Up Close: Project XXX

Amy is angry. Angry, confused and downright pissed off. She has good reason to be – her boyfriend filmed something that should have been kept a tad more private. Now the video’s gone viral, and Amy’s been sent off to a nameless, northern seaside town for the rest of her summer. Project XXX, written by Kim Wiltshire and Paul Hine, is the story of Amy coming to terms with what’s happened, how she feels about it, and what she really thinks of sex, love and growing up. It also goes some way towards examining the taboo that still surrounds talking about how young people experience sex and porn.

“It looks at the confusions around love, and emotion, and sex, and porn,” says Wiltshire, as she explains the origins of the idea for the production. “We had worked with a lot of young people on various projects, and we just realised one day that they’ve all got porn on their phones. We were chatting about how things have changed, and the more we talked about it, the more the idea just kept niggling away in our brains.”

Amy confides to childhood crush and older man Callum that she wants to lose her virginity on her 16th birthday – and that she wants to film it. The play then follows the messy relationship, romance and romantic ideals of this unlikely pair, along with multimedia input from Callum’s fantasy, old-school porn star Jaze.

From media sensationalism to parents in denial, the conspiracies surrounding young people watching porn – or making porn for that matter – are plentiful, but rarely given serious, fair discussion. Wiltshire and Hine hoped to take a more honest, open approach. “We worked with young people’s groups across the Northwest,” Wiltshire says. “I would say pretty much 95% of what’s in the play comes from stories those young people told us – obviously we fictionalised it, though.”

Project XXX allows the opportunity to talk about serious issues but, at the same time, also tells the individual and very human coming-of-age story of a young girl figuring out who she is – as well as who she wants to be. Amy is, as Wiltshire describes her, “quite feisty… but at the same time, at the age of 15, 16 – well, it’s a confusing time. We tried to have a strong character but, like any good character, someone who’s got flaws, who isn’t completely confident and who’s going through quite a hard time.”

According to Wiltshire, the play has already divided opinion – even caused offence. Teenagers and sex is inevitably a controversial topic – and reservations surrounding how an adult might go about writing a play about an issue that concerns teenagers while avoiding the pitfalls of patronising, lecturing, or out-and-out moral panic are valid. However, Wiltshire insists she and Hine are making an effort not to be condescending towards the young people whose stories they are borrowing, and that this is just about “something that needs discussing.” Hopefully, with a production that asks questions without demanding answers, and examines problems without taking a moral high ground, they can spark a discussion while still achieving an entertaining and enjoyable piece of theatre.