Review: What If They Ate The Baby?, Soho Theatre

You know that feeling when something’s just a little too perfect, but there’s a crack in the facade? Like when your neighbour’s curtains twitch a second too late, or there’s a knock at the door that echoes a beat longer than it should. That’s the unsettling world Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland drop us into with What if They Ate the Baby? – a darkly comic, deeply bizarre dive into 1950s suburbia where nothing is as it seems.

Dotty and Shirley, our prim and proper hostesses, are played with unnerving precision by Rice and Roland themselves. They flit around the stage in pastel dresses, chattering away about recipes and housework, all with smiles so wide they feel stretched just a little too tight. But as their chirpy conversations about recipes and neighbourly niceties spiral into unsettling territory, it’s clear that something is bubbling under the surface – something much darker. And no, it’s not just the spaghetti casserole.

The physicality in this piece is the star of the show. Movements are exaggerated to the point of absurdity – robotic one moment, frantic the next – perfectly capturing the suffocating repression of 1950s domestic life. The choreography feels hypnotic at times, drawing you into a world where everything looks picture-perfect on the outside but is rotting underneath. And when they burst into unnervingly synchronized dances or pause just a beat too long before smiling again, the tension crackles.

Visually, the production leans hard into the surreal. The checkerboard floor feels straight out of a fever dream, and those eerie mannequin masks that appear? Nightmarish. And let’s not forget that spaghetti casserole – an unholy shade of green that’s more toxic sludge than midweek meal.

The sound design too is a triumph. Just as you’re settling into the rhythm of suburban monotony, bursts of jarring music disrupt the calm, hinting at the chaos simmering beneath the surface. It’s these moments that remind you that things aren’t quite right – and they’re only going to get worse.

The abstract narrative won’t be to everyone’s taste. Its jarring shifts in tone and grotesque visual flourishes assault the senses, dragging the audience into the unsettling discomfort simmering beneath suburban perfection. But if you’re willing to lean into the weirdness and embrace the unease, What if They Ate the Baby? rewards you with a deliciously twisted exploration of conformity, repression, and what happens when the mask finally slips. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Written and performed by: Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland
Lighting design by: Angelo Sagnelli

What If They Ate The Baby plays in rotation with A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson Or God at Soho Theatre until Saturday 29 March.