Written, produced and performed by comedy theatre duo Cassie Symes and Georgina Thomas, aka Thick ‘n’ Fast, General Secretary is a rollicking production that skewers the overwhelmingly incompetent leadership styles seen in our recent political landscape.
VAULT Festival’s Cage venue sees Cassie and Georgie waking up one morning to discover a new piece of United Nations legislation has appointed them both world leaders, the specially created roles of co-General Secretaries. Initially thinking the email informing them of their absolute power is spam, they are shocked to discover that no, this is very much real, and yes, they will have to do something about that incoming call from ‘Kim’ (not Kardashian, sadly, but Jong-Un).
What pressing issues should they solve first? Global democracy? But hang on a second, they weren’t democratically elected, and they’ve just got a taste for benevolent world rule. How about taxing the rich? Hmm, they’re pretty sure they’re now totally minted. Maybe back to the drawing board for the time being. Come on, this can’t be that difficult – they just have to instate the greatest good for the greatest number of people. ‘Utilitarian, egalitarian…vegetarian?’ Cassie spitballs. They’re off to some kind of start.
The two highly under-qualified, over-promoted women initially plunge the world into unintentional chaos. Billionaires set up literal satellite offices on Mars in increasingly creative tax avoidance schemes, causing increased environmental damage (‘Earth sucks. YOU suck’ tweets Elon Musk to @General_Secretaries_xoxo), headlines scream of the global economic crash caused by their banning of oil (‘FTSE One ‘Plundered’, ‘Is Olive Oil Okay??’), and plans for the ‘Piers Morgan Centre for Polite Journalism’ and the ‘Silvio Berlusconi Centre for Women’s Rights’ fail to contribute to world peace.
Fast-paced, witty and packed with enjoyably topical bits, General Secretary explores imposter syndrome, the female urge to apologise for taking up space, whether absolute power comes with inevitable corruption, and exactly what is going on in the official UN whatsapp chat ‘Brussels Babes’. Highly entertaining and creative multi-media elements stemming from their first performing the piece during lockdown 3.0 make for welcome comedic possibilities, and the duo’s on-stage chemistry zings and pops. The production feels slightly loose with extra material at times, funny little darlings that they clearly couldn’t bear to kill – a bit of tight script editing would whip this delightful show into shape in no time.