The Butcher, The Baker…

Here is a glittering, cynical, even cruel, look at sexual obsession.  It’s a sort of musical, a sort of Singspiele about the tragic consequences of barking up the wrong tree, or the wrong leg – of misapprehension and cross-dressing.  The spirit and the sound, of Kurt Weil and Bertolt Brecht are never far away.  One of the songs in The Threepenny Opera, for instance, is ‘Song of Sexual Dependency’ - very much to the point with The Butcher…  

In Ella Filar’s twisted tale, Honey Valik (a curiously sweet and vulnerable Natasha Broadstock), an artist, is in love with Alex Summers (Claire Nicholls), a top, if stolid, closed, if not blank, brain surgeon.  Too bad for Honey that Alex is so elusive - always operating, otherwise busy, frustratingly unavailable or travelling.  He is even evasive on the phone.  He is also badly dressed and never removes his hat – but there is a reason for that – as we and Honey will discover…

Desperate Honey thinks maybe she can seduce Alex by cooking him his favourite dinner: stuffed peppers.  Or rr-rump.  Which takes Honey to towering butcher Jonny Agostino (Fletcher Dyson) who does not seem very Italian but who brandishes a very big knife.  Honey wants some mince and rr-rump.  The erotic charge between Honey and Johnny is powerful… but unfortunately resistible.  At first.  And Johnny is a vegetarian.

The story is usefully introduced, narrated, glossed and held together by The Voices (a scary but sexy Myf Powell and a rather louche, leering Bruce Langdon), dressed in sort of kitchenware gear with black and white chequered hats who deliver the songs in take-no-prisoners cabaret style.  

This pair exhibit some real class – their clarity and bite are in deliberate contrast to the tentative fumblings of the story’s characters.  Indeed, without the Voices’ comments and explanations, we might easily get lost.  We are about ten minutes into the show before we get a grip on what’s it’s actually about and where it might be going.  It’s an unusual show in that the politics is all sexual and the psychology is very dark.

The music, as with all Ella Filar’s shows I seen, is bouncy with that irresistible, gets-under-your-skin Berlin cabaret sound.  Under Filar – on keyboard – there’s Martin Zakharov or Luke Schreiber on sax, Lyuba Khromchenko violin and Christos Linou handling percussion and sound effects.  The lyrics (usefully supplied) are of the same ilk – sexually explicit but perhaps lacking Brecht’s clarity – the kind that makes you wince.

The title notwithstanding, there appears to be no Baker (and no Candlestick Maker either).  That’s the sort of random joke that needs a punchline. (Like Honey Valik/Phallic or the Butcher being vegetarian.) 

All the same, The Butcher, The Baker is a bold hybrid of cabaret and a tale of sad, although often funny, neurotic sexuality.  It’s intriguing and engaging, but it could be a lot more fun than it is.  There’s some clumsy miming that doesn’t come off.  Director Kevin Hopkins does a good job of contrasting cabaret and melodrama, but the action might be simply clearer.  The Honey/Alex thwarted love affair is rather attenuated and becomes repetitious – very taxing for the actors – before the tragic twist.  But this sort of attempt at something different is refreshing and should be rewarded.

Michael Brindley