WUDS Presents: ‘Posh’ – Leave ‘feeling quite conflicted and quite angry’

Posh, by Laura Wade, debuted in 2010 during the General Election, to rave reviews. Five years later, Warwick student and Posh director Angus Castle-Doughty began planning his own production of the show, about three months after the 2015 General Election. I visited Angus Castle-Doughty and his cast during a rehearsal, and chatted to him about his gender-blind take on the play.

Posh follows the endeavours of the Riot Club, a fictionalised version of Oxford University’s well-known Bullingdon Club. The play follows ten members of the club during the evening of their termly dinner, which they hold in a country pub’s dining room. As the evening progresses and the characters’ rowdiness increases, the play leaves you wondering about the nature of the social elite.

asks questions about the characters rather than going in with a black and white agenda

Having seen the play in London, Angus told me how the humour of Posh had appealed to him, and that he liked how the play “asks questions about the characters rather than going in with a black and white agenda”. Though he made it very clear to me that he has no particular agenda within his production and wants the audience to leave “feeling quite conflicted and quite angry”.

“The main theme we want to put forward”, he said “is that these guys think they’re something that they’re not. They’re living off their parent’s money, they’re not living a sustainable life and they know it, and that’s why they’re getting so angry. Their family for generations has been used to a certain style of life which, in the 21st century when everyone’s a bit more aware and willing to fight against social traditions, it’s all crumbling around them. And they’re desperately trying to cling onto it.”

The cast rehearsing

When I asked him about his decision to cast the play gender-blind, he said “There’s already not enough roles for women in any play. It was quite important to me to give the female actors at Warwick a chance to play a role which isn’t a typical, archetypal female role, whatever that might be.

The scene they were rehearsing when I arrived involved the arrival of a prostitute hired for all ten members of the group. By casting a male actor in this role, Angus wants to show that “what they’re [the club members] doing is horrible against humanity, and morally wrong, rather than a basic attack on women. Their behaviour is completely abhorrent, and I hope that’s even clear with this casting”.

didn’t want to try and satisfy a particular expectation, but simply find the best cast with the best actors

When it came to the casting the members of the club, “it didn’t matter if they were male or female”, Angus told me. “We just cast the most talented actors. There’s quite a lot of problems at Warwick with outreach, which I think everyone’s very aware of, so what I learnt in auditions is that you just cast who’s best for the role.” He told me he didn’t want to try and satisfy a particular expectation, but simply find the best cast with the best actors.

Having a gender-blind casting “makes the play more universal”, Angus said. “It makes it less a comment about ten men in a room, and more about the kind of people that they are. I think that’s quite important with the themes of the play. After about ten minutes of the play, the audience won’t be thinking about how they’re watching women playing men and men playing women.”

a very different experience to what Warwick is used to

The gender-blind casting of this production is unprecedented for the play, both in professional and student performances. To me, this is reason enough to go and see the show, simply to see how different an impact the idea of an elite dining club will have when you’re not just looking at a group of young men. The production also plays a lot with physicality, making this show a very different experience to what Warwick is used to.

The latest in a string of successful Warwick University Drama Society (WUDS) shows, Posh promises to be a both hilarious and thought-provoking production, challenging the audience’s conceptions of both theatre and elitism. Posh will be showing from February 10th through to February 13th at 19.45, with tickets costing just £6.50 for Warwick students. Visit http://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/whats-on/2016/wuds-posh/ for ticketing information, and like ‘WUDS Presents: POSH’ on Facebook to be kept up to date with the show.