ARTS Alive welcomes back Farnham Maltings Theatre Company with The Iranian Feast. Part thriller, part cookery lesson, this is a tale of a family working out how life will be in the future. Using traditional Persian food prepared by Abbas, his wife and daughter - with help from their friends and neighbours - a surprising, uplifting story unfolds: a celebration of being alive. Going in the pot are fresh herbs, spices, sweet vegetables, and Eli’s mother’s secret ingredient.

Producer Gavin Stride sets the background to The Iranian Feast: “This piece started four years ago when the writer Kevin Dyer and I visited Tehran to run a series of workshops…we saw an astonishing range of work in theatres brim full of audiences…In Iran making theatre is extremely challenging. The work has first to be sanctioned by the state and can only be presented in theatres owned and managed by the state, a government official sitting in on every rehearsal with the authority to censor or stop a particular performance. Despite all these challenges theatre makers manage, somehow, to say everything from the stage. Whilst in the UK, where we can say anything, much of the work on the stage says nothing. Our hope is that by the time The Iranian Feast is over the audience has been reminded of our common humanity.”

Farnham Maltings will be dishing up The Iranian Feast at Fownhope New Memorial Hall on Friday, April 8 at 7.30pm. To book, call 01432 860221, tickets also available from Fownhope West End Stores Post Office and The Outback. Meal offered after the show - booking essential by calling 01432 860221 or emailing iranian.feast@banquo.co.uk