★★★★

“This is very dark stuff, delivered with panache and pace”

Libby Rodliffe first introduced her character Bea, a young woman juggling three jobs, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2024. There, it ran to sell-out audiences and notched up great reviews.

Jobsworth is now having a run at the Park Theatre and this one-woman show, co written by Rodliffe and Isley Lynn, deserves every accolade I hope it gets. It is an extraordinary tour de force for Rodliffe who delivers non-stop laughs and multiple personalities, each with their own distinct accent and characteristics, over a roller coaster 90 minute performance.

Like other notable female monologues, mostly Fleabag (onstage) and Prima Facie, Jobsworth delivers a serious message, even if dressed up as comedy. This time the target is the gig economy and the uphill task of making ends meet while working for impossible employers demanding absolute commitment for the minimum living wage. Anyone sitting cosily in a well-paid permanent job escapes this position purely by a twist of fate.

Bea can manage this situation because she has wit and will, can turn on a coin and she cares. Slowly revealed in the background are her parents adding extra stress (and quite a few laughs to the mix – her father takes snakes for a walk on a leash, just to give you an idea). They have their own problems and Bea is trying to help them. So the screw slowly turns towards an explosive ending.

This is very dark stuff, delivered with panache and pace. Director Nicky Allpress has kept everything simple. The set (Matthew Cassar) is a simple white oval desk overhung with a string of round paper lampshades which change colour to punctuate, with sound tones, the turns and reversals.

If I have one criticism it is that the pace is so fast that I often found myself confused by what was happening and which character was being presented at any one moment. Over the course of the performance this became less of a problem. The differences became more apparent as we got to know the non-existent cast.

Nevertheless, this is an important commentary on our times, delivered with extraordinary versatility by Rodliffe and sharp humour to make us sit up and take notice – as we should.

ENGLISH KINGS KILLING FOREIGNERS

Soho Theatre

★★★½

“Thought-provoking and supremely relevant”

How relevant can a play from 1599 be in the present day? Can it serve as more than just entertainment? In ‘English Kings Killing Foreigners’, Shakespeare’s Globe Ensemble actors Nina Bowers and Philip Arditti prove that the Bard’s ‘Henry V’, a history play in which the English king invades France to claim the throne, remains disturbingly current.

In the show’s ‘prologue’, Nina (Nina Bowers) and Phil (Philip Arditti) roll out a whiteboard displaying ‘English [Blank] Killing [Blank]’. We are merrily invited to think of the many possible insertions at hand, not-so-subtly probing the audience to conjure up a range of British war crimes etc. With that out of the way, we learn that the lead of a fictional upcoming production of ‘Henry V’ has died and that the inexperienced Nina has unexpectedly been cast as the King. As a Canadian, queer woman of mixed race, the casting is a statement she never asked to make. Begrudgingly encouraged by Jewish-Turkish actor Phil to take the role, the two begin to question what it means to play a white English king as an immigrant in Britain.

Interspersed with a healthy dose of lighter comedy, Bowers and Arditti unpick the colonial underpinnings of Shakespeare’s play, which was written in part to fuel morale for the ongoing war with Ireland in the playwright’s own time. By substituting words in the Chorus’ prologue to the second Act (‘Now all the youth of England are on fire…’), the pair imbue its celebration of violence and war with newfound relevance, drawing painful parallels to the current genocide in Gaza. In a piece that occasionally suffers from an excess of fluff, this scene is undoubtedly the strongest.

In the final act, Nina takes to the stage as Henry V, while Phil assumes his role as the Chorus. In a somewhat confusing and chaotic scene, Phil disrupts Nina’s performance to assert that St George’s flag, which features heavily in this fictional staging, should be discarded rather than reclaimed. With too little build-up to this sudden, dramatic fall-out, the very interesting question of the proper fate of one of Britain’s most controversial symbols feels underexplored and disjointed. It is a symptom of a larger issue: though the two characters work well together, the differences between them are not utilised to their full dramatic potential. Luckily, Bowers and Arditti’s excellent chemistry carries the piece, lending it joy and vivacity that also prevents it from feeling overly didactic.

Thought-provoking and supremely relevant, ‘English Kings Killing Foreigners’ would benefit from a bit of streamlining to make its hard-hitting humour and uncomfortable truths shine. By way of its creators’ satisfying comedic performances, it manages to offer a light exploration of the colonialist narratives that underpin British culture.

JOBSWORTH

Park Theatre

★★★★

“This is very dark stuff, delivered with panache and pace”

JOBSWORTH

Park Theatre

Reviewed on 21st November 2025

by Louise Sibley

Photography by Harry Elletson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

JOBSWORTH

JOBSWORTH

JOBSWORTH

ENGLISH KINGS KILLING FOREIGNERS

Soho Theatre

★★★½

“Thought-provoking and supremely relevant”