Walking into the Pilch to see Patsy Byrne is Dead! (Bitch Eat Bitch) is like stepping into the biggest dressing-up box in the world. Glitter hangs from every surface, mutely yelling ‘Fame is meaningless tat!’ – a neat summary of this play’s underlying message, that success without talent or hard work is as insignificant and hollow as a swathe of tawdry party decoration. Behind the glittery facade is a blank, featureless wall.
This is both the truth and the ever-present fear that stalks the lives of ‘nepo-babies’: those who benefit from well-connected parents. They know they’ve got some talent. But they suspect it might not be enough to bring them the roles and rewards they relish. The evil of theatrical nepotism is not that it heaps fame and fortune on talentless twerps, but that it gently and continuously tips the scales in favour of those who don’t quite deserve it. And while they prosper, more deserving actors live a life of rejection.
It's a fascinating moral grey area to explore, and at times Leah Aspden’s play hits the nail on the head. An early scene in which Patsy is visibly distraught to learn that her father has once again ‘had a word’ with the casting director to help her through her latest audition sheds a painfully disturbing light on the moral conundrum facing these supposedly lucky offspring, as well as the psychological damage to which they are exposed.
But that is the only scene in which Patsy seems to display any degree of self-doubt. Thereafter she settles into a life of complete, as the title suggests, bitchery. Aspden’s performance is gleefully rich and comedic (and there is no doubting the prodigious acting talent here). But Patsy’s naked aggression doesn’t have the ring of truth. People in her position are needy and manipulative, not openly violent and abusive. What begins as a fascinating dissection of celebrity becomes a slightly two-dimensional caricature. It starts as All About Eve and ends more like WWE Friday Night Smackdown.
The play is structured as a post-modern murder mystery. Patsy is indeed dead, having been hit on the head by an Emmy award. And while the funeral service unfolds, her three closest frenemies replay scenes from their recent past, ultimately revealing whodunnit.
While the flashback scenes are predominantly serious and sincere, the funeral scenes are nakedly, broadly comic. Tom Pavey’s Priest is played 100% for laughs (which he receives in abundance). Laughter is all well and good, but he honestly feels like he is in a completely different play to the other characters, chatting with the audience, leaping on Patsy’s dad’s back in an unrestrained fit of sexual attraction, laughing like the Hooded Claw, and generally going so far over the top that he’s lost sight of both the ground and the rest of the show. Patsy’s BFFs Cara, Liz and Aura somehow have to exist both in his world and their own, and the switch in tone is just too much, like throwing a car into reverse when it's going 70 miles an hour.
There’s also some fractured narrative, with scenes jumping forwards and backwards in time. But unfortunately it’s not always quite clear what the actual chronological order should be, or why it’s been broken up.
On the plus side, there are some superbly assembled sound vignettes with accumulated comments about Patsy, which play through her head at various points, signalling her mental breakdown. The despair in Aspden’s face as she replays those biting memories is haunting. And the Emmy falling off the table on her head is quite simply a moment of theatre magic. How did they do it? No strings were visible, and yet it toppled right on cue.
But the overriding impression here is of a great opportunity missed. Patsy Byrne teases an absorbing subject – one that has genuine relevance to some of the more privileged members of this university – but ultimately it settles for easy laughs and slapstick. There is a truly fascinating play in here struggling to get out. It just came one draft too early.