Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Alice Bunker-Whitney.

We are at constant war with the one to whom we are nothing without. The daily bombardment of information, propaganda sheets delivered, in magazines, on television, radio, in advertising, across conversations and whispered jibes about how we would be better off, feel better, look more amazing.

If only we could drop weight, eat less, it is enough that it turns some into slaves to a regime they cannot sustain, but when it actively starts to body shaming, when it gives impressionable people ideas of what diets actually do and makes them ill in the process, then that war is a reason in itself to rebel and have a slice of cake, a one off, a treat, it is not for others to look at you, point the finger and shame you for enjoying food.

It is a subject that Alice Bunker-Whitney has tackled with wonderful subterfuge in her play Place & Chips, the serious message hiding in plain sight of the comedy that this talented comedic actor has perfected during the last decade. It is serious, yes there is undoubtedly a problem in society with the way food has become an addiction for some, but it is also an issue when you can be bombarded on a daily basis by manufactured diets that often do more harm than good; the need to look good a daily battle, to the impressionable in our society this is the real issue at hand, it is the war on ourselves to portray a sense of perfection in something that was already beautiful.

Our bond with our bodies is complicated, put the wrong food in and it gets angry, it causes us embarrassment and in the finest way possible, Ms Bunker-Whitney portrays that in the most imaginative ways, it is not every day you will find someone willing to run through a small and very funny scene for an audience that involves the intimate humiliation of breaking wind whilst doing a run and finding the end result is mortifying.

Place & Chips is an hour in which comedy and enlightenment go hand in hand, yes we must keep active, yes we must maintain a sense of perspective with our relationship with food, however the war we wage is one that is manufactured, one that does on many occasions does more harm than good, when we begin to fall out with ourselves, that is when the real problems arise. A sense of wonderful perspective, one that Alice Bunker-Whitney portrays with a tremendous smile.

Ian D. Hall