The Devil’s Larder is a deliciously wicked adult treat that is appetisingly apposite so close to Halloween.
Ten years ago, Grid Iron’s director Ben Harrison created this show out of 13 vignettes that he carefully selected from the original 64 that make up Jim Crace’s book of the same name. A site-specific piece – a genre which is, of course, Grid Iron’s trademark – it was first presented at the Old City Morgue in Cork before moving to Debenhams on Princes Street here in Edinburgh. This time round, the venues will once again be as bizarrely varied, the tour beginning in Custom’s House, Leith, and moving on to a country estate, a primary school and an out of season hotel over the next three weeks.
Custom’s House is a cold venue with open staircases, high ceilings and sparsely-furnished, bleak old rooms. Between each of the short acts, the compact audience is directed up stairways, through and into rooms, in near-darkness. It feels a little like being ushered around a haunted house, and a ghost jumping out of a cupboard is anticipated at any and every moment.
On the face of it, the only point of connection between the separate ingredients that together make up this beautifully-crafted, bite-sized buffet, is… food. However, veiled but visible beneath the surface we find each one of the seven deadly sins, together with death itself, surging and merging with all the foodie references in one giant bowl of sinister, sexy, sickening, angel delight.
Some of the items on the menu are better than others and everyone will have their own taste preferences. However, even those bits that are hard to swallow, including the ones you’d rather spit out, will nevertheless feed your senses as well as your imagination, and the whole experience, strange as it sometimes is, should be savoured – with or without relish.
Custom’s House, Leith, October 17-24; The Haining, Selkirk, October 29-31; Rockfield Centre, Oban, November 6-7; Melvich Hotel, Melvich, November 13-15