ENTER Jay Rayner, the culinary Moses with his Ten Food Commandments dispensed on tablets better described as revamped pizza boxes.

"On or off?" he enquired, not asking if he should make the quickest ever entry and exit, but instead if he should dispense with his Moses cloak. "Off!" "Off!", was the verdict, and a parting of the ways ensued.

Later The Observer's restaurant critic was to remove even more, his modesty saved only by discreetly placed pork scratchings, in a spoof of Mena Suvari's notorious poster pose amid the roses for American Beauty. It should be pointed out that this particularly comic strip was not in the flesh on the Theatre Royal stage but on one of the slides that accompanied his audio-visual first half guide to The Ten (Food) Commandments.

Rayner, who plays piano in a jazz quartet as well as always being top value on MasterChef, is as good with words on stage as in print. He is a natural performer, quick witted, full of quips and tips, opinionated, fearless, saucier than Béchamel, and he knows his onions on so much more than onions and shallots, as he lays down his epicurean rules, whether championing eating with your hands or worshipping leftovers.

If the first half works to a recipe, the improv second half throws together all manner of ingredients, in response to audience questions and suggestions for new commandments, the pick of them being that "Thou shalt not spiral; spirals are for staircases".

Where's good to eat outside London, Jay? Bristol, Manchester; but he's not convinced by Leeds; York has Skosh...and look out for his next Yorkshire review after last Thursday's lunch out that day, destination still a guarded secret.