Photo Credit: Richard Campbell

Photo Credit: Richard Campbell

Photo Credit: Richard Campbell

Photo Credit: Richard Campbell

The Devil’s Larder

Scottish Tour

July-August 2005 and October-November 2015

Grid Iron’s original production, a Cork European Capital of Culture 2005 commission, was a huge success and transferred to Debenhams in Edinburgh for the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe, where it won a Scotsman Fringe First. The revival, ten years on from its first production, played the Leith Customs House, The Haining country house in Selkirk, the old Oban Primary School and the Melvich Hotel. Based on Jim Crace’s novella of the same name, Ben’s adaptation was created afresh for each site, with the dramaturgy of the building shaping, editing and re-ordering the scenes. Crace’s sinuous, witty and subversive text found new resonance, particularly in the context of the refugee crisis and our ever more foody culture.

The original production featured Sarah Belcher, Andy Clark, Hilary O’Shaunessey, Ciaran Bermingham, David Paul Jones and Catriona McKay. The 2015 revival featured David Paul Jones, Charlene Boyd , Tony Strachan, Ashley Smith and Jonny Austin with Mary McMaster on harp.

Mark Fisher, The Guardian

Ben Harrison’s sumptuous production…drily ironic, often quirky and sometimes dark. Less frivolous than on its last outing…more room for pathos and poignancy alongside the bodily appetites.

Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman

a great deal for the imagination to feast on in director Ben Harrison’s latest version of Crace’s fascinating text. David Paul Jones’ music…is a haunting collage of old songs and harmonies.

Neil Cooper, The Herald

The overriding and all-pervading sense of melancholy that runs throughout Ben Harrison’s production, life, death, sex, loss, mortality and everything in between are served up in a way designed to gorge on…each tale of the unexpected brought vividly to life…exquisitely delivered by Austin, Boyd, Ashley Smith and Anthony Strachan…a feast for the senses, however deranged they may be.

Rachael Hickman, TV Bomb

The story is filled with poetry and imagination, each line is delivered with evocative emotion…The Devil’s Larder is filled with the dark poetry of the human condition but with a side plate of wit and quirkiness, which combine to make an endearing piece of theatre.