Wish List - Royal Court upstairs

Hated Hated Hated this

Acting atrocious

Characters grossly drawn

And the biggest flaw

OCD would not be eligible for DLA

The inaccuracies were further exacerbated

As the affected character was not on any medication nor receiving any active treatment for the supposed "severe" OCD

We would all love money for sitting at home

The benefits system does not work like this

You have to engage in an active dialogue

But what you can't do is say you have an illness
Refuse and/or reject offered treatment

And then expect a weekly cheque

As a result I had no empathy and found the play laughable
Much like Love
It's a chance for middle class audiences to indulge in poorly portrayaled social inequality porn

Sorry just read the rest of ur ramblings. As an ex employee of the benefits system I can inform u u r incorrect.

Yes I only deal with this on a daily basis
In my job

But for your benefit

😂😂

"The most crucial component of your application is the medical documentation supporting your claim
Your medical records must be extensive and clearly show
You've been formally diagnosed with OCD and you receive regular treatment from a qualified medical professional preferably a psychiatrist
Your records must also list any medications
You just work closely with your psychiatrist or doctor in order to collect the appropriate documentation"

Given the character portrayed in this play had disengaged from treatment (it was referred to only in passing that he used to attend some sort of centre) and had refused input
They made their own folder of evidence

Which would be basically ignored

He would not be assessed positively as meeting the requirements for DLA

But hey
What do I know

I only do it as part of my job

😂😂😂

They would ask in the assessment

"What medications are you taking for your condition
Who are you seeing and how often
What psychological treatment are you having"

The character shown in the play was having nothing seeing no one
So the outcome of the assessment was unsurprising

It was false of the play to present it as an injustice

This character with OCD

Would not be eligible for DLA

And the audience were falsely made to think this was a problem with the "system" when actually he didn't meet the criteria


And we were supposed to feel there had been some injustice

The play gave the impression the character was automatically entitled to benefits and payment

Just for having OCD

I apologise for the inaccuracy of the wording of the initial post

However I did refer to the character not engaging in an active dialogue in this same post

This I have then later elaborated on as meaning active treatment

The play didn't bother to explore any of this

Instead conveniently smeared the state as uncaring and denier of money

Liked the themes, Loved the characters!

Some spoilers follow. . .

This is a play about a young girl, Tamsin, who must juggle caring for her OCD brother, Dean, with earning a crust doing zero-hours packaging work for an Amazon-style mail-order company.

Thematically, this play has two targets, the Government and Capitalism, and doesn't score a bullseye against either of them.

With regard to the Government, the play is weak, relying on a whole bunch of contrivances and coincidences to indict the Government for not caring for the OCD-suffering brother. For a play that really knows how to characterise and condemn the ineffectiveness of Government to care for it's citizens, I preferred Alexander Zeldin's "Love."

With regard to Capitalism, the production depicts Tamsin's packaging job as a Hunger Games style battle to survive, as screens show how many items each employee packs per hour, and employees run off against each other to be faster, and not get fired. Employees accrue points for slowness and for "time-wasting" toilet breaks, knowing that at 3 points, there will be no more work. Employees compete in the hope of moving beyond zero hours hell, and being rewarded with a proper job.

For me, the electronic music that underscores, and heightens the tension of the competition, actually made the packaging look like fun. I felt an excited urge to rush onto the stage and start packaging things myself to see if I could beat the high-score on the scoreboard. I was jealous of the actors that they got to compete in this exciting competition. Contrast this to the monotony of zero hours work, as depicted in Alexander Zeldin's "Beyond Caring," for example. Zeldin makes such work seem like an inhuman unendurable chore, whereas in this prodction, there is the charge of competition, a manufactured soundscape to enhance it, and great camaraderie among employees to boot.

One useful thing the play does is to make a clear visual analogy between Dean's repetitious obsessive compulsive disorder, at one end of the stage, and the repetitive compulsive order of capitalist productivity at the other end. Although the play never suggests any other mode of living that might be better than capitalism, it does serve as an universal whine about life in general, in which we are all born to flay about on our own hamster wheel of productivity from birth to death.

Where the play really scores, however, are in two of it's characterisations:

Erin Doherty, as Tamsin, is a stressed, withdrawn, shy and anxious nerd, who opens up like a delicate flower to her inspiring and optimistic younger co-worker, Luke, played by Shaquille Ali-Yebuah, whose buoyancy, quirkiness and naturalism are her antidote. The scenes between these two were so lovely that I was on the verge of tears, as Tamsin gained the courage to sing Meatloaf to her Meatloaf-ignorant adorable new friend.

Joseph Quinn, as Dean, gives great OCD, but his character here is a mere cipher of suffering, and does not make the most of him. Quinn's ease with effortless expression was on display recently as Miss Havisham's jealous and guilty brother in Dickensian on the BBC, as well as in "Death Watch," at the Print Room, where he was incandescent as a human limpet, all furtive eyes and sudden movements, jealously guarding the object of his hero worship. This production is a chance to see a great young actor make the most of an underwritten role.

As the man in charge of the mail-order factory, Aleksander Mikic was simultaneously stern and sympathetic (and bore a strong resemblance in countenance and mannerisms to Dr. Luka Kovac in ER, for those who remember that show lol).

For me, the funny, natural and touching relationship of Erin Doherty's Tamsin and Shaquille Ali-Yebuah's Luke raised this production to an unmissable 4 stars.

PS: Sit as centrally as you can, on either side of this traverse stage. Prioritise centrality over row. Scenes occur at both ends of the stage, and in the centre, you get the best of it.

Sorry you didn't enjoy it

You had such a good run at RC of late as well!

According to this - www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/nov/17/bruntwood-prize-katherine-soper-wish-list-welfare-cuts-royal-exchange she's worked in a warehouse & has a family member wiith OCD

Not going to make it to this so picked up the text.
Not sure if it really needs to be seen? Others can attest to that - I didn't get the feeling I was missing out on too much by only reading it.
I like Luke's character a lot, but overall was slightly disappointed. Found it pretty didactic, but it's a very zeitgeist-y piece and look forward to what the writer comes up with next.

I’ve only just found this forum site but thought I’d add my thoughts on some of the comments above because I’ve seen Wish List in both Manchester and London. One of the many reasons why I love this play so much is that I’ve experienced something similar in my own life and this is the most powerful depiction of it I’ve seen. It was often a difficult watch, but always compelling – there are scenes I recognise, sentences I’ve said, small details that really hit home if you’ve been through it, and the characterisation and the interleaving of the themes was so well done. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the young writer and cast go on to do – I’ve booked to see Erin Doherty in ‘Junkyard‘ (regarding Theatremonkey's comments about her singing voice, she won the Sondheim Student of the Year Award, so I presume it's excellent!) and was lucky enough to catch Deathwatch last year – as Steve commented, Joseph Quinn was electric as the slithery Maurice and is definitely one to watch.



On some of the points raised on these pages, and the comment that Dean felt “underwritten”, there was originally a much longer opening scene between Dean and Tamsin which I saw in the Royal Exchange preview but which was then almost entirely cut. Maybe I’m biased because of my interest in the OCD theme, but I think this was a shame – I felt it set up the siblings’ relationship and Dean’s character more, their situation with the DWP (Tamsin taking a phone call from them because Dean couldn’t bring himself to handle it) and further highlighted the cruelty and irony of the missed phone calls, the breakthrough of Dean’s behaviour with Luke and the mirroring, poignant tea-making scene at the end. The scene is included in the Royal Exchange playtext – the Royal Court’s text is 10 pages shorter.

I quite liked this play. The woman who played Tasmin was brilliant, but I did question whether the writing credible or not. I have heard the stories about how Amazon works but I'm not sure how accurate these are.