I’M A PHILOSOPHER! WHY THE FUCK AM I HERE?
Cockpit Theatre
★★★★
“disciplined, charming and quick”
JJ, Tommy, Randy, Judy, Pete and Jordo. Into the jungle they go, like the retired footballers, disgraced politicians and other minor celebs before them. Except in Roger Francis’ script, it’s the West’s canonical philosophers who are made to eat their words, humble pie and insects, while duking it out for the audience’s affections. The premise underneath I’m a Philosopher! Why The F*** am I Here? is that the jungle format is underpinned by philosophy in action: scarcity, coalition, betrayal, and mob justice.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Senne Lambrechts), having written so admiringly of natural man, is finally in an environment that puts his ideas to the test. In this ungovernable group, Thomas Hobbes (Oscar Nicholson) has his ideas about life outside society confirmed.
Will Robertson plays both the Australian animal liberation utilitarian Peter Singer and the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, a pairing with a real satirical point folded in. Singer’s ethics forbid him from eating fauna. Peterson’s carnivore diet forbids him from eating flora.
As in reality TV, the audience votes cast members off the show. The evening I went, the audience disposed of Ayn Rand and Judith Butler, both played with great energy, skill and charm by Laura Shipler Chico. These women were at the opposite end of every argument. So it is difficult to come to any conclusion about these two evictions, apart from noting the obvious: Rand and Butler were the only two women in the jungle.
The double casting prevented what might have been the two most delicious scenes in the play: a confrontation between Singer and Peterson and another between Rand and Butler.
Maddie Hurley’s direction keeps all four performers braced for whichever way the audience votes. Jess Beith brilliantly stage-manages the nightly improvisation. The company absorbs this unpredictability with a breeziness that must be far harder to achieve than it looks.
Lip-synced musical numbers arrive with no warning or justification. “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” lands just as the group concludes it has nothing positive left to accentuate. Angela Botha’s choreography sells the nerve of it.
The philosophy is broad-brush. Ideas exist here to feed punchlines rather than the reverse. No matter. Shipler Chico, twice ejected by popular vote, returns as a bear and eats Peter Singer. The utilitarian is devoured by the objectivist.
Make My Show has created an evening that is disciplined, charming and quick, gone well before it could outstay its welcome. That’s far better than can be said for the format it is mocking.
I’M A PHILOSOPHER! WHY THE FUCK AM I HERE?
Cockpit Theatre as part of Camden Fringe
Reviewed on 13th August 2026
by Elizabeth Botsford
Photography by Soren Harrison
