Chatham House Rules Theatre & Performing Arts

Chatham House Rules is a furious and funny play that takes aim at the 1%, the current NHS crisis, and the merciless TikTok vacuum.

Front of house, mixologist, cloakroom guardian, Insta meme exec, human signpost, agent provocateur, toilet pointer, TikTok darling – it’s giving range. Hospitality agency work is never as stunning as we hope, but this shift is particularly deranged. High-profile, secret-cult, Brexit-revenge, dark-web level deranged. Host (anonymised for his own protection) is working Front of House at a high-profile teal bicycle-themed members club in the Cotswolds for a high-profile tech event, attended by someone of the highest profile – David Cameron. Enraged at this monstrous display of the ever-growing divide between the 1% and the rest of the country, Host becomes entangled in the Tory austerities which are so heavily entrenched into our day-to-day. Naturally, things take a murderous turn.

Chatham House Rules is presented by The Goat Exchange, an international ensemble making crazy potatoes, theatre and live art since 2016. Directed by up-and-coming talent Mitchell Polonsky, Chatham House Rules is a no-holds-barred, scathing TikTok trial review of Cameron’s best efforts to elongate his reign of power. Cost of living crisis, anti-protest laws, anti-trans legislation, underpaid and overworked NHS staff: a revolution is on the horizon, and Host is ready with the match.

Writer and performer Louis Rembges, recipient of the BOLD 2023 Playwrighting Prize, comments, I wrote this after a nightmare shift in an absolute fever dream having just shown David Cameron, George Osbourne, Trinny, the founder of Gym Shark and Richard Curtis to the toilet. It wasn’t until I got home that I realised how quickly David Cameron has assimilated into a £25k-per-speech post-politics TED Talker, and so this play is an angry howl and TikTok trial for the Brexit snowball he began.

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