The hugely popular food podcast Off Menu is heading to one of London's grandest venues this March, as hosts Ed Gamble and James Acaster bring a run of live shows to the Royal Albert Hall.
If you've never encountered the podcast before, the concept is simple: each guest enters the fictional 'dream restaurant' and chooses their perfect starter, main, side, drink, and dessert, while Gamble and Acaster act as slightly mischievous maitre d's. The result usually sits somewhere between a serious food chat and a comedy interrogation.
For the live shows, the format stays largely the same, but with the added unpredictability of a packed auditorium. A different guest appears at each performance, and while the lineup tends to stay secret until the night, previous live editions have featured a mix of comedians, actors and chefs.
The appeal of Off Menu has always been the way it mixes obsessive food talk with surreal tangents and running jokes, something that tends to play well with a crowd. Hearing someone defend their dream side dish in front of thousands of people adds an extra level of absurdity.
Running across four nights, the Royal Albert Hall residency is easily the podcast's biggest London outing yet, and likely to sell out quickly if previous tours are anything to go by.