Shopping & Fucking (2022)

In Shopping and Fucking, consumerism is presented as a new Western value system that has infiltrated the lives of lost Londoners living on the margins. This darkly humorous exploration essentially paints an image of the never-ending struggle between poverty and consumption - where buying becomes needing; stealing turns into eating; owning morphs into using. Everything blends together in this fascinating juxtaposition!

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Shopping and Fucking transports us to a world we know all too well; one filled with addiction, angst-ridden emotions bubbling just beneath the surface. Yet Ravenhill's masterful storytellers bring this familiar truth of heartache alive in vivid technicolor: stylish junkies, prostitutes, and hipsters struggling for self-autonomy speak rawly yet honestly about their pain - an open sore that won't be ignored.

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In this riveting play, five characters - Lulu [Sophie Vroom], Robbie [Shaun rivers], Brian Mark, and Gary – struggle with the effects of being slaves to money. With two intertwined storylines at work; one in which desperate duo, Lulu and Robby, must sell both drugs and themselves after they accidentally depart with 300 ecstasy tablets that belong to Brian, while another featuring controversial couple Mark and John as he fights his drug addiction through a sexual relationship with a fourteen-year-old previously sexually abused boy - it indeed begs the question: How much is too far when we're striving for what our hearts desire? 

What are the striking themes in the play?

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SEXUALITY: Lulu ‘gets off’ to the fact Robbie has been beaten up. There is also Gary and Mark’s direct relationship. Robbie also gives away three hundred ecstasies because he thinks certain men at the nightclub fancy him.

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MORALITY: Lulu recounts seeing someone, a shopkeeper, being killed, but she uses it as a distraction to get a chocolate bar. She also recounts someone on the phone whilst she is performing phone sex, who is getting off to this video of the person being killed.

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VIOLENCE: Lulu and Robbie are shown a violent video of what could happen to them Brian if they do not get his money back.