Eat the Rich (but maybe not me mates x) at Pleasance Bunkers - Ed Fringe

Review by Kate Gaul

Jade Franks is quite the splash in Edinburgh this year.  Her solo show, “Eat the Rich” tells of her experiences as a working-class Liverpool gal thrust into the world of class privilege when she is accepted as a student onto Cambridge University.

Playing in one of the 50 seat bunker venues at Pleasance this is an intimate and reasonably funny hour.  The baby pink desk and stool are an elegant setting with the desk doubling as a place to stash various props and costumes as the story unfolds. Directed by Tatenda Shamiso this is tight production that intelligently uses the space and the actor’s relationship with the audience.

Before studying English Literature at Cambridge, Jade Franks worked at a call centre in her home city of Liverpool. Working is important to her, and she finds a position as a cleaner at the beginning of her undergraduate degree, which is – she soon learns – against college rules. Certainly, working and studying simultaneously is an alien concept for her classmates, since they have never wanted for a job or been inclined to earn their own money, but they also treat her as she were from a different planet, mimicking her Scouse accent like “aristocratic parrots” and carrying their MacBook computers without protection in their “flimsy tote bags” without any care or concern for their cost. A rollicking story unfolds around an incident involving a stolen watch. It reveals the inequity of those perceived to be of higher standing, blind to their privilege.  These are folk who will go on to become politicians, even prime ministers making decisions about people of whom they know little and could care less.

Around 40 minutes into it I was wondering if beyond the jokes and the well-worn “Educating Rita” vibe whether we were going to get any deeper analysis of social dysfunction, even just some reflection on the price of fitting in. “Eat the Rich” is another semi-confessional monologue that skims the really important stuff. Ultimately this is the story of a smart white woman with a terrible accent who overcomes her challenges to become part of the elite. I never really bought that she would be seen dead with a guy called Hermes wearing a cashmere sweater over his shoulders; that she’s buy a block of Sainsbury cheese to take to a party and that the order of cutlery was complete anathema to her.

Jade Franks is a charming and skilled performer. As a writer, I wanted her to dig deeper.

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