“Halloween is here; orange is the new black and October is almost over. Spooky decorations are aplenty and the freaky flow of trick or treaters will soon be upon us.”
To celebrate the spookiest month of the year there is a fringe festival in London called GrimFest. It runs throughout October and celebrates dark and twisted theatre in the piercing heart of London. Barons Court Theatre has joined forces with Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington and Bread and Roses Theatre in Clapham to produce the largest edition of GrimFest yet. It appropriately culminates on Halloween night after a three week series of spine-tingling shows.
One of these productions is ‘Conspiracy’, a topical dark comedy that charts one man’s descent into paranoia and madness as he gets sucked into the online world of conspiracy theories. Written and directed by Jodie Garnish, this new play was performed at Barons Court Theatre by Frederick Arnot for two nights this week.
After being fired from his job and leaving under a cloud, Brian (Arnot) is struggling with isolation and poverty. He subsequently descends into the online world of online discussion forums and conspiracy theories, which forms of the basis of the play. What begins as an innocuous interest soon spirals into something darker as Brian becomes increasingly paranoid and unable to decipher internet speculation from reality. A claustrophobic dark comedy, ‘Conspiracy’ blends horror and humour to explore the devastating real-life consequences of online hysteria and misinformation.
Brian’s days involve a mixture of slouching in a dressing gown, eating bland ready meals and posting rambling videos whilst being chronically online. This mixture makes for a toxic cocktail which separates him from reality and plunges him into a warped world of his own. Arnot gives a reasonably solid performance and the dark subterranean setting of the Barons Court Theatre accentuated the gloomy life Brian has come to lead.
Some conspiracy theories can be downright bizarre, some provide amusement due to their outlandishness and some can be so gripping they are turned into Oscar winning movies. You can easily lose an hour going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about some of them. Everyone is entitled to believe whatever theories they want regardless of how unlikely or controversial something might be. But it is important to use your judgement and read the room whilst talking about your beliefs/theories and firmly establish whether to even share them at all. Watching this notion play out on stage is very topical, especially the scenes where Brian sets up his iPhone and records his rambling tirades to post online. People filming themselves talking, complaining, crying etc. and posting it online is very commonplace nowadays, not just with youngsters but also older folk who should know better.
Writer & director Garnish says: “Conspiracy promises audiences a funny and frightful evening, with an ending they’ll be thinking about long after the lights go down.”
“We believe that the themes of online misinformation and fearmongering are incredibly relevant to our current culture and seek to explore these themes in a darkly humorous and sensitive manner.”
So in closing was ‘Conspiracy’ a trick or a treat? Truthfully neither of these terms are suitably befitting, but there was definitely something topically gripping about it.