From Persia with love: the new one-woman play that’s good enough to eat

Once in the UK, alone in a north London flat and missing home, she called the women in her family in Iran, and began painstakingly recreating the recipes she was raised on, devoting four years to perfecting the dishes of old Persia. It delivered purpose and community as her neighbours were spellbound by the smells emanating from her small kitchen. Then came a bestselling cookbook, From a Persian Kitchen, after Sepehr gave up work in the import-export business that had sponsored her move, in order to turn her recipes into something lasting. Luff knew that this story of crossing borders, and food as an anchor to home, was a global one that would lend itself to the stage. “It’s a story of hope,” says Sepehr, 47. “Like a rebirth, starting again and not letting the past dominate you.”