Reviewer: Christine Stanton
Writer: Tuula Costelloe
Director: Hector Smith
“Disjointed Description”
2 / 5
Kate Ghotti is one of the most successful TV personalities in the UK and is on track to make a name for herself in America too since being put forward for a lucrative opportunity by her agent. She’s living a life of wealth, status and public intrigue – but everything could come crashing down in a second if the exposé article written about her gets released, so she has to do everything in her power to stop it.
Kate (Tuula Costelloe) spends the evening whizzing across London, trying to appeal to some of the biggest powerhouses in the media industry in the hope of saving her career and keeping her popularity intact. She begins her quest with newspaper editor Niall (Anas Zabadne), seducing him and almost persuading him to kill the article before it goes live. Costelloe is clearly a confident performer, as she bends and bounces across Zabadne on stage to simulate a sex scene. Her next stops are industry mogul Hana (Megan Sangster), influential godfather Arthur (Graeme Culliton) and article writer Aisha (Lara De Belder) with largely similar pleas to save her career (minus the sexual acts) and disdain for the individuals when they don’t bow to her orders.
Throughout the show, the audience are mostly unaware about what Kate has done that is going to be the marker of her fall from grace, and being so cryptic about it makes it hard to connect to her as a character – not knowing whether it’s a hit piece to bring her down or whether she’s done something truly unforgivable. There are a few fleeting mentions about misconduct towards five of her old assistants, as well as her current one (and supposed friend) Jane (Rosa French). This is the only time we get a bit more context into what Ghotti has done – as Jane confronts her with the bullying and encouragement, she received from Kate to be bulimic in a strange scene that has the pair wiping cupcake frosting on eachother and reciting mantras about being witches, where Jane seems just as much of a despicable person as Kate does – just without the success.
Kate never seems apologetic about her misdeeds and so her repetitive jaunt around the city to restore her place as TV’s golden girl never fully connects with the audience. In the closing scenes there is a monologue from Aisha about how Kate was a scapegoat, undeserving of the words about her – which feels completely opposite to everything we had seen prior. Although we didn’t know the full details of her accusations, the way she talked to people full of arrogance, nastiness and manipulation was testament to her character enough, so a last minute attempt to make her seem unworthy of losing her fame and fortune feels lost and disjointed from the rest of the show. Apparently, each show has a different ending – how different remains to be seen, but more focus and a tighter close was needed in the one we viewed.
Part of the description mentions that this is a multi-sensory experience, involving burlesque, a scented auditorium, temperature changes and audience interaction but this feels very far apart from the show that we saw. The burlesque was non-existent, the closest thing to it being a short dance routine at the beginning, and the only audience interaction was a guy standing up for 60 seconds to hold up a paddle with a colour on it as part of one of the scenes. Audiences coming expecting a combination of theatre, burlesque and performance would be disappointed as this is very much solely fringe theatre.
Lara De Belder, as well as playing Aisha, serves as a narrator at points throughout the show and does a great job of clearly reciting the story that is unfolding in front of her. Having a narrator adds a ‘cautionary tale’ story element to the show and ultimately helps to strengthen the narrative by having an outsider rather than solely being told as excerpts from Ghotti’s long evening on the quest for redemption.
The foundation is there, but the audience really do need more context in order to make up their mind about Kate and why she should or shouldn’t be so quickly and mercilessly cancelled by her peers in the industry. This, along with a more accurate description of the show will help to engage an audience much faster.
Runs Until 24 December 2023
RatedReviewed 
Leave a comment