How To Make A Mess - Emily Rose Simons and Grace Taylor Interview

When Anna’s estranged mother dies, she skips sitting shiva and immerses herself in NIGELLA LAWSON’s seminal cookbook How To Eat, somehow summoning an imagined Nigella as her guide. 

Folding together heartache and humour, Anna rediscovers the joys of living, learning, and - most importantly - eating, one recipe at a time. 

HOW TO MAKE A MESS is a delicious celebration of feeding yourself in every sense, through the exploration of recipes and the stories they hold. With a score that blends classic Broadway warmth with quirky, contemporary storytelling, this freshly-baked new musical serves up a bittersweet helping of grief, joy, and the question of what we leave behind.

We sat down with writer (book, music and lyrics) Emily Rose Simons and director Grace Taylor to learn more about the show.

Nigella Lawson’s prose is famously rhythmic and descriptive. How did her writing style influence your lyrical choices or the warmth of the score?
Emily: I gleefully devoured so much of her TV shows, her writing and any radio/podcast interviews I could find that when it came to writing her, I hardly had to think about it. Obviously, this character is not literally Nigella Lawson, which gives some creative license, but basing a character on Nigella Lawson gives you this amazing playbox and permission to write in the most playful, witty, beautifully crafted way possible - and to include a ginormous amount of food in the writing. Absolute dream. I loved her before writing this musical, I love her even more now. What a brilliant person. 

The show explores heartache and humour. How do you use the music to transition the audience from the heavy silence of grief to the vibrant, sensory world of the kitchen?
Emily: Anna's relationship with grief is a very personal and specific one. For a lot of the show she is actively repressing a lot of emotions and has been doing so long before her mother passes, thus the most joyous, hilarious, silliest moments of the show is still part of her grieving process, or at least part of the process to allow her to grieve. When Anna touches the book How to Eat, music begins to seep out until it takes over and cannot be contained. Joy is a very active participant in this show, so its music may sneak in sometimes, but it also claims its space and pushes its way in. There may be jarring moments when the transition is more sudden, but this is part of the difficult emotional journey Anna needs to embark on. 

Is the imagined Nigella a direct reflection of the public persona, or is she a projection of what Anna needs in a maternal figure? How does that manifest in her specific musical motifs?
Emily: The Nigella of this show is a manifestation of Anna's subconscious - and I like to think of her more like a pushy friend, a puck or sassy Tinkerbell; Nigella meets Broadway Diva. Nigella's music is magical and cheeky, as well as jazzy and cabaret. There is definitely some bits of musical shape-shifting a little like the Gennie from Disney's Aladdin, which is deepened gorgeously by David Merriman's extraordinary mastery of pastiche and wit in the arrangements.

The title How to Make a Mess suggests a departure from the perfection often seen in cooking shows. How did you translate the messiness of grief into the structure of the songs?

Emily: In songs that look more directly at grief, I've allowed Anna's vocal lines to slip away from the melodic structure, or to break from the original rhythmic structure when her thoughts are quickening and overlapping. Anna's grief sometimes feels like a steady pulse that Anna is either grasping onto or can't keep hold of. Overall, Anna's grief is non-linear in a way that is specific for her journey. She doesn't know how to hold her grief, or even if she should, so there is messiness in the overall song structure of the show - some of the joy is forced, some of the joy is real and soaring, then there are harsh juxtapositions.

How did you approach writing this piece and creating the songs that go with it?

Emily: After a significant amount of research and feeling out characters and emotions, I launched first into writing a song. The first song was written for Adam Lenson's Signal concert - one of those moments of giving oneself a terrifying deadline and seeing what comes out. That first song was 'We Read Nigella Lawson', but a much earlier version. It encapsulated the journey of the characters, and I wasn't entirely sure if the song would work in the full version, but I knew I had to dive in somewhere and that's where I began. Following the songs that came out served me well to get to the first draft - the songs were these emotional beacons shining the way and the script would follow. In later drafts, songs have been much more crafted into script moments, but even then the songs still lead the way. This show is definitely not a concert with some script in between, nor a play with songs. The songs, story and script discover each other.

Emily Rose Simons.

Cooking is tactile and aromatic. How are you approaching the challenge of making the audience feel and smell the kitchen environment on a theatrical stage?

Grace: This is something that we've thought long and hard about during the process of workshopping this musical. We have had cooking days and consultancy with stage managers who have worked on shows with cooking. I think it's going to be a challenge but we have an amazing group of creatives attached to this show and I look forward to discovering even more with them.

How do you visually and stylistically distinguish between Anna’s solitary reality and the moments when Nigella appears? Is the boundary blurred or sharp?

Grace: The distinction is purposefully blurry. This piece is rooted in magical realism. We want the audience to enjoy the lack of distinction between reality and when we see Nigella.

How did the show evolve from the initial "freshly-baked" idea to the version we see on stage today? Were there any recipes that were particularly hard to set to music?
Grace: We have spent a lot of time workshopping this piece. I am lucky to continue to collaborate with an amazing group of people who bring so many interesting perspectives to the room. 

Every great recipe has a hidden spice. What is the secret ingredient of How To Make A Mess that the audience might not expect from the description?
Grace: I think the audience might not expect to laugh. Emily Rose Simons is a very funny writer. Her turn of phrase allows the audience to feel joy even in the darkest moments.

If your life right now were a recipe in a cookbook, what would the title be?
Grace: 2-minute recipes!

What was the first piece of theatre you remember that had a big impact on your life?

Grace: I have always loved Chicago. I love seeing strong women singing onstage.

Without giving too much away, what do you hope the audience is hungry for when they leave the theatre?
Grace: I just hope they come back again with their friends!

How To Make A Mess runs at Upstairs at the Gatehouse from 4th to 28th June 2026. For tickets and more information visit https://www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com/