Anna Thomas arrives in Edinburgh with a singularly enhanced piece of autobiographical storytelling, tracking her journey from the corporate glass ceiling to open Vineyard Cellar Door. If the term is unfamiliar, ‘Cellar Doors’ are where Australian vineyards hosts tastings, and opportunities to purchase the produce. Just to be clear though, ‘How To Drink Wine Like A Wanker’ isn’t an instructional show, it’s a very personal journey.
Now, stories of ‘riches to relative rags’ may not be an entirely new genre, but ‘How To Drink Wine Like A Wanker’ comes with a secret weapon: wine. For Thomas, now a ‘Wine Wanker’ for Ashton Hills vineyard and winery, has shipped over a selection of 6 wines to accompany her performance. These are not merely offerings to placate or inebriate the crowd, but specific taste experiences…manifest memories of particular moments in Thomas’s personal history.
Don’t believe the ‘ridiculous’ part of the show’s blurb, I went in expecting ribald subversion of the wine-loving world. Nothing could be further from the truth. The love of wine is the absolute bedrock of ‘How To Drink Wine Like A Wanker’, and a route to a form of salvation in the storyteller’s mind.
Thomas, a relatively recent entry to the arts world, imports plenty of presentational confidence from the boardroom, clearly comfortable in front of an audience. However, there’s no stiff formality, or hard-sell bluster in her live-memoir. Highly personable, and prone to a beaming smile, Thomas begins her tale in the middle, the corporate world abandoned, and a new job found guiding wine tastings, and leading wine tours. The only problem: Anna Thomas knows very little about wine; other than she isn’t terribly fond of Riesling.
So it is, that beginning with the first Riesling to change her mind, the audience join her in an intermittent sequence of libations. With this, and each wine to follow, she will delve into the tasting notes and the wine’s place in her life, and why it belongs at a certain point in her tale.
That Riesling, for example, provides the launching board for her journey from bluster to full-blown ‘Wine Wanker’, rich with comedic tales of inebriated tourists incapable of deciphering her nonsense, and of the expert who blows her cover and sets her on a more informed path.
After a little more wine, and establishing her more recent history, it’s time to delve back to her time near the top of an international company. After all, it’s easier to talk of difficult things when the wine has begun flowing. Safe to say that the events which saw her surrender 6-figures for 4 are most certainly not ridiculous. Despite a glowing professional record, and a proven track record as a money-maker, the men at the top remain obsessed with her biology. Is she really mentally tough enough to handle high-powered commerce? Won’t pregnancy be more than enough for her to deal with?
So, in a sense, ‘How To Drink Wine Like A Wanker’ is a story about happiness, of life being too short to spend it amongst people who make you miserable. Yes, there’s a time to fight, but there’s also a time to cut your losses and run for a different dream. That new dream comes complete with a steep learning curve, a regularly barmy new lexicon, and the obligation to entertain beer-drinkers confused by a wine-only premises, but the smile on her face tells all.
However what makes this good show, a great show, is the wine. Yes, a wine tasting in the hands of an expert is fascinating in itself, but placed in a theatrical context each is a smell, sight, and taste experience plucked from the past, and experienced in the present. It’s a breadcrumb trail laid behind Thomas so the audience can follow on behind. I don’t want to say more about the specifics of the wine, because each is a discovery you should make in the show, without time to look anything up and form preconceptions.
The only reason this show can’t be given 5 stars is also because of the wine. It’s a magical dramatic tool, but it does cost an additional £10 on top of ticket prices. You can, of course, experience the drama without the wine…but it simply wouldn’t be the same, visceral experience. However, for wine loving lovers of theatre, this is the show for you.
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