A Little Inquest into What We Are All Doing Here – Shoreditch Town Hall, London

Writer: Abbi Greenland

Director: Rachel Lemon

Josie Dale-Jones caterpillars, crawls and rolls across the stage in a pink sleeping bag (or is it a body bag?), emerges and seats herself far left of the stage, annoying if you are an audience member seated far right, to begin her tale. This is a tale that has urgency and needs to be aired as it is one of how abusive outcry can lead to censorship and the chilling effect that this has.

In 2022 Dale-Jones and her company were supposed to be touring a piece in an Art’s funded play called The Family Sex Show, aimed at families reimagining how sex education may be presented in a more sex-positive and inclusive way. It wanted to enable youngsters to know what positive sexuality may look like, but also what negative experiences may look like and how to speak up if they are in an abusive situation, facilitating dialogue and discussion between family members in a safe space.

However, that ‘safe’ space rapidly turned unsafe for those involved as a Daily Mail article and online misinformation unleashed a torrent of online abuse and death threats. The company members were labelled as paedophiles for aiming sex education theatre at audience members aged five and above. Dale-Jones’ parents are dragged in as their house is where her company address is registered, and, on stage, all read out threats and abuse they received. It is sickening stuff made worse when it is revealed that no one had actually watched the show and capitulation led to Arts Council England removing its funding and venues, some of which received bomb threats, pulling out.

From here Dale-Jones segways away from that story dryly told, through a song and dance, and moves into a section where she has a dialogue with her boyfriend, Laurence Baker, about political correctness, publicly calling him out for calling someone a ‘princess’ when they are being precious. This all turns out to be dialogue within her head, her self-censorship on show.

This section is more conceptual but for what reason the dance number, why lights are shone blindingly into the audience’s eyes or why she rolls on stage in the first place are questions that are never answered. Ultimately, it feels like two plays, with added artistic whimsey, rather unsuccessfully mashed together.

Runs until 15 March 2025