We love recommending to our followers quirky, unusual experiences to savour and having Dinner at the Twits must be one of the most bizarre dining experiences you will ever encounter. The team bringing you this incredible immersive experience has tremendous pedigree from Les Enfants Terribles, which is a theatre group that has been garnering plaudits from all the major broadsheets to Bompas and Parr, who are renowned for not just creating superb English jellies but curating spectacular culinary extravaganzas.
With productions like this, the less you know about the immersive surprises the better. You spend the evening in the company of Mr and Mrs Twit as they renew the wedding vows along with the muggle-wumps, who are effectively the servants and entertainers for the Twits (as well as the audience). Chris Barlow and Lizzy Dive who play Mr and Mrs Twit are effectively repugnant as the title characters. Lizzy Dive particularly watchable with her larger than life personality (and hair) and she also has the best one-liners.
The ticket prices might be high at around the £80 per person mark, considering the ingredients on the menu are not pricey, but there are other factors to consider. The set designs are incredible from the ghastly garden canapé party to the upside down cocktail cavern with furniture effectively glued to the ceiling.
The package also comes with a welcome cocktail: Sting and Tonic, which is garnished with nettles and thistles and half a bottle of wine per person during the meal. If you are on the premium package, you also get a very refreshing Big Dead Tree & Sticky Glue Bellini, which is their take on the peach (or cherry) bellini. You will also get a hot drink and an intricately packaged bar of Roald Dahl chocolate.
What of the food you might wonder? The bloodied hearts, burnt bangers and sky rodent goujons are not going to give any Michelin-starred chefs sleepless nights, but the canapés are surprisingly moreish and remarkably entertaining considering you have to forage for most of them yourself like the mouldy delight (cheese and pineapple) and writhing spaghetti.
The main course of Mr Twit’s Bird Pie is likewise a delectable feast with genuinely flavoursome turkey and pheasant in the pie and a very slimey yet tasty parsley liquor as the sauce. The presentation is suitably grotesque with a chicken’s foot protruding from the pie.
The terrible trifle is actually terribly toothsome with sponge fingers soaked in sassafras syrup, caffeinated lime cordial jelly topped with lemon posset. Bravo to the genius of Bompas and Parr. It’s hardly surprising guests are happy to pay any amount of money to a Bompas and Parr event.
The incredibly dramatic and poignant ending is well worth the price of admission alone with puppetry that can rival the best from War Horse or The Lion King. Catch this wonderful immersive dinner before it closes at the end of October 2016.
baldwin@townfish.com