Jade Franks’s ‘Eat the Rich’ examines class shock at Cambridge at Soho Theatre

Jade Franks's one-woman show, 'Eat the Rich (but maybe not me mates x)', is playing at the Soho Theatre in London through Jan. 31. The semi-autobiographical piece follows a gregarious 20-year-old from Liverpool who quits a call-centre job to attend Cambridge and is the first member of her family to go to college.

Franks's Jade struggles with culture shock as she tries to integrate with privileged peers while working part-time as a cleaner. She is bewildered by their dress habits, encounters unkindness about her accent and the way they look down on her home city, and voices the tension between class loyalty and personal aspiration — 'if there’s one thing worse than classism … it’s FOMO.' The show's parenthetical title, the reviewer writes, encapsulates a quintessentially British ambivalence about social status.

Directed by Tatenda Shamiso, the performance mixes shouty monologue, pop music and physical staging as Franks alternates between righteous indignation and self-effacing wit. Scenes include her symbolic act of throwing away chunky high heels when she dates a posh boy, imagining a feared future with him, and belatedly learning she is eligible for a philanthropic college grant while feeling co-opted — 'You just got lucky,' she tells herself.

Key Topics

Culture, Jade Franks, Soho Theatre, Cambridge University, Liverpool, Tatenda Shamiso