How ‘Katie Hopkins’ musical tackles outrage in the digital age

12 April 2018

A new work entitled The Assassination of Katie Hopkins is about to premiere but has already caused heated debate. MARY BEARD visits the production in rehearsal, which references the controversial commentator, as Front Row Late considers the balancing of freedom of speech in the Arts with the likelihood of causing offence.

This week a new ‘musical play’ (that’s the best description of it) created by Chris Bush and Matt Winkworth is about to open at Theatr Clwyd in Mold, north Wales. It’s entitled The Assassination of Katie Hopkins and it features the events following the fictional murder of the famous or infamous controversialist. I went up to Mold this week to sit in on the final stages of rehearsals.

The title of the play instantly polarises those who hear of it. I couldn’t help thinking about the furore that greeted Hilary Mantel’s short story The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher - August 6th, 1983 when it was published in 2014. In fact, as I arrived at Mold I tweeted that I was just about to get a sneak preview of The Assassination of Katie Hopkins and almost instantly got replies of two diametrically opposed types. On the one hand, someone wrote “the day just got better". On the other, were those who said that, however much they disliked her, that kind of fictional fantasy was cruel and excruciating – and that mainstream media should not be giving the play the attention of a review. There was nothing in between.

It is, I am pleased to say, precisely that kind of polarisation that the play sets out to debate. The set will be very ‘digital’, with mobile phones pinging, ringing and lighting up all over the place. The main point is to explore how we express outrage (or support) in the digital age. And what the anonymity of social media, behind which it is all too easy to hide, has done to our reactions and opinions.

Predictably, and maybe understandably, Katie Hopkins has objected to the play – claiming that you can only get away with that title because she is a white woman of conservative opinions. In fact, if she were to go to see it, she would find it much more complicated, interesting and ambivalent than she fears. She might well even enjoy it.

And, in the end of course, ‘the assassination’ of Katie Hopkins is no more than fake news.

The Assassination of Katie Hopkins, directed by James Grieve, is at Theatre Clwyd, Mold, from 20 April to 12 May. To see Mary Beard’s report and discussion in full watch Front Row Late on Friday 13 April at 23.05 on BBC TWO.