What’s it all about?
Pornography and the effect it has. On the wider world, I mean, not individuals… though individual’s porn-based situations are addressed… not like that. Oh, this is awkward.
Who’s in it?
Co-creators and RashDash Artistic Directors Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland play time- and space-hopping campaigners against porn in its current form. Enraged by the world, they’re an angry, impassioned pair who’ll stop at nothing to cleanse the porn world with a Noah-like flood (or something of that ilk) and take it back to its own Garden Of Eden. Cue appealing to the Queen, shutting down the Internet and taking even more drastic measures.
What should I look out for?
The sickening opening interview room scene in which a murder suspect has his actions dissected and compared to his porn viewing habits. I admit, I can’t bring myself to Google the titles quoted to check the repulsive claims about content.
The Queen using interpretive dance to represent the feeling of consensual sex.
The show’s angry, chaotic, disturbed climax which, well, you don’t have to be a Professor of metaphor…
In a nutshell?
Punchy and powerful, RashDash’s We Want You To Watch puts the effects of porn under the microscope. No, not like that.
What’s being said on Twitter?
Bold, brilliant &breathtaking. And funny. The best play I’ve seen this year. WATCH IT! #WeWantYouToWatch @RashDashTheatre @NationalTheatre
— N∆T Cott (@msthenat) June 13, 2015
beautifully bold, and like a ‘woomph’ to the solar plexus – This has stuck with me all day – go see #WeWantYouToWatch @NationalTheatre
— esther smith (@esthervonsmith) June 12, 2015
Will I like it?
This is not an evening for the easily shocked, or lovers of narrative and character arcs. Writer Alice Birch and RashDash have concocted half a dozen scenes in which they lay bare their arguments against most porn in the most vivid, striking and inventive fashion. They’re big, brash and unashamedly in your face. If you’re up for being challenged, uncomfortable and away from the private browsing window of your computer screen for an evening, this may well be for you.
We Want You To Watch plays at the National Theatre’s Temporary Theatre until 11 July. You can book tickets through the theatre’s website.