Rural treat

If you go to see Taste, it's possibly the strangest play you'll ever see. It's also one of the most intriguing, compelling, thought-provoking and entertaining. You even get to sample a range of culinary delights, served to the audience by the cast. Written by Louise Page, whose credits include The Archers and Bad Girls, the play uses music, dance and drama to explore the way farming and the food we eat have changed over the last 60 years. It also attempts to strip away the idyllic veneer of rural life and show it as it really is - hard, unremitting toil, with rural folk at the mercy of disasters such as the BSE crisis.

But the play is also a celebration of some of the more beneficial changes that have taken place since the Second World War and ends on a positive note. So is Taste trying to make a political point, I asked director Caroline Sharman, or simply alert 'townies' to the problems faced by their rural cousins?

"I think both. The essence of what Louise wanted to say is that it's not a rosy idyll in the countryside - people actually work very hard. There are problems with reality that urban people just don't see, because they just think it's all about roaming hills and sitting in a pub."

The play is structured into four scenes, each representing a different decade, a different season, and a different time of day. Each scene centres on the same kitchen table, which becomes the focal point as it is shared by all the different characters throughout the 60 years.

It starts with a soldier returning from the war during the harsh winter of 1945/46 to his blind wife, who has survived the hardships on the home front.

Scene Two jumps to the preparation for a wedding in 1968 and highlights the growing trend for selling farming land for development. The third scene takes place during the BSE crisis of the 1980s. The final scene is set in the present and looks at the positive influences of other cultures on the food we eat.

"The first scene is really rather bleak and often ends with the response from the audience being one of silence," said Andrew Cullum, who plays the soldier in the first scene, the bride's father in the second, and a farmer affected by BSE in the third. "But the second scene is really quite funny. There is much in it that is the stuff of situation comedy. Although, actually, the situations the characters find themselves in is tragic.

"There's also a very surreal moment that opens the second scene, and I think it takes people by surprise."

This production of Taste is part of an on-going relationship between The Theatre, Chipping Norton, and the Theatre du Preau in Normandy. Taste has already toured rural venues in Normandy, to critical acclaim, and is now touring similar venues in Oxfordshire and its neighbouring counties.

The tour started in Hampshire and has since been to Devizes in Wiltshire, as well as Ramsden, Chipping Norton, Charlbury and Witney.

"We get to play in some lovely places," said Andrew. "At Ramsden, we were in a barn, which was very atmospheric. We even had house martins flying around in the rafters!"

"And daddy-longlegs flying past us in the final scene," added Julie Hobbs, who plays Cullum's wife in three of the four scenes. "And we had cobwebs on our real clothes when we came to get dressed at the end of the evening."

Caroline has been delighted with audience reactions so far during the tour, particularly in Ramsden, where villagers have witnessed many of the changes highlighted by the play.

"One gentleman who'd been in the village for 30 years talked about how there used to be dairy herds coming up the street, and now there's not. And another farmer who'd been hit with BSE was saying Actually it was the Government that did this,' and another chap, who was a butcher, was saying that the reason it spread was they way they cut it down the spine.

"The reaction that night was quite silent, because it was affecting them all quite deeply," Julie recalled.

"When we were in Devizes for their food festival, there were quite a lot of food people about and they were much more vociferous throughout, very appreciative with their applause. They were possibly not touched as much by the BSE crisis."

If all this sounds a bit heavy going, be reassured - there are lots of funny moments in the play and an unlikely touch of romance, too. At the end, there is a chance to mingle with the actors while you enjoy some delicious apple crumble and cream.

As Louise Page puts it: "Eating and sharing food are two of the greatest pleasures of life." Taste is proof of that.

The tour finishes on Sunday with two shows at The Theatre, Chipping Norton (box office 01608 642350).