MYTHS and truths link two solo shows to be staged in The Studio at York Theatre Royal next week by Fine Time Fontayne and his partner Sandra Hunt.

The plays are Dave Sheasby's Cubist comedy Trimming Pablo, and Fanny Cradock - The Life And Loves Of A Kitchen Devil, the rags to ragout story of the original TV celebrity chef by Julia Darling.

In Trimming Pablo, Fine Time plays all the roles as Sheasby recalls the day in mid-November 1950 when the most famous artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso, stood blinking at the cameras at Sheffield station, wearing a beret and holding a bouquet of chrysanthemums.

That day, Communist Party member Picasso is to address the Second World Peace Congress at Sheffield City Hall, but not before he has a haircut. "The truth is I don't know how he got to Sheffield, but it's as if he got in by the back door after Prime Minister Attlee refused entry to Paul Robeson, Pablo Neruda and Dimitri Shostakovich. What interests Dave Sheasby, who was a ten-year-old boy in Sheffield at the time, is that if you meet people in Sheffield, they'll tell you they met Picasso, but some of them did and others didn't. Then you hear he bought a Sheffield pen knife but they only made sheath knives in Sheffield," says Fine Time.

"He definitely had the haircut, and he did make the speech, and he did do drawings of people at the congress, but where he stayed, they don't know. Did he shop? They don't know. They just left him to do his own thing. So the play is about truths, lies and perceptions."

That theme courses through the Cradock play, performed by Sandra under Fine Time's direction.

"When Fanny wrote about herself, she told some truths and created some myths, and what Julia Darling does in her play is let you into the truth as much as possible, which is much more interesting than the myth," Fine Time says. "The play reveals far more than Fanny would ever have done."

The two plays are in no way connected but, as chance would have it, the hair salon visited by Picasso is now a caf. Food for thought.

Trimming Pablo, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, February 22, 24, 26, 7.45pm; Fanny Cradock - The Life And Loves Of A Kitchen Devil, February 23 and 25, 7.45pm, February 26, 2.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568.

Charles Hutchinson

Updated: 10:48 Friday, February 18, 2005