Shopping and F***ing

A rare revival of Mark Ravenhill's controversial play which explores the amorality of a dysfunctional consumerist society

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It’s twenty years since Mark Ravenhill’s “Shopping and F***ing” first caused outrage, famously for its title and for those brave enough to see it, with its content. In celebration, the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith has revived the play for a new generation to find out what the fuss was all about.

Perhaps it's an understatement to say that “Shopping and F***ing” will not suit everyone’s tastes. If the title alone doesn’t put you off, then learning that the drama involves bottom licking and the brutal rape of a teenage rent boy will help you decide whether or not it’s for you. While gay sex features large, the play is really about the amorality of our dysfunctional, consumerist world. And given that the internet was only in its infancy when the play was written, it can be seen now as a highly prophetic vision of our times.

The central characters are Rob, Mark and Lulu, three twenty-somethings who lived together in a tangled relationship. Mark has escaped to get clean of drugs and also to free himself of emotional dependency. He wants to start a new life where he can reduce all relationships to transactions. He meets Gary, a 14 year-old prostitute, who has physically escaped his abusive stepdad, but remains psychologically in thrall to his fantasy of a domineering father figure. But when Mark inevitably develops deeper feelings for Gary, he is rejected for being too ‘soft’.

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Alex Arnold 

Meanwhile, Robbie and Lulu are struggling to raise £3k to pay a drugs debt to Brian, a menacing sociopath with a disturbingly sentimental fixation about fathers and sons. The two will do anything for cash and their desperation leads to a downward spiral. Robbie works in a burger chain, satisfying punters’ cravings for fast food, before graduating to selling ecstasy in a nightclub. Yet a sudden vision of a more beautiful world causes him to forget ‘rule number one’ that you ‘get the money first’. He ends up giving away the drugs and getting beaten up in the process.

Lulu auditions topless for a shopping channel and ends up selling phone sex. She reaches her moral low point when she witnesses a wino beating up a 7-11 shop assistant and uses the opportunity to steal chocolate. When Mark introduces his old friends to Gary, they instantly see someone prepared to pay hard cash to enact his darkest fantasy  

The highly talented cast put their absolute all into the production, with Alex Arnold outstanding as Robbie. Thanks to excellent directing by Sean Holmes, the play remains modern, relevant and thought provoking. The affectless existence of the characters is balanced by moments of dark comedy and the innovative use of a green screen to project flashbacks onto a virtual background is brilliantly done, particularly for Gary’s visit to his social worker. The production also reinstates the role of Princess Di in the telling of a comic fantasy that was dropped from the original on the grounds of poor taste.

If you enjoyed Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, then consider this play a ‘must-see’. 

Shopping and F***ing is showing at the Lyric Hammersmith until November 5 for tickets visit lyric.co.uk

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