Jack Studio Theatre – until 5 July 2025
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4****
Film producer David is interviewed live on TV as the Hollywood buzz predicts that his film about escaped slaves is set to be nominated for multiple Goldies that day. The film is catnip for award panels: an auteur filmmaker’s take on a true story about slavery – but nobody but the Goldies committee has actually seen it. When the bombshell revelation that the film’s main character, played by a white man – the star of a reality series called “Hot Bods” – was in reality a former slave it’s time for frantic damage control at the offices of Smack Wave Films. Can David and his partner Kate fix everything in time for the nominations?
Written and directed by Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller, this smart Hollywood comedy captures the hypocrisy and shallowness of the industry and the marketing machinations of production companies (David’s explanation of his PLAP system is hilariously vacuous.) Even though he never appears, writer and director Joe George Frampton – at a retreat – is clearly drawn as a pretentious berk. The extract from the script of Catch Me Some Freedom included in the Press script is toe-curlingly bad – and hilarious. Just look at this from the title page:
Catch Me Some Freedom
a Joe George Frampton Experience
shepherded by Joe George Frampton
The opening scene, with Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller as David sweating and twitching as he tries to compose himself under the unseen interviewer’s and the TV studio lights’ glare is phenomenal. Brimmer-Beller tells us so much about the character with his frozen expressions and spouting of meaningless jargon when trying to be politically correct.
When we see David with Kate (Rosie Hart), it becomes obvious who is the blue-sky thinker and who is the one that actually does the hard graft. Kate and David’s brainstorming of ideas to save their reputations, their company and the film is wonderfully scattergun and circular. Comparisons with past “white saviour” films are thrown around as the pair seem to despair that those producers and actors were let off the hook.
Their frenetic attempts to contact useful important people, and the depths they have gone to schmooze these people to garner Goldie nominations is simultaneously impressive and pathetic. Brimmer-Beller nails David’s oily sense of self-preservation and Hart’s initial down-to-earth practicality shatters nicely as we find out what she has been willing to do to get Goldie nominations. The actors bounce off each other brilliantly – this isn’t a healthy working relationship, but it’s believable. Press is smart, very funny and performed with energy and wit