Welcome to all the new subscribers and hello to the older ones. As a little reminder of what this is for, it’s basically a place for me to give you recommendations and little tepid takes on what’s going on. It’s funny how ‘hot take’ has undergone some sort of concept creep. In the good/bad old days of Twitter, it meant a very quick, straight-out-the-microwave scalding hot impression of something big going on. Now it seems to mean (by what I glean from TikTok) something that is inherently poor, not because it’s a knee-jerk reaction, but because it’s just a Bad Take. And I just wonder, how do people using this latter interpretation of the phrase deal with the dissonance of hot food being good but hot takes being bad?
Obviously I hold my own opinion in such high regard that I'll favour the original meaning. But honestly I’m so grateful to have over 2000 subs on this poorly updated newsletter, thank you!
An error meant last week’s email had me promising a take on NDAs, but I actually said zilch about them. It wasn’t meant to be a meta-narrative on how NDAs truly gag people but if you want to project that positively onto me, then fine!
The Government is banning the use of NDAs in situations of workplace wrongdoing e.g. harassment, bullying, discrimination. It’s all part of its upcoming Employment Rights Bill, which you’ve (unfairly) seen derided in right-wing papers as a “banter ban”, replete with DEI execs spying on workers in case they say something a bit saucy. No-one is trying to ban banter, rather banning it as an excuse for saying truly reprehensible things. The Government calls it “intimidating and hostile abuse and sexual harassment”. It’s interesting that sexual harassment has to have its own little category, because so few people consider it something that’s intimidating and hostile. I wonder if racist or religious harassment might deserve its own protections, too.
Anyway, I digress. The ban on NDAs of this sort is in part thanks to a tremendous campaign from Zelda Perkins, the former assistant to Harvey Weinstein who signed one after he abused her colleague and she was assured that their mutual signatures meant that, as long as she shut up, he wouldn’t ever again hurt a woman working for him… Perkins eventually broke that NDA, one of the first women to come forward about his predatory tactics AND the ways in which this contract left her gagged and isolated from support. She’s gone on to be a great advocate for others who’ve been obliged to sign away their voices (funny how the hateful bigots who use ‘free speech’ as an shield for stirring up nonsense never talk much about these contracts, isn’t it?).
But when I’ve spoken to Zelda before, she’s explained - to paraphrase - that NDAs aren’t just used to silence people at work, but people who’ve undergone dodgy medical procedures, or simply been neglected by medical staff (maternity healthcare settings in particular), people who’ve had a horrible experience as a customer, people who’re going through acrimonious divorces… I know Labour are the party of work, but I wonder with Wes Streeting’s recent comments about cosmetic procedures, whether there’ll be a tilt towards banning these NDAs in other situations where they are so clearly being used to conceal public awareness of a service that really does need to be held properly accountable. Oh, and also, wouldn’t it be fun if the law worked retrospectively, and freed people from prior NDAs covering up wrongdoing?
I’ve already told you about Wanted, which I’ve been a small working cog of, but I’m also very excited to check out these lot. (And by the way, I’m pretty sure plenty of them will say things that are so offensive you could sue them if they were to say them the workplace. The difference is, as some people still don’t know, there’s choice involved in which comedy show you see (or none) but a workplace is a spot you’re contractually obliged to turn up to. I truly think some people have kidded themselves into thinking their colleagues are there out of free will and actually enjoy the “culture” of the place, that they truly want to be part of the “family” or “squad” or whatever the overfamiliar, unboundaried CEO is calling it. What’s the worst one you’ve heard?
Anyway, sorry to be so serious - here’s some fun stuff instead!
Bella Hull: Doctors Hate Her - She’s so good that I’m going without even checking what the show’s about but I fully expect quips delivered with an earnestness that belies just how excruciating they are (I recall last year, Hull admonishing an audience member’s erection very well), and a really exquisite mix of high-low classical references along the way.
Sharon Wanjohi: In the House - I saw just a tiny skit of Sharon’s at The LOL Word and I just remember laughing my bum off with her worldly takes on late stage lesbianism and Kenyan foreheads. Again, I’m not even checking what this show’s about, I’m seated already!
Eleanor Conway: No Phones In The Hot Tub Conway’s work is always full of bawdy humour and surprises and a deft bit of crowd work. Do not, and I repeat, do not, go along with a parent.
Madonna on the Rocks - This show will look at the old struggles and juggles of mums trying to make a living while also being good mums while also trying to get ahead at work while, you get the picture. Apparently Marie Hamilton will “be incorporating elements of childcare at Fringe into the play” and I’m very curious to see what that looks like…
Bury the Hatchet - Did the film Lizzie (come on, Kristen Stewart and Chloe Sevigny hooking up in the olden days, then going wild with the murderings?) leave you wanting more? (it was meant to be an eight-part series but had to be whittled down because, well, that’s Hollywood!) This show uses the story of Lizzie Borden (who was tried and acquitted in Massachusetts in 1893 of killing her father and stepmother, and may or may not have been a lesbian) to take a look at how women are portrayed by the media.
Remember when you’d go to Oxford Street Topshop and, aside from the beatboxing buskers, man shouting about apocalypse through a loudspeaker and pickup artists delivering cringey negs there’d be the model scouts? Well I recall it very well and wrote all about my near-modelling experience at one of these scummy/scammy modelling studios that promises you a portfolio as a gateway to superstardom and eternal praise and validation.
I’m not alone - I mean, I wasn’t back then, I was scouted along with a very beautiful friend who really did go on to do some actual modelling so I sort of thought, well, this whole thing is legit, they were just being kind to me and my pal by letting me tag along - but seriously, thousands of people, mainly women, have been taken in by this kind of scam.
Read all about it in The Fence, a fun quarterly magazine (the UK’s only, it says) that also features so many other excellent bits of writing including some fiction from the brilliant Eva Wiseman, an odiously good take on working in a SEND school from Jack Beaumont and an exploration of south London’s “Tina Triangle” from Bron Maher.
PS if anyone can find THAT photo of me from the shoot (I know friends used to post it around Facebook to take the piss) please get in touch!
It’s the relentless summer again!
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