Jobsworth at Park Theatre

A play about one woman’s struggle to hold down four jobs is very funny, particularly in dealing with the complications of entitled bosses. She has a home working job as a PA that she does while working her separate job as a concierge for some luxury flats, mixed with a house/dog sitting job, then evenings and weekends doing data entry.   It's very funny but also it isn't.  All of this working means she doesn’t actually have any life for herself, isolated from her friends and family because she is working so hard, employed by unsympathetic and exploitative monsters.  It gradually becomes clear how the trap has closed on her through trying to do the right thing for her family after her dad has run up huge debts with payday lenders.  

Libby Rodcliffe is excellent and very very funny in playing Bea and her chaotic life, but in this monologue she also plays all of the other characters, moving around the stage to help us to keep track of Bea’s increasingly convoluted machinations to keep all of the plates spinning.   In particular I loved her portrayal of Julian, her sleazy boss but the cross doggy daycare manager and the self obsessed social media influencer are pretty spot on too.  A single simple set, with almost no props except a jacket which serves all sorts of purposes (loved it being a coy sheet in a morning after scene!), and I felt I could almost see the completely imaginary dog.

There is a seriousness underneath the laughs, with the play (co-written by Rodcliffe with Isley Lynn) being sharp on the gig economy, the divide between the working and the monied classes, and the many ways that employers get around treating their workers fairly. It made me laugh the way that Bea justifies fiddling her taxes on some of her jobs because if she had inherited it or she had cashed offshore like her employers she wouldn’t be taxed.   It’s chaotic and funny but in the end it is Rodcliffe's performance here that matters; we gradually come to care as we understand why she is doing this to herself.  

It's almost at the end of the run here at the tiny Park 90 theatre in Finsbury Park, but if you get a chance to see it, do take it - excellent!