As theatres are required to remain shut until 17th May, the smarter producers are using the time to create Online streamed content and Fake Escape, in association with the Old Red Lion Online, have cleverly used the time to create a prologue to their production which opens at the theatre in Islington on May 18th and runs to 26 June. Saving Britney-the Prologue is a fifty-minute prequel to the show they plan to reopen the upstairs pub venue.
Both the prologue and the show are written and performed by a talented young actress Shereen Roushbaiani and directed by her co-author David Shopland and have been captured by Charles Flint. They envisage that we are watching a Facebook live stream by Jean Mathieson the moderator of the Britney Spears UK Facebook Group and therefore there is an assumption that we know a lot about this troubled pop star. Jean has been a fan for years and has created a timeline over the last 20 years since she was 14 of the messages behind Britney’s songs. Having not even seen the New York Times Documentary “Freeing Britney Spears” my knowledge of the background was from fragments of media stories that have followed her since she became a star.
There is an amusing prologue to the prologue with shadow puppets acting out Britney’s life to the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet which promises creativity in illustrating the story but soon after it settles into a well-produced facsimile of a Facebook live session complete with messages from her audience and emojis. Some of the content is fairly random as if it is an unscripted live stream with references to Rose and Jack on the door in the sea from Titanic or observations on the band Steps.
However, Jean soon starts to dissect the lyrics of Cinderella (from the 2001 3rd album Britney) suggesting it shows “passivity and submissiveness under a male gaze” with no “happy ever after”. She touches on a demo version of Mona Lisa (written in 2004) and its reference to being “a legend of her fall” and discusses the singers battle with Jive Records before briefly touching on Blackout (the 2007 5th album) and Alien (the 2013 8th album). If you know these songs this could be the show for you.
More interesting is when she tackles the horrific trolling that social media users face, and which is seemingly poorly policed by the platforms. Harry Bates pops up and moves from a fairly innocent “get on with it” to a more scary “die bitch”. This with Jean’s concerns about “powerful people lying”, fake news and people “literally dying because of this shit” gives the piece a darker edge for any social media user but also amplifies the idea that “celebrities should not have to deal with the trappings of fame” by participating in the social media circus. This gives the piece a wider more powerful message.If anything as a prologue to a live show I found this overlong. If you are an under 40 Britney fan you will already be tempted to see this show when it opens at the Old Red Lion, if you are an over 40 who does not know the music then if anything it puts you off going to the show as you won’t have enough background knowledge to appreciate the writing. Nevertheless, Roushbaiani gives a strong sincere believable performance as the ADHD pansexual Jean and it is a very good quality video shot in the venue and its calls to #Bekind have real meaning as we emerge from lockdown.
Review by Nick Wayne
Rating: ★★★
Seat: Online | Price of Ticket: £5
