Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! - Our new theatre production will probably be unreal

4th Apr 2019

Whatever happens Brexit will come to a conclusion sometime this year and regardless of the actual outcome of it or what side of the divide you are on, the fascination with it will be sustained for some time to come.  

At some stage reporters won’t be able to break dramatic new stories on it every day and Brexit obsessed audiences will move from watching the news to looking for more philosophical analysis from historians, poets, musicians and playwrights. Our money is on the latter so we’ve come up with a plan for a major theatre production that is guaranteed to run in theatres from Buttevant to Broadway for decades and makes us a load of coin in the process.

Our new play, ‘Brexit! Brexit! Brexit!’ will be a ground-breaking, spectacularly entertaining, rip roaring tour-de-force tragicomedy based on political events of the last four years but with a unique twist as the script was written in the same time it takes to say the play’s title.
 

Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! Brexit!

Yes, you did read that correctly. There will be just one word used in the entire performance. This not only captures the relentless obsession of our news media cycle but it also conveniently saves a load of time and coin writing some big long yoke like your man Shakespeare. And as it will be our first foray into acting it’ll also be easy enough to learn the script. 

For an authentic Brexit experience that gets the audience wound up into a rage before they even enter the theatre, punters at our Irish and European shows will be required to pay in sterling while those in the UK will be forced to trump up in euro. All unforeseen WTO tariffs will be added where necessary.

Each auditorium will be divided into pro and anti-Brexit sections with audience interaction enthusiastically encouraged. Shouting of insults and mild to moderate physical altercations between punters will also be permitted and boxing gloves can be purchased from the ticket desk for an extra €25/£25 + applicable WTO tariffs. Parades and demonstrations on the auditorium floor are also welcome – the more irrational the better.

While punters will be permitted to enter the theatre from 7.30pm each night there is no set start or end time to the performance which will give people a true sense of the relentless uncertainty of Brexit itself. Just when you think it is due to end, there may or may not be a last minute extension.

When audience members arrive the actors will already be on stage so punters will already have an uneasy feeling that they’ve missed something and if you can tolerate the Brexit talk you may stay on indefinitely (sleeping bags €60/£60 + WTO tariffs).

When you’ve decided you’ve had enough of Brexit leaving the theatre won’t be straight forward. During previous trips to see some drama you simply got out of your seat, walked to the exit door and stepped outside into the night. Nothing will be that straight forward with Brexit! Brexit! Brexit!

Firstly, you’ll have to pay a fee that will only become apparent when you decide to leave. Then cordons, barriers and large metal fences will be erected to usher exiting punters up unnecessary flights of stairs, along endless corridors and down into the bowels of the theatre. Even when you think you’ve reached the outside, encouraged by a plethora of convincing directional arrows, further plastic screens will channel you back inside and through more passageways.

At various points along this long arduous journey you will have the option to turn back into the auditorium but once you finally reach the street outside you cannot come back in: leave means leave. 

While philistines may be put off by the single word script, culture vultures and seasoned theatre goers will be blown away by our team of actors as they are taken on an unforgettable journey through the history of Brexit using only that word.

To hell with wordy discussion and well-articulated analysis - repeating the word ‘Brexit’ in a huge array of accents, levels of despondency and physical performance will say more than any politician or political commentator has since any of us first heard the word. 

We will capture all the stereotypes, moods and checkpoints: ardent Brexiteer hardliners in their marble mouthed public school boy tones, enraged fist-waving Scots, obnoxious Eurosceptic MPs, dismissive Franco-German eurocrats, weary sleep deprived reporters and, of course, disillusioned and confused Joe Soaps trying to figure out the meaning of backstops, customs unions and hard borders.  

Even though we have no experience of acting, directing, script writing, set designing, sound engineering, or a shred of knowledge of theatre economics, we are fully convinced by the strong evidence of a gut feeling that Brexit! Brexit Brexit! will be the best thing that ever happened in the world.