The Flying Roast Goose
The Blue Elephant Theatre
6th June 2014

★★★☆☆

When Greg Wallace coined the phrase "cooking doesn't get tougher than this", he hadn't really thought it through. In The Flying Roast Goose, a young woman (Paula Siu) wants nothing more than to be a sort of MasterChef herself, cooking good, honest, Chinese food, but has her hopes and dreams interrupted by war. Apparently there are indeed tougher culinary situations than having Kate Spicer sneer at you whilst Jay Rayner babbles on about pork belly.

The woman's faithful companion is none other than a goose (initially operated by Jane Crawshaw and Kristoffer Huball), who she rescued from the pot many years ago. Naturally this isn't just any old goose, but one with a lot of personality. The goose can dance and critiques all the cook's latest recipes. From time to time they disagree, but ultimately, they're the best of friends.

Initially, this does feel a bit CBBC, with an implausible friendship, some rather charming puppetry and exaggerated expressions. However, as the reality of the Occupation of Hong Kong bleeds into the plot, the tone becomes increasing bleak and desperate. Originally subtle, Jon McLeod's sound design gets and more frightening, building up to a powerful conclusion in which Siu proves she can run the full gamut of emotions. The script itself is not without foreshadowing, but the brutality at the end still feels shocking. This is certainly a game of two halves with the first being good, but the second even better.

As with many devised pieces, the main issue is with pacing. The show has a rather slow start - although the shadow puppetry is beautiful and well-conceived, it's a touch overlong and this diminishes its impact. A brief interaction with the cook and a hungry Welsh solider (Huball) is wonderfully funny, but there aren't enough moments like these. Huball makes for a fine puppeteer, but he shines when providing full character support, and it would have been pleasing to see the company make more use of him.

The cook delivers many lines in Cantonese, which does obviously help establish the setting, but also has the effect of taking you out of the moment if you're not bilingual yourself. There's no need to translate, the gist is always clear, but perhaps the dialogue could be cut or spaced out with some more English. Director David Ralfe does a good job of bringing Siu's concept to life in the theatre space, but could go further, in particular tightening up the initial action. However, there's no denying that the whole production is a stylish affair.

Although war is quite clearly in the background at all times, this isn't a historical play, rather it's about one woman, one civilian who just happened to be in the middle of all the fighting. It's a human story of hope and endurance, and whilst it doesn't immediately feel uplifting, the more you reflect on it - and this is a story which stays with you - the more you do feel comforted.

As the first fully developed show from Out of Chaos, this is really promising work. Out of the hundreds of shows I see each year in London, very few have such a strong East Asian influence, and there's also a surprisingly small number of companies who bother with good puppetry. There is certainly room on the fringe circuit for an imaginative new company like this one, and we'll be keeping an eye on what they do next.

The Flying Roast Goose opened on 3rd June and runs until 21st June 2014 at the Blue Elephant Theatre.

Nearest tube station: Oval (Northern)