''We Want You to Watch'' is a 2015 play by

Alice Birch Alice Birch is a British playwright and screenwriter. Birch has written several plays, including ''Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.'' for which she was awarded the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright, and ''Anatomy of a Suicide' ...

developed with the theatre company,

RashDash RashDash is a British feminist theatre company. The company was founded by Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalen. Becky Wilkie later joined. They have produced and created many works, including '' We Want You to Watch.'' History Abbi Greenland and H ...

.The play is a feminist critique of pornography. ''We Want You to Watch'' premiered at the National Theatre's Temporary Theatre under the direction of Caroline Steinbeis.

Development

RashDash, a feminist theatre company composed of Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland, received funding from the

West Yorkshire Playhouse Leeds Playhouse is a theatre in the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire. Having originally opened in 1970 in a different location in Leeds, it reopened as West Yorkshire Playhouse, on Quarry Hill, in March 1990. After a refurbishment in 2018-20 ...

to work with a playwright in developing a new work. They brought in Alice Birch to collaborate. ''We Want You to Watch'' was commissioned by The National Theatre and supported using public funding from the

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

Plot summary

Over the course of the play, two women named Pig and Sissy try to eradicate internet pornography. Pig and Sissy use extreme means to ban pornography and mitigate its harmful effects including kidnapping the Queen to get her to ban pornography and attempting to make an American hacker turn off the internet. Though the play critiques pornography, its characters maintain that it is "pro-sex."

Production history

''We Want You to Watch'' premiered in 2015 at the National Theatre's Temporary Theatre in London. The production was directed by Caroline Steinbeis and starred Goalen and Greenland as Pig and Sissy. The production also featured Bettrys Jones, Helena Lymbery, Lloyd Everitt, and Adam Charteris. In 2019, the play was revived by the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School under the direction of Claire O’Reilly. That same year, the University of Greenwich's Bathway Theatre Company performed ''We Want You to Watch'' at the

Edinburgh Fringe Festival The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

Critical reception

Reviewing the 2015 National Theatre's production, '' The Guardian'' Michael Billington and '' The Independent'' Paul Taylor both sympathised with the play's intentions, but felt that its uncompromising approach did not allow for a more nuanced critique of pornography.

References

{{Authority control Anti-pornography feminism 2015 plays Works about pornography English plays Feminist plays