Andrea Holland has two cultures in her life. With a Spanish mother and English father, she is fluent in both languages. So, creating a show about a Spanish woman and an English woman living together and playing them both was inevitable.
Chop-Chop! was first seen at last year’s Voila Festival, and now returns for a brief run at Barons Court Theatre. Directed by Giovanna Koyama, this provides 70 minutes of satire, clever stereotyping, and self-reflection.
Holland is an energetic performer, particularly vivid in the role of Spanish, a housemate whose obsession with food, low attention span, and permanent dynamism would test anyone’s patience.
As English, she is completely in conflict with this carefree self, reticent, cautious, and closed-in. To this woman, Spanish inviting in friends (the audience) is irritating at best, while her singing and lack of focus is distracting.
An opening video with coloured kitchen implements introduces the two sides, but this is only briefly referred to again. An interlude with Spanish donning skates leads nowhere, and an email that takes on increasing importance fizzles out at the end.
Better are smaller moments that bring the two sides together, and unsurprisingly, these are around food. A lost tortilla recipe; a gingerbread man. Interludes with audience members, including a game of charades, point at Holland’s ease with breaking the fourth wall and just being ‘entertainer’.
She also enjoys the tease of tech, ‘directing’ the light changes and dictating songs and moments that influence sound. It feels as if both Spanish and English, skifully developed as contrasting characters, enjoy their interplay, the ying and yang to each other.
You don’t need to understand the brief moments of the Spanish language or references to cultural norms to appreciate Chop-Chop! If you’re lucky, you will get to sample the tortilla with its secret ingredients. It’s first-rate.
Chop-Chop! could withstand a bit of chopping out of the moments that don’t quite work, tightening up the focus on Holland’s personality and physical comedy.
I’m giving it a 3.
Chop-Chop! continues at Barons Court until 31 May with details here.
Image credit: Robin Matzner