Toby Skelton

Articles:

(11.03.21) – The Play About Theresa May – Review

There is an elephant in the room with Amie Marie’s mischievous comedy The Play About Theresa May: why publish a satire on May’s bungled and mayhemic term in government in 2021? When placed beside the burning wreckage of policies created by her etonian man-child of a successor, there is a risk of the text losing its relevance before you’ve even passed the cover. Marie navigates this hurdle gracefully, however; its name-sake target has been out of office nearly two years, but The Play About Theresa May is still an extremely timely exploration of political engagement in 21st Century Britain.

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(07.01.22) – Scrounge – Review

Shortly after the 2016 amendments to the assessment of Personal Independence Payments (PIP), a cartoon scolding the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) began doing the rounds on social media. In it, a figure sits behind a desk declaring: “If they drown, they need PIP. If they float, they weren’t ill.” whilst a woman is dragged out of the office by her hair. Accompanied by the caption “Conservatives Disability Policy”, the illustration caught a lot of online attention for this comparison of the DWP’s practices to those of the elementally evil Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins. Some found it an absurdly distasteful comparison; others deemed it a justified piece of satirical exaggeration. But as Amie M Marie deftly exposes in her new play Scrounge, the cartoon was barely hyperbolic in its analogy.