“Haribo Kimchi”, The Studio, Edinburgh
Mark Brown at the Edinburgh International Festival
★★★★☆
24 August 2026
Eating is such an essential (often pleasurable) activity, and cooking so performative, that it is, perhaps, surprising that we don’t encounter more theatre works that are culinary in nature. Indeed, as we see in the excellent, highly original piece Haribo Kimchi – by South Korean theatremaker Jaha Koo and Belgian arts centre CAMPO – the cultural specificities of cooking can open windows onto many and diverse stories.
Following an opening section in which evocative video of Seoul (South Korea’s capital city) is projected onto a small gazebo-like structure, Koo removes the front and side panels to reveal his street food stall. Inviting two members of the audience to seat themselves at the stall, he proceeds to offer them a choice of Korean alcoholic beverages (water is also available) and to cook for them a three-course Korean meal.
As he does so, he tells us a series of distinctive, yet interconnected stories that provide unique insights into a series of important subjects. The topics range from Korean culinary history, the South Korean family, the experience of the South Korean diaspora and South Korea’s relatively recent, deeply anguished experience of military dictatorship.
Koo’s storytelling – both in English and surtitled Korean – is delivered not only in his charmingly calm, dryly humorous speech, but by way of video, animation, electronic music and, even, a robotic toy. The technological aspects of the show are developed and integrated with tremendous ingenuity.
It would – for readers who might have the good fortune to encounter this brilliant production in future – be criminal to disclose the details of the animation and music. Suffice it to say that they are simultaneously surprising, delightfully funny and marvellously accomplished.
A tale about the enormous bag of kimchi (the famous Korean side dish combining vegetables and chilli) that Koo’s grandmother forced upon him when he left South Korea for Berlin is both humorous and revelatory. A seemingly straightforward medical story sheds significant light on the experience of migration.
Perhaps most affecting – particularly as Koo narrates it in such a compellingly understated way – is the tale of his conscript father being sent to the city of Gwangju, in the south of the Korean peninsula, in 1980. Deployed – by the US-backed, far-right military junta that then ruled South Korea – as part of an anti-insurgency operation, the theatremaker’s dad was a witness to the hideous aftermath of the infamous massacre of pro-democracy activists during the Gwangju Uprising.
Haribo Kimchi (yes the “Haribo” of the title does refer to the sugary confectionery) is a deliciously quirky, tremendously varied, yet impressively complete theatre work. And – as the food proffered to the audience at the end of the show attests – Mr Koo is also a very capable chef.
Ends today: eif.co.uk
