Review: Eating Myself

Pepa Duarte’s one-woman show Eating Myself makes you crave the smells of live theatre as much as anything

“My body doesn’t work like that”

As another series of The Great British Bake-Off winds to a close and we tumble hard once again for the lusciousness of Nigella’s culinary world, Pepa Duarte’s solo show Eating Myself asks us to think of a more pernicious way in which society can dictate our relationship with food.

Drawing on her Peruvian upbringing, Duarte comes up with her own recipe of movement and dialogue to find a mode of storytelling that works through ideas of body image, cultural heritage and societal pressure to be the kind of woman, Peruvian woman, that is ‘acceptable’.

Cheated out of a run at BAC in March and again at the Golden Goose Theatre this month, Applecart Arts fortunately managed to capture the show live but as Duarte cooks up a pot of bean soup, you long to have that integral connection like the smell of chips that permeated the Menier’s Shirley Valentine.

But Sergio Maggiolo’s production finds vividness in other ways, particularly through the excellent work of lighting designer Michael Harpur and sound designer Tom Sochas who track the contours of Duarte’s highly emotional journey towards necessary acts of self-care and the all-too-elusive recipe for happiness. 

Running time: 55 minutes 
Eating Myself is streaming via Applecart Arts until 29th November

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