I’m a failed ballerina and a wannabe German at heart. And that tells you all you need to know
about my new show, WHITE GOLD - a surreal love letter to white asparagus and seasonal
asparagus pickers, topped off with ballet and clowning.
Granted, strung together like that, these words make little sense - asparagus, ballet, German - but if you bear with me for just a moment, they will.
As every German knows, white asparagus is known as “weißes Gold” - literally “white gold” - in Germany. It’s serious business. Worth millions of €, complete with its own festivals and asparagus queens. There’s even asparagus ice cream. If there is a God, the asparagus is it.
Why ballet, tough? Bit random. Until you consider that, like a ballerina’s body, the asparagus spear is normed: it wants to achieve physical perfection, needs to have a certain height and weight, and has a short shelf life. A ballerina and a white asparagus spears are probably the most
random and most likely companions.
I’ve always loved asparagus season, but it wasn’t until lockdown in 2020 that I ever thought about who’s picking it. In April 2020, the German newspaper Der Spiegel ran an article about a Romanian asparagus picker who died of COVID. A few weeks before that picker’s death, Germany had gone into lockdown and then meltdown: asparagus season was starting, but the borders were shut and the seasonal workers from Eastern Europe couldn’t enter. Hastily, a new law was approved to make an exception, just for them. Asparagus is serious business, COVID or
no COVID.
WHITE GOLD is also a show about them, the pickers. Beyond the goofiness of a dancing and singing spear, lie other people’s stories. The fruit and veg in our supermarkets are picked by invisible hands. Without them, no stacked shelves. No asparagus festivals, asparagus peeling contests or asparagus ice cream.
Come springtime, as eager punters dig into the season’s freshest asparagus harvest, the question looms: who will be picking their white gold next spring?
WHITE GOLD runs at Camden People’s Theatre 25 - 28 November, 7.15 pm, with a matinee on Saturday 28th November at 3 pm.
Tickets £12 - £18 (+ booking fee)
