"...there is something fascinating about performing an Elizabethan play within the scrapers of Manhattan and the still rotting slums of the Lower East Side, between the steaming breath oozing out from the cracked pipes and the brutality of modern New York speak.  New York became the background and the energy which charged me each day for my work and fed my inspiration.  Gradually the play took form and I was proud of it and of the opportunity to revel what I might be able to achieve with the Bard. I was served by a  first-rate company who worked incredibly hard and achieved much more than a modicum of success.  the rest is here within...".

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Steven Berkoff has had an obsession with food commencing with his earliest childhood memories at his mother’s table and developed through his travels around the world as an actor out on tour. Away from the comforts of family and home cooking, food took on the role of companion and lover.

From anonymous fast food counters, East End cafés and New York diners, through falafels in Tel Aviv to sushi in Tokyo and on, Berkoff’s personal collection of anecdotal stories, documented with photographs, reveal the transforming nature of food and its significance emotionally and culturally, in his own inimitable style.

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Sit and Shiver British premiere

Sit and Shiver received its British premiere at the New End Theatre, London from 24 May to 2 July 2006.

How a certain Jewish family mourns a dead patriarch. The term used is ‘sitting Shiva’ (mourning for seven days), when friends and relatives commiserate, usually in the home of the deceased. As children we always understood this term to be ‘sit and shiver’ which also seemed most appropriate. While death has claimed the old man and brought out the usual inflated eulogies as to his worth – ‘how important a man becomes when they die’ – it has also brought to life hidden anxieties, griefs and bitterness within the family. Revelations slowly surface as family skeletons are exposed and the truth revealed. The family is torn apart by a visitor bearing strange news, but Uncle Sam reunites them to sanity. They will end up stronger since this ‘truth’ will bind them more strongly than their old fantasies. A Jewish black comedy in the Berkoff tradition.

Steven Berkoff directed and the cast were Catherine Bailey, Leila Crerar, Barry Davis, Iddo Goldberg, Linal Haft, Louise Jameson, Sue Kelvin, Saul Reichlin and Bernice Stegers.

Also for a limited period two videos (Coriolanus and Salome or The Trial and Tell-Tale Heart) for £15 incl UK postage.  Click here to order.