She is a curator who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to
life. A replica pie half-eaten perched on a small desk in the servant's quarters. A fruit
bowl filled with artificial apples pomegranates and pears with one piece missing. It should
feel as though her subject has just left the room the air should be alive with their energy.
But in the great halls and lush private quarters of a medieval palace she finds herself so
transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur.
He is a reluctant ruler rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his two older
brothers. He has no hunger for power and he resists the crown. But as winter turns to spring
whispers begin to fly around the court. Some say he is weak and will lead the country to ruin.
Others call him a cuckhold unable to satisfy his wife. And with the belief that the King is
not fit for the throne comes the idea that another might rule in his stead. May We Feed the
King dances between a historical subject who resists the march of progress and a woman who
turns to the past to hide from her present to offer a beguiling meditation on history and
storytelling: on what makes a King 'Great' and a life meaningful.
