For as the show touches on all of its talking points, there is barely the time to delve into them in anything but the most glancing manner. The catastrophic environmental effects of our more extravagant eating habits, the vicissitudes of the diet industry, the reality of what goes into processed foods like white bread, the profiteering that exploits those who grow much of our foodstuffs and also more benevolent aspects, like the comforting memories that food from the family table inspires in us even as we become adults.
We’re seated in the Royal Court upstairs space, which has been reconfigured in Lizzie Clachan into some kind of space-age craft complete with revolving stools and brightly coloured pre-flight drinks and so the vignettes are presented almost as an in-flight cabaret revue. Consequently nothing lingers too long but likewise nothing digs deep enough. With the addition of Blumenthal-style misleading food being served during the show - don’t worry, nothing is compulsory – the ambition of Gastronauts is plain to see but it does end up sprawling to cover as much as it can at the expense of making us really think.