Cultural Capital  Reflections on books and the arts from the New
Statesman culture desk  Syndicate contentRSS  Planet organic
The Kilter theatre company puts down roots on an allotment in
Bear Flats, Bath.  The Bloomfield allotments in Bear Flats, Bath
are the site of Kilter theatre company's latest outdoor "tale of
love and vegetables", an examination of our relationship with
food as we move towards post-oil times. I wondered what sort of
a place it was. "Nappy Valley," answered my companion crisply.
Perhaps, then, Kilter was preaching to the card-carrying
converted -- the yummy mummies on-message with organics who try
to avoid air-freighting baby's beans. After all, an allotment is
the ultimate suburban fantasy of zero-food-miles self-
sufficiency -- as long as you can top it up with an Ocado shop.
It did look a little like a Boden photo shoot as the audience of
mainly women gathered. (Horses or dogs? "Both!") This was
fertile ground indeed for Kilter's seeds of polemic. But the
show, Roots Replanted, was