NSFW – Red Stitch

Overview

If someone emails you a link tagged NSFW — Not Safe For Work — you know to be cautious of it. So when Red Stitch’s final play of the year has this snappy 'nudity/grossness/weird shit ahead' warning as its title, it is only reasonable to expect something a little shocking.

NSFW is a recent work from Lucy Kirkwood, best known for being one of the writers of TV show Skins but also a prolific young British playwright. It takes place in the oh so British world of trashy tabloids, from boob-happy lad mag Doghouse, to style-crazy women’s magazine Electra. Through a couple of set pieces — a scandal at the lad mag and a job interview with Electra’s editor — he exploitation on both sides of the gender fence is showcased.

The edginess promised by the title and this enticing premise was not, however, realised on stage in Red Stitch’s production. Is it telling you anything new to say that lad mags are exploitative? Or that women’s magazines can be too? No, not really, and the play took an hour and a half to reiterate that familiar message with all the subtlety of a page three spread.

While the script demonstrated a kind of sitcom competence, delivering gags and dramatic counterpoints in all the right places and including some truly good one-liners, it didn’t add anything new to the discussion of gender roles in the media. The characters were a roll call of familiar archetypes: the shifty sleazebag boss (Ben Prendergast), the eccentric ageing fashionista (Olga Makeeva), the arrogant trust fund kid (Mark Casamento) and not one but two young idealists (Matthew Whitty and Kasia Kaczmarek) driven by the economic climate to take work in an environment they secretly despise. We know these archetypes already and the play offered no fresh angles on them.

The performances — mostly in British accents which were serviceable provided you didn’t question too hard which part of Britain they were meant to be from — were mostly one-note, with both gags and dramatic moments heavily over-played. Prendergast delivered a nervous blustery performance as the lad mag boss, with none of the comic nuance the script seemed to be crying out for, and while Okeeva had fun as Electra editor Miranda, her overboard battiness made the character a cartoonish parody. Actors noticeably dropped their lines or broke character by smirking at their own jokes with surprising frequency for the ensemble of an established company.

NSFW promised edgy and incisive but instead delivered fluff. It was enjoyable enough to watch but ultimately not much less shallow than the magazines it was so savagely criticising.

Sadly, the most shocking thing on opening night was nothing on stage but instead the behaviour of the audience who, having been generously plied with complimentary drinks, started to get a bit NSFW themselves. Several were raucous, one appeared to go to sleep (admittedly act two was kind of slow) and one randomly harassed your correspondent from Concrete Playground in the foyer afterwards. Obviously this experience wouldn't be common to all viewings of the show, but it did cast an unpleasant pall on my night. This on top of the pall already cast by an indifferent play depicting a bleak and sleazy view of the world. I came away feeling uncomfortable, disappointed in my fellow humans and thinking “I wish I hadn’t bothered with that.”  Which admittedly is the same suite of emotions I’d normally get from clicking on a link tagged NSFW so I guess the show delivered what it promised after all.

Image: Jodie Hutchinson.