The Assassination of Paris Hilton

Although site-specific theatre is increasingly fashionable among self-professed ‘boundary-pushing’ theatre groups, setting a production in a toilet might seem a step too far. But, quite surprisingly, once the The Assassination of Paris Hilton gets going the choice of venue feels less and less contrived.

Produced by Racked theatre company, a new London-based collective supported by the Old Vic, The Assassination of Paris Hilton casts a glance at the lives of five vacuous Valley Girls as they prepare in a Hollywood nightclub restroom for the ever-so-exciting arrival of the eponymous celebrity heiress.

Ushered--with slight trepidation--into the ladies’ room, we interrupt a particularly deranged pair of celeb-stalkers as they talk through their plan to kill Paris Hilton. She is after all, the reason why everyone hates America (“You know, the Taleban”) and in their own—completely idiotic—minds, the pair are doing their patriotic duty.

Although The Assassination of Paris Hilton is about as light, daft and frivolous as Fringe theatre comes, it does makes an interesting point about the brutalistic social hierarchy of the modern, moronic Anglo-Saxon world, in particular that of young women. Becoming “BFFs” with a celebrity is shown to be the all-consuming preoccupation of this gaggle of hedonistic idiots and it paints a depressingly familiar picture of female ambition, one increasingly born out in reality, as many more young girls harbour the desire to become glamour models than doctors.

But don’t let me mislead you into thinking that this is clever theatre. It’s not at all. Rather it’s a spunky, fun but ultimately rather shallow production that, at only thirty minutes in length, might struggle to justify its £10 price tag.