Showing @ Pleasance Courtyard, 8-29 August @ 12:00
“By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.” Or so claims Mark Zuckerberg. But can we truly say that social networking encourages transparency? Or, is it just another means to uphold our created self-image and a powerful tool to enable self-censorship? Not so for Phillipa (Alice White) and Will (Jack Swain). Who, by the way, are now in a relationship. Like? Phillipa does. Let the wall-to-wall over-share commence.
Condensed into half an hour from six hours of verbatim script, Jonathan Brittain’s Phillipa and Will Are Now in a Relationship attempts to update the traditional rom-com for the 21st Century – but the chances are you’ve already read it on your newsfeed. With bags of potential to discuss how our contemporary obsession with publishing our every move translates into romantic reality, and to ask us why we now need to extend our relationships into the digital realm; it’s a shame that Brittain’s script relies purely on comedic cringe and not on inquisitive substance. Nevertheless, White’s Phillipa is boundlessly animated and unashamedly needy while Swain’s Will is shamelessly lustful and amusingly detached. Phillipa and Will…aptly reminds us of how our generation’s tools of communication have dramatically evolved, but fails to tell or ask us why we ‘like’ to share.