HOW TO MAKE A MESS @ UPSTAIRS AT THE GATEHOUSE

🎭 How To Make a Mess

📍 Upstairs at the Gatehouse, 1 North Road, Highgate Village, London, N6 4BD

🗓 Tuesday 9th June 2026

⭐️ 2 Stars

A RECIPE FOR DISAPPOINTMENT

Regular readers of mine will know just how much I love a brand-new musical, and I always walk into these intimate fringe spaces full of hope, especially when the subject matter is something I absolutely adore. Enter HOW TO MAKE A MESS, having its world premiere at Upstairs at the Gatehouse.

I am a massive, unapologetic fan of Nigella Lawson. I love her books, I adore her sultry presenting style, and let’s be honest, I have spent far too many hours watching those brilliant, camp parodies of her on YouTube. This show had absolutely all the ingredients to be a roaring, delectable hit. But unfortunately, rather than rising like a fine, delicate soufflé, this one fell completely flat as a pancake.

The premise has a lot of potential on paper. We follow Anna, whose mum has just died. Staring down the barrel of grief, dealing with an estranged dad, and trying to sort through the wreckage of loss, she inherits a cookbook. Suddenly, Nigella Lawson appears in her kitchen, acting as a sort of culinary fairy godmother to guide her through the heartache.

When I first walked into the auditorium, I was genuinely impressed. Set designer Christianna Mason has filled the space with a truly fabulous, gorgeous kitchen. It is a stunning set - one that the gourmet queen herself would be more than happy to cook in, I’m sure.

Sadly, the rest of the production simply failed to meet up to the grandeur of its surroundings. A show needs a strong, punchy start to grab you, and I’m letting you know right now, I was immediately annoyed. After the standard pre-recorded announcement about switching off your mobile phones, the auditorium was subjected to a large portion of the song MacArthur Park being played. Why? Simply because of the lyrics "someone left the cake out in the rain". That tiresome, drawn-out feeling at the very top of the evening was a frustrating preface for what was to come.

If I’m being completely honest, the writing by Emily Rose Simons felt incredibly poor. Everything was kept at a very shallow, surface level. We are constantly told about these deep, tearing emotions, but the writing never allows us to actually feel them. As someone who continues to deal with the intense, personal pain of losing my own mother, I should have been the target audience for this. I should have felt an instant emotional tie with Anna. Instead, there was absolutely nothing. I actually found her quite annoying and rather unlikable, which completely kills the stakes of a grief-driven story.

The musical uses the tagline that it is a "love letter to Nigella Lawson", but it’s almost as if the writer and director have never actually watched her on television! The real Nigella is a sassy, confident woman who absolutely oozes sex appeal and warmth. Here, all of that has been completely stripped away from the character. For some baffling reason, she came across more like a strict Mary Poppins than the domestic goddess we know and love. I just didn't get it at all. On top of that, the actor playing her felt entirely too young for the role, completely missing that mature, grounded sophistication needed to make the parody work.

No one loves a delightfully cheesy musical more than me, but throughout the night, I genuinely struggled to understand why this was even written as a musical at all. The song lyrics were arguably worse than the book, and a massive portion of the score consisted of the two characters simply singing lines of dialogue at each other. If you are just going to talk, why not actually just talk to each other? When the characters started singing over one another in counterpoint, the sound balance was a mess and I had absolutely no idea what either of them were saying.

To give credit where it's due, the vocals from Natasha Karp and Tanya Truman were incredibly strong. Both are seriously talented singers, and it is a massive shame to see such glorious talents completely wasted on this material. The songs are just so punishingly long and I found myself getting more and more frustrated. By the time the second act rolled around, my mind had completely disassociated from the production. I found myself actively doing life admin in my head, planning my weekly schedule, and having to physically force my eyes to focus back on the action in front of me.

And as much as I loved the set, the illusion was shattered by a mountain of noise behind the scenes. We are shown empty kitchen cupboards early on in the evening, but during the scenes, there was an incredibly loud, distracting banging coming from backstage as the crew filled them up. Because it was so obvious what was happening, the eventual "big reveal" of the stocked kitchen lost any shred of impact.

I spend an enormous amount of time in theatres watching shows of every single genre imaginable. In fact, this performance marked my 115th theatre visit of the year so far. I know what an engaged audience feels like, and the energy in the room for this one was remarkably low. There were a few scattered giggles at times, but the show is nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is. Even the applause at the end of the musical numbers felt incredibly lacklustre and polite.

If you have read my reviews before, you will know that I love a good bit of creative lighting design. But here, the lighting felt like a total afterthought. I know this is a fringe production with limitations, but I have seen some truly exquisite, magical lighting designs in this exact venue before, so there really is no excuse.

There's obviously been a lot of work that's gone into this, but overall I was just deeply, deeply disappointed with this one. The show arrived in Highgate full of grand promises, but, in my opinion, it completely failed to deliver on them.

HOW TO MAKE A MESS continues performances until Sunday 28th June. If you want to make up your own mind about this production then CLICK HERE to find out more, and to book tickets.

Neill Kovacic-Clarke

All views are my own and I pride myself on being honest, fair and free from influence. Theatre is subjective and it is important to remember that all views expressed are just those of one person.

My ticket for this performance of How To Make a Mess was gifted by Chloe Nelkin Consulting who invited me to watch the show in exchange for my honest review. The fact that my ticket was gifted played no part in the content of my review or the star rating given.

CAST LIST:

Natasha Karp as Anna; Tanya Truman as Nigella

RUNNING TIME (approx):

2 hours 15 minutes, including interval

CONTENT WARNINGS:

Grief and bereavement; Mental health and hallucinations; Family estrangement

AGE GUIDANCE:

12+

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