Cooking with Elvis

Boiled from the same stock as Billy Elliot by writer Lee Hall, Cooking with Elvis is something of a kitchen sink drama. Stirring tension between family involvement and individual separation, it questions one's right to ask for another slice of life when a loved one is sorely hungry.

Food is the only source of redemption in this small household. Catharsis through caramel, as it were.

The drive of the storyline is straightforward yet touches on issues seldom seen in theatre. Bullied by her alcoholic and bulimic mother for endlessly cooking, fifteen-year-old Jill’s fairytale in cook books is jeopardised by Stewart, her mum’s gormless latest lover. Overseeing the action is Jill’s silent quadriplegic father, a tragic character, twisted in a chair, who finds a voice by periodically rising in smoke and sequins to reprise his former career as an Elvis impersonator. Normality is soon peeled away, revealing something that casually thrusts its pelvis between bad-taste callousness and hilarious entertainment.

Although first seen at the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe, Cooking with Elvis feels distinctly Northern: you would swear the action was taking place just next door to Billy Elliot’s family in Durham, rather than in Glasgow, were it not for its local and pop references. Its style and sense of humour falls close to Ayub Khan-Din’s East is East or Jim Cartwright’s The Rise and Fall of Little Voice.

Most of the wonderful actors will be familiar to a Scottish TV audience. What a wonderfully saucy River City spin-off this is! Deirdre Davis is irresponsible parenting in a red silk dressing gown; though the part calls for little more depth than a glass of Blue Nun, Davis at times finds surprising tenderness in the script, noting the tragedy of an old lush’s constant battle against time and circumstance. Jayd Johnson, her long-suffering daughter, makes this first professional stage appearance a worthwhile one. Her performance is a rapid decay into madness with more than just an observed touch of the Electra complex; Martin Docherty is a sweet and hapless target. Even the live tortoise is a star.

As the father, Gavin Mitchell - better known as Bobby the bartender from Still Game - is appropriately unsettling to watch. His physical release into the spirit of Elvis is quite spectacular.

The last few minutes of the show, a rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic complete with pyrotechnics, bring things to a glorious, Vegas-style conclusion.