How did I not even know that one of my favourite illustrators David Shrigley has written, composed and directed an Opera about cookery called Pass The Spoon? How excited I am to hear more about it! How I wish I could see it somehow? – A feat proven difficult seeing as it was shown in Glasgow last year for only three nights and its only on this weekend in London as I am all the way across the North Sea in Norway eating smorgasbord. Shit. But I would really recommend any of you smelly old Londoners to go have a goosey ganders at it, its only 15 quid.
I really hope its good and not a bit crappy, as I always liked Shrigleys work for its simplicity, abrupt humour and charmingly rough style drawings that cheekily remind you of silly thoughts you had when you were a kid. Its hard to imagine how he will bring that simplicity and gaucheness to the stage.

It has a story to it whereby the ingredients are characters and they’re cooking a meal for a sinister guy (Mr Granules) who comes along at the end, and they’re all slightly scared of him. The list of characters in itself is hilarious.

June Spoon
She’s a lady in her 40s who’s a seasoned television professional and is a very good cook, and she’s sort of the leader of the show. Beneath the surface she’s also a little bit mad. She talks quite a lot of nonsense, but then a lot of the script is about nonsense. I think if there’s going to be an inspiration for these characters it’s from the kind of TV cookery shows that I wouldn’t normally watch. June’s somewhere between Fanny Craddock and Nigella Lawson, with some other people who aren’t TV chefs thrown in.
Phillip Fork
He’s June’s cohort in the kitchen. Phillip’s a bit stupid. He’s quite funny too, but he’s mostly a bit stupid. He has a slightly fractious relationship with June, but it’s not totally apparent. It’s more of a latent conflict. I guess if Phillip was a real-life TV chef he’d maybe be like Gary Rhodes – a little bit daft and doesn’t really know what he’s doing.
Mr Egg
He’s a manic depressive alcoholic egg. He has pendulum depression, whereby he swings from joy to despair and back again. And he’s an ingredient – well, he’s actually the waiter, but he turns out to be an ingredient when he’s used as one later. But he’s an alcoholic and depressed before he finds out he’s going to become an ingredient. He does actually die – I don’t want to spoil it for anyone but there you go. You become an ingredient on account of being dead. His depression is neither here nor there thereafter.
The Banana
The Banana is the voice of reason, the sensible character who contextualises some of the other characters’ irrational thoughts and steers them towards more reasoned behaviour. Mr Banana is also an ingredient but the important difference with Mr Egg is he is aware of being an ingredient prior to that, but nevertheless is very pragmatic about his position.
Mr Granules
He’s the sinister character, the dinner guest everyone is cooking a meal for who appears towards the end of the show and everybody is slightly scared of him. For one thing he’s kind of a giant, so he’s a lot bigger than everyone else. He doesn’t really speak as such, he just moans and groans. He’s quite an unpleasant guy who does something mean to June.
The Butcher
He’s a proper opera singer. And he’s an average butcher – he sells meat products, as butchers do. He has a really fine voice, and he has a certain sort of ecclesiastical quality to him. The Butcher’s shop is like a place of worship, which makes him a minister of sorts. The Butcher is a giant in terms of his voice – he’s a got a big, big voice. He’s not as physically big as Mr Granules, who is a medical giant.
The Dung Beetle
He’s a little sidekick of the Shit. Like the Root Vegetables, who also appear as characters, the Dung Beetle is a puppet. He has a few lines, but he’s basically a puppet operated by the Shit.
The Shit
He’s a shit. He’s kind of a metaphysical character if you will, in the sense that he represents some kind of evil – or at least something very unpleasant – which is the consequence of something that happens in the course of the story. He’s called the Shit, and he is a shit. He doesn’t even really have a name, he just is what he is – he lives in a toilet.

The show follows a bizarre television cookery show, at times directly engaging with the audience. It teases with elements of pantomime, but doesn’t quite go there, the whole way through the bizarre performance is accompanied by equally unnerving singing and live music from Red Note Ensemble
Pass the Spoon is on at the Southbank Center in London this weekend.
You can buy tickets here.
Follow David Shrigley on twitter.