These are the reviews we received for our run of Boardroom at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Thank you to everyone who came to watch our shows and to all the reviewers who took the time to write about us.
“Boardroom”, Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★
By Tom Shortland, PlaysInternational
Boardroom may be funniest play at the Fringe this year. It is certainly the most amusing thing I have seen, and I intuit that it may be ahead of other plays in this regard.
The concept is based on something familiar to anyone who remembers the state of British commercial television ten to 15 years ago: the realization of just how messed up some of the most popular documentaries and reality shows that surrounded us really were. Parodying poorly-aged shows like “Supersize vs Superskinny”, “Snog Marry Avoid?” and “Benefits Street”, this play is a new comedy set in the early 2010s in the offices of fictional Silky Productions, responsible for “ASBO Addicts” and “My Ugly Neighbour”, and countless Ofcom complaints.
The production studio’s executives enter the office one-by-one, portrayed with hilarious vibrancy and immaturity from the beginning by Calum Blackie, Theo Tomlinson, and Leah Pollard (the latter in drag as “Carl”) replete with ill-fitting suits, ugly ties and drawn-on facial hair. Their infectious boisterous spirit amuses the crowd from beginning to end, especially Pollard, who masters the character’s grotesque toxic masculinity with a dazzling sense of humour. The cast all demonstrate commitment, playfulness, creativity and enormous potential.
Voices of reason are introduced in the form of Mary (Jemima Hurst) and Warren (Sam Bain) who balance and complement the raucous chaos of the boardroom with subdued sensibility, intelligence and patience. Strikingly reminiscent of Dawn and Tim in “The Office”, they provide a straight-man for the execs to play off, a touch of relatability, and a blissfully awkward romantic arc. As the story develops beyond the ridiculousness of the bosses, it delves into each character’s more serious afflictions, with a dramatically sophisticated but darkly comedic feel. Bain is adept at his unique brand of endearing and lovingly awkward presence.
What could easily have been written as a series of hilarious sketches follows a satisfying and equally hilarious story into a gratifying ending.
Parodying this particular brand of late noughties reality television may sound like familiar ground to the millions of people who have seen Horatio Gould and Andrew Kirwan’s sketches. But the show’s writer and co-director CiCi Hughes’s new show comes at the same topic from an altogether different angle, exposing the equally funny and grotesquely irresponsible attitudes behind the camera. Far from derivative, the writing and performances are of a much higher quality and originality than you would expect from a student-written amateur production.
The show is made all the more delightful by the attention to detail: the set is dressed with the kind of assorted tat you might expect to find in the office, and large boxes are labelled “Ofcom complaints 2011-12” et cetera.
In the current state of the industry, the likelihood of any professional company taking a gamble on a new show with a cast of five, by a writer with no track record, is slim to none. This show demonstrates, justifies, and makes the most of the unique opportunity student drama provides. The Fringe provides these talented young creatives with an extraordinary opportunity for exposure. You never know who will be in the audience in Edinburgh; for this show, Richard E. Grant made a visit (and loved it, of course).
Boardroom is an absurdly joyful and critical satire. The witty script and extraordinary performances make this show a real hidden gem.
Boardroom ★★★★
Television at the turn of the Millennium was truly like the Wild West. From shows about berating obese people into losing weight, to social experiments involving locking children in houses and seeing what happens. Boadroom tries to capture the spirit of those who made such… inspired programmes… and brings an incredibly chaotic, overwhelming and hilarious production office into the light.
“Crazy, loud and it is great fun to watch”
Set at TV studio Skinny Productions’ Reality TV office as regulars Carl Terry and Michael are joined by new hires Warren and Mary, and begin to prepare new pitches for the ‘Commissioners’. Even before the word go, the chaos of the show is evident, from insane scrawlings on a white board to bras littering the set, the insane energy the show brings is on display in every facet – and it is a delight to see. This all accompanied by a soundtrack of the Scissor Sisters and other iconic 2000’s hits which creates a mood that is not only perfect within the context of Boardroom’s time period, but one where you can easily understand why an office as insane as this would produce the ideas it does.
The acting as well is just as incomprehensible in all the right ways. The three seasoned execs are each more unhinged than the last and it makes any interaction between them, or with the new hires hilarious. Leah Pollard as Carl brings a constant coked-upped manic energy to nearly every word he says, even when he is at his most reserved and lowest he is still completely insane and hilarious to watch, pitching the most dangerous, cruel, yet authentic reality TV shows for the period. Calum Blackie’s Terry is a similar standout for the opposite reasons. Looking like he doesn’t know what the word sober means and wielding a cricket bat like his life depends on it, the pair of them crashing together and with the other casts members is never not brilliant to watch.
Boardroom is hilarious. It is crazy, it is loud, it is all encompassing and it is great fun to watch. If you even looked at a television at some point in 2006 this play will be for you. Its chaos is meticulously crafted, its setting is insane yet played perfectly for laughs, and despite its small staging, it feels larger than life.
Tychy @ the Fringe: Boardroom
By Tychy
Is it possible, yet, to feel nostalgia for the “reality television” of the noughties? Was there ever a golden age of this genre, when it had been dazzling and cutting edge?
CiCi Hughes’s new play “Boardroom” is here at the Fringe from Bristol University. For a long time it is merely an authoritative display of precision clowning. Terry (Calum Blackie), Carl (Leah Pollard) and Michael (Theo Tomlinson) are three television producers from an especially bargain-basement dream factory. They caper about their office, all springs and hairpin manoeuvres, with their oafishness shifting in weird Rorschach fluctuations to aggression or on to chagrin and then blindly back again.
Leah Pollard in particular stands out. Admittedly, they must have sacrificed the person with this name on an altar to make Carl flesh. What they have now is a kind of unending scream of psychopathic middle-aged selfishness. When two junior colleagues (Jemima Hurst and Sam Bain) join the office, they bring some important depth and variety to the dynamic.
Enough of them – what of the story? To me, the reality people are clearly refugees from the tabloids. They are the same characters with the same cynicism and the same bristling obnoxiousness; they are immediately recognisable as the Murdoch “reptiles” who had featured everywhere in the social anxieties of the 1980s. This is the same eternal Fleet-Street personality that Piers Morgan has been always consciously copying and himself trying to make flesh. It is just that these evolving newspapermen are now cobbling together their own celebrities rather than harrying the old, inaccessible ones.
“Boardroom” is, in a minor way, an appreciation of their work. The work that the producers do may be ignominious but this does not mean that it is soulless, or even that it necessarily ever shares in the usual banality of popular culture. The disruption is so hectic in the boardroom that we could be in the cockpit of grunge or of punk or of some explosive Dadaist frontier.
A line from Carl about engineering an escape room for the foxes outside his office hints that his art may be seeking an escape from home circumstances. He had married at twenty-five. The key to the genius of Carl and his friends is that almost certainly none of them ever watch television. They can barely even concentrate on finishing their own sentences; it is impossible that they could sit down and focus on an ongoing episode of ASBO Addicts. They pitch scrambled ideas, presumably underlings organise the manufacturing of the resulting programmes, and they then just party. They could be drinking so much out of guilt or it could be that their vast genius needs incredible relief.
Boardroom
By Siona Tomlinson (on edfringe.com)
From the get go a riotous dive into the murky world of silky productions! Hilarious firebrand comedy mixed with surprising moments of intimacy. Relatable characters, rich dialogue with a clever laugh a minute script makes this show a must see!!!
Boardroom
By Millie Thomas (on edfringe.com)
Such a good show full of incredible acting and great comedic timing. A perfect and light hearted exploration of the ethics of reality television.
Boardroom
By Roger Tomlinson (on edfringe.com)
A riotous journey through the 2000s, reality TV and the culture of the time. High octane, enormous fun and alot laughs. 5 star rating.
Boardroom
By Evanthe Gee (on edfringe.com)
BRILLIANT SHOW! The best show I’ve seen by a mile. The script is perfect written by the incredible Cici Hughes. Doesn’t miss a single. Beat. The dialogue is quick, witty, pithy and provocative (that would be a good catchphrase for something…). The cast is absolutely PERFECT. Even the smallest movement or eye roll had me in stitches. I’m very tempted to go watch it again. If you want laughs, an incredibly sexy drag king and a great time do NOT MISS BOARDROOM! 5/5 stars.
Boardroom
By Rosa Melvin (on edfringe.com)
Hilarious show! Brilliant script and characters – there wasn’t a minute I wasn’t laughing. Go see it!
Boardroom
By Becki (on edfringe.com)
Went to this show by chance and really enjoyed it, the cast and writer are definitely ones to watch in the future.
Boardroom
By Jason Borthwick (on edfringe.com)
Loved this dark comedy. Great to see new writing being brought to life by talented cast & crew. Congratulations to the whole Bristol Spotlights team who’ve brought this to Edfringe. Fit this into your Fringe programme, as its well worth a watch.