Jake Mace
Player 1 and Player 2 are on a mission to uncover the truth about women in the gaming industry – armed with power ups, melee weapons, energy drinks, and us, the audience, to help them make decisions by the side, the duo pack a punch over this insightful, nostalgic and high-octane hour. With charm, verve, and originality, Dogmouth Theatre unpack misogyny and toxicity in online spaces alongside creating a charged, lively atmosphere in the room.
Dogmouth extend us the courtesy of bequeathing Players 1 &2 with their online pseudonyms – a brave move for a show start time of 23:25. Thankfully in my showing this was taken with gusto by the audience and not disrespect. This is a form-breaking and occasionally interactive piece, with both players leaping out in the audience to ask us to help them make choices in a choose-your-own-adventure style manner. There’s a great love and sentimentality for the source material of this piece – a selection of video games ranging from y2k up to the modern day.
There’s a hodge-podge exploration of each of these games and a connection to them that also expresses itself within the realm of the physical – with the blocking of the piece using the settings and mechanics of each game to great effect. As we travel between a selection of ‘levels’ traversing genre, theme, and console the pair slip into a mix of existential and highly entertaining conversations while the loading screen whirrs along behind them. The design is whimsical and dotes over our relationship with pixelated joy, angst and interaction.
Mia Harvey’s performance as the naïve and boisterous Player 1 offers up a fantastically designed interplay against Alice Flynn’s hardy and well-drawn Player 2. The pair both present their characters as ‘on a shift’ as the players, which provides a fascinating insight to the performativity of women and feminine-presenting characters within the video game canon. Neither relents over the hour, with compassionate, entertaining and self-examining performances that fit naturally into the zany but often nefarious world that the characters inhabit.
Sluts with Consoles predominantly a piece that puts female and feminine rage front-and-centre – a later and pungent section of the piece that sees Player 1 take advantage of the objectification that both players have experienced rings with nuance and urgency in a world where gamers develop (often unhealthy) parasocial relationships with streamers alongside the pipelines-galore of male toxicity that exist online. As Players 1 & 2 are exposed to the harmful effects they ask the question “how can we love a hobby and community that doesn’t seem to love us back?”
While some elements of the piece are just so frenetic and frenzied that they don’t come across as wholly developed, and some moments of interaction a little haphazard in their implementation, the overwhelming zeal, zest and fury that you can’t help get on side with the pathos and dark comedy that defines this piece. And if you can’t maybe you need to have a long hard look at the sort of media you’re ingesting.
Recommended Drink: Pair this with a trip to Mortal Kocktail – a video game themed bar and arcade just a short walk from the Cowgate who’ll put together some pixelated pleasantries for you.
Performances of Sluts with Consoles have now concluded at EdFringe 2025.
Image Credit: Hannah Birkin
Lamesha Ruddock
Jasmine Silk
