Review: Over Influenced at Canal Café Theatre / Camden Fringe

‘a theatrical mocking of influencer culture’

Suka Production’s “Over Influenced”, written by and starring Katie Alexander-Thom as “Ginny” and Suzie Houlhan as “Tiggy” was a theatrical mocking of influencer culture and 30-something women on social media. Despite its exciting concept, great marketing, and experienced creative team this production felt out of touch with the issues that they were trying to address.

The characters that Alexander-Thom and Houlhan wrote had the potential to be laugh out loud funny but instead they felt so over the top that it was hard to resonate with them. This was a particular issue when Ginny and Tiggy suddenly had a change of heart, after a PR disaster that led to their social demise, from selfish influencers to selfless feminists. This moral realisation of Ginny and Tiggy felt all too easy and trivial, particularly after some of the shocking statements these characters were prone to declaring, making the writing feel insensitive, with vast miss-representations of the realities of female celeb culture and issues facing women in the spotlight. That being said, maybe this was the aim of Suka Production’s over-dramatic characters that were crude, awkwardly represented, and misogynistic? Maybe we were meant to be so shocked by who these two women were, how they were acting, and what they were saying that we were to disassociate with influencer and social media culture completely. 

Futhermore, the storyline moved very quickly with lots of side plots, such as an alcohol addition, divorce, a work-place romance, drink driving, sponsor fallouts, and sexual mishaps that it was hard to follow the narrative and aim of this production. All these twists and turns and shocking stories often overshadowed the ultimate storyline of Ginny and Tiggy’s social demise and moral transformation. With such wild characters with all their extraordinary tales it felt as if later references to addiction, therapy, sexual harassment, and other very important and very real issues could have been dealt with more truth and sensitivity.

The most impressive part of this production was the set. It was really made to feel like the girls were in a podcast studio full of weird and wonderful objects that they had been gifted from their sponsors over the years. For a Camden Fringe, black box production, we are used to simplified set and design, but Suka Productions set built an impressive den for Ginny and Tiggy. Despite the visual feast of the set, it did mean that Alexander-Thom and Houlhan didn’t have much space to move around, and they were often stuck behind furniture in awkward positions towards the back of the stage, making their movements appear restricted and the action far away.

“Over Influenced” had a promising concept that wasn’t met. Alexander-Thom and Houlhan gave brave performances, fully committing to the over-the-top characters that they had built. However, it was often hard to hear what they were saying, and, at times, the delivery felt jolted and unrealistic. That being said, there were moments that were funny and Alexander-Thom and Houlhan’s ability to sustain such heightened and vulgar characters was impressive.

OVER INFLUENCED until 27 August / various venues

Box office https://camdenfringe.com/events/over-influenced/

Reviewed by Amy Tickner