All is Pink in West Berkshire County and Meat Boy review: Leeds performers head to Edinburgh Fringe Festival

It was with serious conviction that an outrageous double billing was delivered to a rapt audience in the city last week.

All is Pink in West Berkshire County and Meat Boy, two equally bizarre pieces of theatre, are unflinching in their strangeness. While the plays tell very different stories, they share an outlandish sense of humour that grips the audience from the start.

They premiered at Stage@Leeds on the university campus on July 27, giving theatre lovers a chance to catch the student shows before they travel to the Scottish capital later this month.

Aireborne Theatre’s All is Pink in West Berkshire County is a twisted black comedy, in which violence lingers in the air as a dysfunctional family sits down for dinner.

Michael and Denise Abbey, an upper class couple living off the fat of the land in Berkshire, set the table for the arrival of their daughter and her new boyfriend. Immediately, they bicker over how they should greet young Rory, a commoner in the eyes of the bourgeois Abbeys.

The newcomer is made to feel as unwelcome as possible in their stately home, particularly by patriarch Michael, a deliciously right-wing monster of a character played extravagantly by Matthew Dangerfield.

When Rory has the audacity to order a Bloody Mary, Michael is fresh out of tomato juice. His incredulous response – “Who in Thatcher’s name orders a Bloody Mary?”

The unpleasant atmosphere crafted expertly by writer and director Harry Daisley is rich with class conflict, while his witty script and melodramatic direction keep the audience wanting more.

Siobhan Ward as Denise takes some of the show’s funniest lines and delivers them in sultry, baritone soliloquys – her performance is hilarious. She is an oblivious snob, amusingly entitled as she gorges down the bones of a mystery carcass on the dining table.

The play takes place in a dystopia in which Downing Street has enforced a meat ban, although the cunning Abbeys do all they can to get around the rules.

This only heightens tensions with daughter Eve, the holier-than-thou President of the Vegan Society, played sincerely by Maisie Stalham. With Ben Greenwood’s likeable Rory, they are the sane ones of the bunch – or so it seems, until the play’s epic denouement.

All is Pink in West Berkshire County feels like a cross between Abigail’s Party and The League of Gentlemen – and yet it is entirely original. A not-so-subtle meditation on class, it is bloodthirsty, ridiculous and extremely funny. It’s not one to miss.

Meat Boy, which also had its first showing last week, is very different in tone. Directors Beth Crossley, Ginny Davis and Erin Cooke treat their audience to a light-hearted and silly 40 minutes of fun, which is wholly enjoyable.

It tells the story of Fred, a pitiable barista still traumatised by his music teacher’s chastising comments years after having left school. When their paths cross again, Fred seizes the opportunity to enact revenge, but all is not as it seems in this slapstick tale.

The play’s cast performs energetically and enthusiastically, each actor sharing the limelight – although there are some scene-stealing turns from the fourth-wall-breaking narrators.

If All is Pink in West Berkshire County and Meat Boy represent the state of student theatre in Leeds, then drama is safe in the hands of these promising performers.

You can find performance dates for All is Pink in West Berkshire County on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival website, as well details for performances of Meat Boy.