Kitchen Theatre

When Mandy Dunn asked us whether we could do a special weekend cooking course for her and her hen friends I initially hesitated. While I have never been out on a hen night , I have enough experiences of stag parties to know they can be very dangerous affairs, particularly so for the groom. Images of wild drinking parties come to mind, with comatosed and eyebrowless naked men left padlocked to trees in the environs of Cambridge in the middle of the night and other past incidents best left unpublished for fear of litigation!! However Poul our chef was keen to try out the kitchen with a safe group of students who would allow him the opportunity to experiment with a few new menus and give some constructive feedback. We therefore said yes! Little did we realise we would be opening a theatre in the kitchen and having one of the best weekends so far in Kerrouet House! So a big thank you Mandy Dunn (or perhaps I should call you Mavis?) for choosing Kerrouet House for your hen weekend and to all the other delightful hens in your clutch (Jenny, Hannah, Clare, Heidi, Lana and Georgina) who were such attentive and proactive students on the course. Thanks also to our wonderful neighbours - Wez who assisted with sound for the saturday night performance; Jeanette who ensured the rosé flowed all night long, Dorte who kept the kitchen operational and undertook ceremonial duties during the graduation ceremony; Pascal who played wonderful notes of traditional Breton music on his bombard on Sunday evening (and brought unusual samples of local wildlife including a green frog (sorry about that Lana!), a white salamander and a meat eating plant or was it a man eating fly Hannah?! However the star of the weekend was the erudite John Keogh from Melbourne who performed his show "Victoria Ponders Mavis" here on our kitchen stage! The unexpected performance was one of the most enjoyable drag shows ever seen (and we have seen a few in our time!). In one fowl swoop (well remember it was a hen gathering!) poor Mavis was cooped!! Never before did so much laughters fill our rafters! We wait for your next performance Mr Keogh!