Written by Danielle James

Review by Jack Cuinn

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose: Tickets

A bold and passionate piece of work, Knives and Forks blends conversations around illness narratives, female friendships, and, essentially, love. Danielle James’ script is a provocation for a performance that enables naturalistic performances from Ianthe Bathurst and Thea Mayeux, who play Iris and Thalia, flatmates whose love for each other cuts below the flesh, and they are in a constant state of flux between codependent bickering and autonomy.

Accompanying Bathurst and Mayeux are India Walton and Chien-Hui Yen, who double up as physical embodiments of Iris and Thalia, ardently expressing the intricacies of their complex relationship through some of the most detailed and rigorous movement work to be seen at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. As the non-linear structure of the play evolves into a chrysalis of scenes between Iris and Thalia in their turbulent lives, Walton and Yen scribble dates onto the back wall of the stage, splashing the walls with paint, spraying crossword answers across the canvas of a world in which friendship is threatened by acts of violence, illness, and selfishness.

James’ text blends poetry, spoken word, naturalistic dialogue, and drug-infused mania in what resolves into an angry and chaotic expression of the hyperreality of human connection akin to the work of Sarah Kane and Anthony Neilson, yet blended with the authenticity of spoken word performance art.

Knives and Forks is a brave play that challenges audiences to decipher its central message of compassion and felicity in its exploration of a friendship that threatens to destroy itself as it overwhelms reason and reality.

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