Now, that's a dilemma
It’s always nice to see a small, local, pub theatre pulling one out of the bag, and Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller (Writer and Director and Star)’s ‘Press’ at the Brockley Jack delivers in full.
An effective 2 hander (there is a voice off) with Rosie Hart debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe, and comes to SE London with script publication imminent.
A small independent film company has a major release due in time for awards season, and with a very good chance of nominations when, in a TV interview the day before the award nominations are to be announced it becomes clear that they have cast a very white actor (in an American Civil War drama) as a real-life protagonist just identified as African American. The film’s author (now uncontactable) had discovered the story but not exactly bottomed out the facts! What to do?
How do they get the nominations which they had worked so hard to secure squashed – believing that swift obscurity is their only hope for their studio to continue as a Twitter (X) storm swirls around them.
The script, and the excellent acting of Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller and Rosie Hart sparkles and is often very funny, the dilemma is very believable and the conclusion at least credible.
It is a single Act, relatively short and doesn’t over-egg the situation. But in doing so it retains credibility, even with its heightened reality. The two characters are sufficiently rounded for what is really an extended sketch to be plausible, and there are a few zingers at the expense of established film-world figures.