Watching this narrative unfold, I was reminded of a recent tribunal claim for unfair dismissal brought by Mulikat Ogumodede, who worked 17 hours per day as a cleaner, working 8am to 6pm at Deutsche Bank and 10pm to 6am at the Houses of Parliament, an arrangement which lasted from 2008 to 2023, when Churchill Contract Services, who already had Deutsche Bank as a client, took over the cleaning contract on the parliamentary estate. In a word, busted. The employment tribunal held, perhaps unsurprisingly, Ogumodede’s dismissal was a reasonable response.
Matters are rather less straightforward for Bea (Libby Rodliffe), though not necessarily to her advantage. She is PA to a director at a ‘health and legal group’ – I still have no idea what that really means. After the pandemic she managed to persuade head honcho Julian (also Rodliffe, who takes on at least a dozen characters by herself, giving distinct intonations and mannerisms to them all) to make her job largely remote, given that the communication methods used when stay at home orders were in place haven’t gone away. She goes into the office only occasionally. Otherwise, her trusty laptop is with her as she works as the concierge in a luxury apartment building.
At the end of the working day, juggling two jobs at once, she must dash to a doggy daycare centre to pick up Parsley, which isn’t even her dog – she’s being paid to look after it in the evenings and at weekends by someone who is on an extended trip to South America, because they were already wealthy but inherited even more money. She is also a contractor as a data entry administrator – the night job – “invoiced as and when”. The concierge job is undeclared to HMRC, and pays less than minimum wage per hour in any event, or so Bea says.
What was an Edinburgh Fringe friendly sixty-minute show is now eighty minutes, and there’s a part of me that wonders if it ought to have stayed at an hour: the final scenes slow up considerably, as though the production has somehow run out of steam. On reflection, though, this seems to be a deliberate choice, demonstrating how Bea works herself into a state of exhaustion. The set comprises a chair and a desk, and perhaps four dozen lampshades of various sizes that hang from a height. I tried counting them all to get an accurate number – twice – but such was the compelling storytelling in progress that I summarily failed, which in my book means the show must be doing something right.
I can sort of relate to Bea’s working life – I once had an office job in the construction sector that was hourly-paid, and more hours always seemed to be available if you wanted (no, needed) them, even if they did have rules in place that meant you had to have a minimum twelve-hour break between the end of one shift and the start of the next, and you couldn’t work more than thirteen consecutive calendar days in a row. As for Bea, her personal circumstances practically dictated her working patterns, a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures. It’s a dark comedy, with much to say about the predicament a lot of people (across the generations) find themselves in, particularly freelancers. No quick and easy solutions are offered here, and there’s some entertainment in the roundabout way in which Bea finds a way of getting back at Julian’s ill treatment of her (and indeed most people in the company). The hustle and struggle is real in this comprehensive and focused performance.
Review by Chris Omaweng
Bea’s secretly working three full-time jobs. All at the same time. And she’s still financially f*cked.
Between looking after luxury flats to dogsitting the world’s ugliest pooch, she’s neck-deep in employers and it’s only a matter of time until someone finds out she’s breaking all her contracts.
Armed with nothing but her smarmiest boss’ dirty secret, can Bea get herself out of the red and into the black (and into the fit intern’s bed)? Or will the plates she’s been spinning come crashing down around her and her dysfunctional family?
A riotous comedy about snakes and surviving capitalism.
Libby Rodliffe – Performer and Co-Writer
Isley Lynn – Co-Writer
Nicky Allpress – Director
Matthew Cassar – Set Designer
Oliver McNally – Lighting Designer
Matteo Depares – Sound Designer
Rebecca Prentice – Producer
JOBSWORTH
Park Theatre
19 November to 6 December 2025
