The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband

The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband
 

I can only report that The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband strikes me as a desperate, and faintly disgusting, dog's dinner of a play. Sitting alone at home and being forced to eat a large tin of Pedigree Chum would be fun in comparison. Chasteningly, I have to admit to mildly enjoying the piece myself when it was first performed 11 years ago at the Royal Court. I can only conclude that I was either green in judgment or that time has not been kind to Debbie Isitt's crude comedy.

Imagine if you can - and I know it's a brain-stretching proposition - a feminist version of Steven Berkoff and you will get some idea of what's on offer here. The writing is witless, the emotions exaggerated, the comedy coarse. There is not the faintest hint of subtlety or subtext. When characters pour a drink, or smoke a cigarette, they mime the actions, badly. Occasionally they lapse into dreadful doggerel.

The story is a paper-thin tale of adultery. Hilary (Alison Steadman) is a plump housewife who is abandoned by her oafish husband (Michael Attwell) for a younger woman (Daisy Donovan). She nurses thoughts of revenge, and has fantasies of chopping her husband up like a load of stewing steak.

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