So Close To Home, Number 10, Circus Parade, Tues May 13 – Sun May 25

4:58pm Friday 11th April 2008

"I suppose I always wanted to write about the experience of fathers and sons but I didn't find the idea for the play until I discovered professional kitchens," says Mark Wheatley, who has written extensively for radio and television, as well as for the acclaimed Theatre du Complicite company.

"I've been amazed by how backstage' in kitchens, so to speak, has continued to be so popular, with Gordon Ramsay and the like. The play is a little bit of a dig at Ramsay and his enormously successful business shouting at people in kitchens."

His story centres on chef Robert's efforts to set up his own restaurant, and relationships with his teenage son and father, who has turned up after a 25-year absence.

It's a multi-layered drama which explores how the issues of our private, domestic lives mirror those in the broader, public domain.

Wheatley researched his play by working in restaurant kitchens and was delighted when the opportunity arose to stage the piece in a disused pizza parlour near Preston Circus.

"When we found this location in Brighton we were absolutely thrilled with it," he says. "It seemed to fit with everything we required.

It's fairly run down but the main character sees it entirely differently. He sees the future and the hope in it." So Close To Home stars two Sussex-based actors, RSC veteran Sam Cox and Time Out-award winner Garry Cooper, alongside TV's Holby Blue regular Joe Jacobs, making his stage debut.

Directed by James Cotterill, who has recently worked as an assistant director at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and the Royal Opera House, the play also explores the lives of the immigrant workers Robert hires.

"The migrant workers, in a sense, are the opposite end of the story," Wheatley explains. "They are, if you like, people from outside the house who have been invited in and are now essential to the running of our businesses.

"It just seemed to fit for me, with people who have to travel for work and leave their families in order to send money back to keep them alive."

While the writer is overjoyed by the support the Brighton Festival has given to the production, he laments the fact that staging such productions here is difficult during the rest of the year.

"You see shows in the Festival which are very hard to see in Brighton at other times of the year. Komedia and The Nightingale are terrific, but I would love to see a small, good producing theatre in Brighton that does its own dramas."

• Times vary. Tickets: £15. Suitable for ages 12 and over

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