We sat down for a quick chat with Sadie Pearson ahead of her latest project: Rodney Black: Who Cares? It’s Working
How did your team navigate the challenge of interrogating comedy from within while avoiding the traps of moralizing or censorship?
Does art imitate life or life imitate art? In this case, we’re doing the imitation…
Writing the script, I was very careful to ensure that the jokes I chose to include were influenced and inspired by jokes staged by real life comedians. This was vital to the writing process to ensure Rodney’s words felt true to our times – rather than gratuitous – especially with material that so regularly punches down. It feels challenging (and dare I say brave) to write a character like this – who projects views so far removed from my own – so rooting my characterisation in real life influences was important for my own ethical sensibilities.
The consequence of this – as I’m sure you can imagine, considering the material of our most prominent dark-humour comedians – the political subjects we touch upon during Rodney’s stand-up routines are hairy. It would have been inauthentic for them not to be.
Whilst humour is subjective, the play’s exploration of Rodney’s humour has not been entirely. We do approach this topic without answers, but with an angle: there is a line that is crossed in Rodney’s sets, and as the narrative unfolds, there are consequences to this. Artists have influence and, particularly in comedy, they are continually waived of any responsibility for this under the guise that it’s all ‘just a joke’. It was my/our opinion that it would be wrong to create a theatrical world which doesn’t interrogate this.
What responsibility, if any, do you believe artists like Rodney Black bear for how audiences interpret or act on provocative work?
The premise of the play hinges on a moral dilemma: a comedian has made a joke, a fan has taken it as a call to action. Who is to blame? This is a question we wish to pose to our audiences, rather than answer explicitly through the play.
The moral conundrum is incredibly meaty and gives our audiences a lot to chew on post show! Was the artist acting irresponsibly, or was Rodney the victim of bad luck? The fan’s actions are appalling, but does this negate an artist’s freedom to create the art they wish? Particularly in a comedy show where the contractual agreement between audience and stand-up should be one hinged on a degree of unseriousness. Yet, today, comedians can often feel like satirist political agents rather than entertainers. Just look at Ricky Gervais, now becoming more renowned for his anti-trans views than his comedy. Right wing comedians, some of the only vocally right wing artists in the entertainment industry, are moving into a dangerous political space.
Ultimately, it’s the age-old question of freedom of speech. Maybe, it is less valuable to question the intentions of the artists, and more important to interrogate our own responsibility as audiences – giving men like this such coveted stages?
Given the industry’s hesitancy around bold Gen Z political work, what have been the biggest barriers or surprises in getting Rodney Black staged and supported?
Facing so many financial challenges, the industry can often feel unwilling to take risks – particularly on challenging work or younger artists.
Self-producing and self funding our work, we are lucky to have Full Frontal as a platform as it allows us to prove our work resonates with audiences. Without this, if we pitched our work to theatres, I severely doubt we’d be taken seriously. Particularly as a group of three young and female-presenting artists – myself, the writer, Hen Ryan our director and Grace Shropshire as producer. To our greatest amusement, one to-remain-unnamed industry figure told me (after watching Rodney) he was surprised at how clever the writing was – “it was like a man wrote it” !
In terms of more complimentary support, Rodney Black was written in response to The Alpine Fellowship’s 2024 playwriting theme of ‘language’ – an interrogation into ethics/responsibility in language put to audiences – and it was a wonderful surprise when I found out it was one of the winners!
But, our greatest supporters are our audiences. The post show debates are genuinely electric, and it’s amazing to see how many different perspectives can be taken toward one production. It’s been especially surprisingly well received across age demographics. What I assumed would be an inherently divisive topic has actually spoken to something more universal. I guess our grandparents have Roy Chubby Brown, our parents have Gervais, and we get Matt Ryfe. ‘Shocking’ comedy is nothing new really! What’s dangerous now, in the age of social media, is its reach.
How has working with Everyone’s Invited shaped the play’s development or audience conversations around misogyny and accountability?
In making theatre with a political edge, I think it is valuable to stay mindful of feeling self-congratulatory. This is an art form which is inherently inaccessible and subsequently elitist. Often, it feels like preaching to the choir, and much should be done to change this. Part of that, for us, is looking beyond the echo-chamber and aligning ourselves to charities who can reach more individuals than we can, far more meaningfully.
Because of this, we are incredibly excited to be partnered with the charity Everyone’s Invited for this years Edinburgh Fringe – a charity dedicated to exposing and eradicating rape culture with empathy, compassion and understanding. Rodney Black was written, in part, in response to allegations in the media of sexual assault against a prolific British comedian. I wanted to explore misogyny in comedy specifically, and who better to partner with than Everyone’s Invited?
As part of this partnership, great steps have been taken to develop this play to not only deliver artistically, but seeking to reach beyond the walls of the theatres we visit by raising money for a charity which is actively changing misogynistic narratives online, in law and in schools across the country. We can’t wait to stomp the mean cobbled streets of the Edinburgh mile flyering for such a good cause – never have blisters been more worth it!
What does Sadie Pearson’s state-school background bring to the lens of a story so often filtered through elite or male-dominated voices?
Growing up attending a big, underfunded school where teachers regularly lost control of their too-big-to-teach classes and, consequently, the boys ruled the roost – I am no stranger to environments that prioritise male voices.
It feels the same in the theatre and comedy circuits. Not a comic myself, I feel especially for female comics – so regularly undermined and undervalued in their craft. There’s a charming idea that if you’re a feminist (or just a woman) you can’t be funny.
In Rodney Black we play with this idea through the character of Woman who breaks into Rodney’s world, initially as a narrator and, later, an MC (before finding her way into the narrative – no spoilers!).
My favourite scene in the whole play is her comedy set. Merida Beasley delivers it with wit, humour and bite, and it’s always a crowd pleasing experience.
In exploring both male isolation and its impact on the female experience, where does Rodney Black draw the line between empathy and critique?
I didn’t want to write a man-hating hit-piece. I like to think that Rodney is a fully rounded character, who you can love to hate during his comedy routines, but “off stage” he’s got vulnerabilities, insecurities and justifications for his behaviour which are often drivers for empathy. The play considers the idea of ‘idols’ a lot – concerned with the social media landscape which puts comedy like Rodney’s through a click-bait megaphone. The more divisive our gender politics become, and the more the ‘male loneliness epidemic’ perpetuates, the more young men will look online for role models. The best way to combat this is to enter the dialogue ourselves, and interrogate the narratives young men are being fed without making them feel stupid for engaging with them. We like to think of Rodney Black as a free speech debate. So, come see the show, and be part of the conversation!
Ticket link for Riverside is here: https://riversidestudios.co.uk/see-and-do/rodney-black-who-cares-its-working-176934/