BOARDROOM BEASTS
This might break all information for the neatest costumes ever on the Southwark’s smallest house: six irreproachable enterprise fits, together with two units of tweed-chic feminine tailoring on Natalie Lauren . She is the one girl on this over-declamatory boardroom drama by Farine Clarke. It met approval on the pub theatre circuit and does, in a tiny method, after the tip of Succession fill the liberal aesthete’s innate want to observe horrible very extremely paid company administrators ripping every others’ guts out.
. Though this time its with out the household aspect: the enormous UKNNG newspaper firm is attempting to accumulate a surprisingly profitable and even worthwhile smaller paper, so as (within the villains’ plan) to asset-strip it , sack a lot editorial workers, and spoil its integrity for a revenue. Arabella admires it and wished the merger; she says “Editors used to rule here too, fight like hell for editorial independence”. Christian shudders on the very concept. He additionally makes it clear that her concern for workers morale in a time of mass redundancy is `”an HR pushed girly strategy” and sneers at Charlie the finance director for being “a girl” earlier than taking him to an all-male membership to seduce his loyalty.
The play is a bit weakened by being set across the millennium, so the characters are trying forward nervously to the age of “everything migrating to the web” together with advert income. Now they’d be crunching by way of podcast, paywall , TV and Times Radio statistics.
Also, when Arabella is admired for understanding about this new subliterate Japanese factor calles emojis – “like learning to read in reverse” it dates it a bit too arduous. And that’s a disgrace, as a result of Clarke is – although typically far too discursively because the characters interact – providing some good sharp takes on each complicated racism and the misogyny that hires girls as tokens and doesnt take heed to them throughout the desk.
Simon Furness’ properly depicted Charlie the bean-counter is basically first rate, however consistently compelled by the shouty American chairman to supply a greater lot of figures by sharp apply and sackings. Salem the rising Asian on the board – a brooding Anirban Roy – is a creepy piece of labor, briefly seen as proud of his rise to the British polo-playing institution from an Indian childhood, however brazenly racist in contempt for the African-heritage black and principled proprietor of the focused newspaper – Odimegwu Okoye. Christian (Harris Vaughan) , the nastiest of all of them, is baffled by this distinction since he reckons Salem is “halfway there himself”. We dont typically get portraits of inter-BAME racism, so it’s fascinating. So is Christian’s cod-psychological speech about profitable girls having damaged childhoods (although I suppose that scene is there to push Arabella over the sting) .
The title by the best way comes from Regents Park in London. Here as in any boardroom there may be a large outer circle and ain internal one: the query arises of the place rhe mosque is , and the place “the zoo with the monkeys”. A correctly amusing metaphor. But the excellence between goodies and baddies is simply too sharply simplistic, and the shock black-comedy decision within the very brief second act extra startling than satisfying. I believe it might be a greater play if the writer was not additionally director: it wants sharp trimming, some show-dont-tell within the characters’ numerous flaws. But it was topical on a day when two 2024 information teams had been rumoured to be bidding for the Telegraph within the UAE takeover menace. The score under doesn’t imply its not value doing, and Clarke goals at some good targets. . But it misses loads of probabilities.
southwarkplayhouse.co.uk. to 30 March
