Royal & Derngate, Northampton Emerging playwright Samson Hawkins takes on toxic influencers in an exuberantly directed drama with echoes of TV’s Adolescence The audience enters through a graffitied tunnel at one corner of the foyer. Inside, the auditorium is a life-size skate-park. It is a feat of set design by Rebecca Brower and tremendously atmospheric. The play is a blast of freshness, too. Written by local emerging talent Samson Hawkins, it is a dark comedy about toxic masculinity and the lure of misogynistic online influencer culture for young men struggling to find their place in the world. In this case, it is 18-year-old Aidan (Daniel Rainford) who is languishing in low-paid jobs and feeling powerless while his secretly adored friend, Mia (Fanta Barrie), prepares for university and begins a romance with the taller, richer Charlie (Finn Samuels). At its centre is an Andrew Tate-style alpha misogynist turned social media svengali, Hugo Bang (Danny Hatchard, of EastEnders fame). Dressed devilishly in a slick red suit, he emerges from among the snippets of social media that Aidan scrolls past, and which are dramatised, but slowly begins to gain his attention until he is in nose-to-nose dialogue with Aidan. Continue reading...