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Expensive Shit (play and film)

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Expensive Shit is both a 2017 play and a 2020 short film both written and directed by Adura Onashile.

Production

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Expensive Shit was written by Adura Onashile, an English playwright of Nigerian decent[1] who lives in Glasgow, Scotland.[2] It was funded by the Scottish Government's Made in Scotland program and debuted at the 70th Edinburgh Festival Fringe.[1]

Onashile's 2020 film of the play debuted at the BFI London Film festival.[3]

Synopsis

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Expensive Shit is a fictional play inspired by real events at The Shimmy Club in Glasgow, which was forced to remove two-way mirrors from its women's toilets.[1] The play protagonist is Nigerian toilet attendant Tolu (played by Sabina Cameron in the play, and by Modupe Adeyeye in the film) working in a fictional Glasgow nightclub.[1] Tolu previously worked as a dancer in Fela Kuti's Shrine nightclub in Lagos.[1] While at work, Tolu is pushed by her manager to encourage two women to sexually expose their breasts in the mirror in nightclub's toilets; unbeknown to the women, male customers are watching via the two-way mirror.[4] Tolu is later forced to choose between harming the women or saving herself from the situation.[2]

Themes in the play include women's liberation and exploitative working conditions.[1]

Critical reception

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Expensive Shit was nominated for the BAFTA Scotland 2021 for Best Short Film.[2] It also won the audience and the critics award at the Glasgow International Film Festival,[3] and The Scottish Audience Award and The Jury Award at the 2021 Glasgow Short Film Festival.[5] It was praised by Andrea Arhagba writing in Empire for highlighting gender dynamics in nightclubs.[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f "Nightclub that let men watch women in bathroom inspires Fringe play". www.scotsman.com. 2016-04-30. Retrieved 2022-11-22.
  2. ^ a b c "BBC Film and BFI partner for second season of British film premieres on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-11-22.
  3. ^ a b "Adura Onashile". National Theatre of Scotland. Retrieved 2022-11-22.
  4. ^ a b Arhagba, Andrea (28 Oct 2020). "Expensive Shit". Empire. Retrieved 2022-11-22.
  5. ^ Festival, Glasgow Short Film (2022-11-23). "Announcing Glasgow Short Film Festival's". Glasgow Short Film Festival. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
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