How laughter can cut (the cheese) to the political heart

Andrew Buckland's Feedback uses humour to talk about food and starvation as a weapon of war

- By Keith Bain

Andrew Buckland has spent his career making people feel. And think. Often the connections he creates between heart and mind are unanticipated, but what's guaranteed is that, along the way, you will laugh spontaneously, without recourse to cerebral processes, free of interference from self-censoring agents.

"Hopefully, we can sit in a room together and give ourselves permission to laugh at ourselves," he says. "It seems like a really powerful thing, especially when we consider issues that are extremely dark." He calls it "the cleansing fire of laughter".

Feedback, which is an investigation of food politics, was initiated by overhearing a supermarket worker saying that cheeses were "flying off the shelf". Although a literal image of flying cheeses no doubt sprang to mind, it prompted Buckland to reflect on the fact that, while some folks feast, millions starve.

It occurred to him that the notion of flying cheeses was not especially extraordinary. All he had to do was ask the "obvious" theatrical questions as to the cheeses' motivation. In the case of flying cheese, the questions were clear: Why are they flying? Where are they flying to?

The response that came to Buckland was that the goal of any foodstuff is to be eaten preferably by someone who is hungry. From that emerged the idea of self-distribution along with plenty more satirical weirdness.

The play is by no means a documentary analysis of flying cheeses and their motivation. It uses a farcical murder mystery framework to explore the complex sociology of food.