Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Jobsworth
Prentice Productions in association with Brock Media
Genre: Comedy, New Writing, One Person Show
Venue: The Pleasance
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Juggling three jobs where none of them know about the other isn’t easy, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and Bea needs the money desperately. In Isley Lynn and Libby Rodliffe’s fiercely funny new play, Bea seems to be at the mercy of her various employers until an unexpected encounter means that maybe just maybe she can switch the power.
Review
Lights up. Bea rushes in, a human dynamo dressed in red constantly pulled in one direction and another, mobile and laptop constantly pinging in demands from all sides. Jobsworth starts off at a fast and furious pace. A series of brief and frenetic conversations establish that Bea is juggling three jobs at the same time with none of her employers knowing about the others.
Working full time as the concierge at the luxury Fortuna Flats for bosses Julian and Gillian while looking after the world’s ugliest pooch to anytime data entry, Bea has more plates spinning than she can possibly sustain. Amidst all this mayhem, she’s desperately trying to get off with the very fit temp and avoiding whatever’s going on with her dad who’s living with a nest of snakes and her mum. She can’t possibly hold it all together – or can she? Just as her boss finds out she’s moonlighting and threatens to sack her, she comes upon him in a compromising situation which just might change the power dynamic.
This is a truly virtuoso solo performance from Libby Rodliffe, introducing multiple characters in quickfire succession with changes indicated through voice, accent and facial expression – and what facial expressions! As well as her main character, Bea and a third person narrator, Rodliffe brings in her bosses, Julian, Gillian and Miranda, the fit temp, her mother and father and several others in an incredible feat of versatility. Rodliffe’s storytelling digs beyond its initial farcical mayhem to dig into the sadly all too common plight of people trapped by the cost of living crisis in a vicious cycle of debt. From her initial resentful whirling dervish dressed in red, Bea slows to an impactful slow straight to audience delivery explaining the anger behind her story. Rodliffe’s pacing is superb (the beginning where Bea unfolds the intricate background could slow down a little for clarity) as the play moves from slapstick pace to a more reflective exposition and an affecting denouement.
A superb piece of new writing by Isley Lynn and Libby Rodliffe, Jobsmith combines laugh out loud comedy with nuance and sensitivity to make more serious points about the black market economy. Initially born out of the outrageous stories of the things they’ve done to earn money and the colleagues who “made [them] feel like [they] were on a hidden camera show”, much of Jobsworth is painfully familiar and relatable. Even in its more ridiculous moments it is all too believable. Tipping its hat to ‘A Servant of Two Masters’, Goldoni’s 18th century Commedia del Arte play where wily servants manage to get the better of their masters, Jobsworth exposes modern parallels between the powerful and the powerless – allowing just for once the ‘little people’ to take the win.
Jobsworth is extremely well and tightly choreographed for the small space illustrating Bea’s situation of being trapped in a situation beyond her control. While this is an intimate piece made for a small space, the Pleasance Upstairs is very cramped and it would be good to see it in a slightly larger space with more room for manoeuvre. This is a shoestring production (Prentice Productions) with minimal stage design, lighting and sound design with each element nonetheless beautifully matched to its task.
Jobsworth is well worth seeing for its superb new writing (Isley Lynn and Libby Rodliffe) and its brilliant one woman performance from Libby Rodliffe.
