slightly more like a magical broadway-esque diva, the more I felt I was giving a respectful distance between our character and the true national treasure.
Nigella, food, music – what’s not to like?