Ramneek Singh on Playwriting Vs. Posting
Punjabi food reviewer and first time playwright, Ramneek Singh, has taken the internet by storm, and is now feeding the Edmonton Fringe Festival his brand new play,The Butter Chicken Odyssey! In 2024, Ramneek’s online series, Butter Chicken Odyssey, made waves in the city - thousands of hungry readers followed along as he tested over 50 restaurants in search of the best butter chicken in Edmonton. What started as a self-proclaimed “dumb food project” eventually morphed into something more flavourful: re-connecting with his Punjabi roots, getting back into the culture, and a helping more of self-reflection than he thought he’d ordered.
Ramneek Singh in The Butter Chicken Odyssey.
Collin Doyle, an enthusiastic follower of Ramneek’s reviews, and local playwright extraordinaire, eventually approached Ramneek with the proposal of turning the series into a one-man show. And thus, a new play was born! Workshop West was thrilled to host the first staged reading of The Butter Chicken Odyssey at our Springboards New Play Festival earlier this year, and even more so when Ramneek took time out of the pre-Fringe chaos to share some thoughtful insight on taking his words from the world wide web to the stage, cultural influence, and his new online adventure, The Donair Odyssey.
The Butter Chicken Odyssey went viral on social media before it hit the stage. What writing freedoms come along with turning it into a play, as opposed to when you were writing reviews online, if any?
Ramneek: I think there are more creative freedoms when you’re writing online. You can go off on tangents, get deeply niche, and not worry as much about how people respond. When you turn that writing into a play, you have to be more conscious of the audience. They’re spending their money, so you want them to have a good time. As a result, you can’t rely too heavily on obscure wrestling or Bollywood references—you might lose half the room. But a play gives you something the written word often can’t: timing. You can use it to land jokes more effectively and let emotional moments breathe, which can sometimes be difficult when you’re writing online.
As a playwright and performer, can you describe what it was like reading your play in front of an audience for the first time?
R: Damn, it was thrilling. To hear jokes land, to see people cry. There was nothing like it. The ultimate high. I hope I can pull it off at the actual shows. I have no acting experience, and memorizing over 50 pages has been brutal. The pressure’s on.
Was there a moment during the reading that caught you off guard?
R: Yeah, there were some throwaway moments that got way more laughs than I expected. One in particular referenced an infamous Edmontonian, and the laugh lasted so long that it made me laugh and kinda break character.
Food and culture: is it a chicken or the egg situation? Which influenced which in your odyssey?
R: Culture was the primary influence. I’m probably Edmonton’s only Indian food writer. If not, I’m definitely the only Punjabi one. And it kinda pained me to see others talk about our food with zero understanding of the culture, so I deep-dived and created the Butter Chicken Odyssey. Sure, they were food reviews, but I tackled much bigger themes: cultural duality, institutional racism, immigrant trauma, and the grinding ache of integration—or is it assimilation?
If you could describe The Butter Chicken Odyssey in three words, what would they be?
R: Desi, Raw, and Gonzo.
Where can we see it next, and what are your future plans for the play?
R: At the Fringe, starting August 15. After that run, I’ll probably crash and go back to eating donairs every week and reviewing them. I wasn’t built for this play stuff—it’s been exhausting and anxiety-inducing. But I want to keep challenging myself in middle age.
Can you tell us a bit about Donair Odyssey?! How’s that going?
R: It was the sequel people demanded to The Butter Chicken Odyssey. The first odyssey was about going back into my past and reclaiming the roots the Western world had tried to “cleanse” from me. But I got them back. Now I’m reconnecting with my Edmonton roots through our city’s most popular street food—but this time, I’m not trying to assimilate like I did when I was coming of age. I’m proudly, defiantly Punjabi while also being a proud lifelong Edmontonian.
Catch The Butter Chicken Odyssey at Acacia Hall, Venue 5 (10433 83rd Ave), starting August 15th at 12:15pm. If you’re looking for some mouthwatering, funny, and sometimes scathing reviews on Edmonton’s favourite late night street food, be sure to follow him at Ram’s Food Reviews on Facebook, and @ramsfoodreviews on Instagram!
