Cooking with Elvis is dark comedy by playwright Lee Hall which was first performed in 2000 in Edinburgh. Lee Hall (born 1966 Newcastle upon Tyne) is an English playwright and screenplay writer. ... Edinburgh (pronounced ; Dùn Èideann () in Scottish Gaelic) is the capital of Scotland and its second-largest city. ...

The farce was adapted from a play the author wrote for the award winning BBC Radio God's Country series and premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2000, where it was highly acclaimed. Shortly afterwards it was transferred to the Whitehall Theatre in London's West End in a production starring the comedian Frank Skinner, Sharon Percy, Charlie Hardwick and Joe Caffrey. The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ... There is no one Edinburgh Festival but those using the term are usually referring to the collection of various festivals in August and early September of each year in Edinburgh, Scotland. ... Christopher Graham Collins more commonly known by the pseudonym Frank Skinner (born 28 January 1957) is an English comedian. ... Charlie Hardwick is an English actor well known for her part in ITVs Emmerdale as Val Lambert. ...

The comedy centers on Dad (Joe Caffrey), a famous impersonator of rock 'n' roll star Elvis Presley, who was paralyzed in a car crash and is now forced to spend the rest of his life in a wheel chair. Other characters include his anorexic, alcoholic wife Mam (Charlie Hardwick), their fourteen-year-old daughter Jill (Sharon Percy), and their young lover Stuart (Frank Skinner). Elvis Aron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), often known simply as Elvis and also called The King of Rock n Roll or simply The King, was an American singer and actor. ... Charlie Hardwick is an English actor well known for her part in ITVs Emmerdale as Val Lambert. ... Christopher Graham Collins more commonly known by the pseudonym Frank Skinner (born 28 January 1957) is an English comedian. ...

Climaxes of the play are surreal fantasy scenes in which Dad's hallucinatory Elvis dreams are bursting into popular Presley songs as a reminiscence of his one-time persona of Elvis impersonator. At one time, Dad, already dressed in his Elvis costume, leaps from his wheelchair and launches into an Elvis ballad. At other times a wardrobe door will be opened for Elvis to leap out and into another song with Mam and Jill as backup singers. In another scene Singing Elvis becomes Reverend Elvis who starts making bizarre speeches about philosophy, drugs and sodomites - references to Presley's consumption of drugs and, according to reviewer Rich See, the gay rumors that continue to swirl around Presley, namely, his "obsession with James Dean and his alleged affair with actor Nick Adams." The glittering costumes in the play are fun and remind the viewer of the costumes worn by the Las Vegas Elvis in the 1970s. For example, there are ornate belts with gold padlocks and lots of spangles. James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American film actor who epitomized youthful angst. ... The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ... This article is about the city of Las Vegas in Nevada. ...

Mam has an insatiable appetite for sex which can no longer be satisfied by her husband. Jill is primarily interested in cookery books. Mam is locked in a battle with her daughter, who disapproves of the fact that her mother has a very indiscreet sexual liaison with Stuart, a handsome young baker, in the marital home. Mam's sexual need is echoed in Jill’s appetite for food which leads to overweight. Brought home by Mam, Stuart soon figures in everyone's sex life, including the brain damaged "Elvis" who seems to have at least one part of his anatomy functioning. After some trouble, the ending of the play is a deadly one.

Cooking with Elvis has been compared to the early black farces of Joe Orton. Joe Orton (born John Kingsley Orton, January 1, 1933, Leicester, England - d. ...

External links

• Lizzie Loveridge, "A Curtain up London Review: Cooking with Elvis"
• Rich See, "A Curtain Up DC Review: Cooking with Elvis"