Edinburgh Fringe 2017
Low Down
Lucy Kirkwood’s dark satire adroitly captures the hypocrisy all too often found in today’s print media and the double standards that sometimes operate in the name of feminism.
Review
Sam is worried. He’s late, delayed fetching the boss’s morning latte. “This is print media” fellow employee and golden boy Rupert reassures him. “No-one gets fired for being late in the media”.
These opening exchanges, ostensibly banter between two guys struggling to establish a foothold in the crazy world that is now print journalism, sets the tone for seventy-five minutes of cleverly written, at times dark satire that lifts the rug and postulates just how low people may be prepared to go to protect the guilty and exploit the innocent.
This office is home to Doghouse, a lads-mag that wants to up its game, move beyond the C2,D,E readership that it has traditionally courted and attract the A,B,C1s through great journalism and, well, how best to put this, classier looking girls with all the right attributes.
But in their haste to move up the socio-economic demographic, they accidentally publish a topless image of an underage girl, resulting in Sam being sacrificed on the altar of expediency and opprobrium being heaped on the publication by the father of the girl who exposed rather more than was legal at her age.
This is a bold attempt by Kirkwood to explore a number of different and quite complex issues; the exploitation of almost anyone by a voracious media; the naivety of young people when sending things (in this case a photo) into the ether that is the internet; the prostitution demanded by some industries before they will consider putting you on the payroll; the compromises people must sometimes make in order to pursue what they see as a career.
The conviction in the script is matched by an extremely committed and able cast. Alexander Lopez as Aidan, the Doghouse editor, is brash, didactic, bullying, patronising, condescending and a complete misogynist. His sidekick, Laura Pieters as Charlotte, is appropriately demur in the face of her domineering boss but conveys an undercurrent of steely, principled determination when the going gets tough. Joe Callahan as Sam is believably naive and vulnerable, an intern clearly in the wrong industry given his obvious respect for the rest of the human race, especially the female variety. And Chris Aldridge as the wonderfully obnoxious Rupert completes the line up at a magazine most of us would kill not to have to work for.
The plot twists and turns with admirable intensity, especially when the incandescent father of the illegally exposed girl, played by Not I Theatre founder Matt Aldridge, confronts the Doghouse editor. And, in an ironic twist for a denouement, we see just what Sam and Rupert will do to remain in print media as they take on roles at Electra, a women’s magazine with a rather unique take on the feminist agenda.
Cynical, dark, thought-provoking theatre, consummately staged and acted. NSFW – not safe for work. Definitely a hidden gem as a piece of theatre, but don’t access the eponymous website.
