Jake Mace
We’re preparing for Auntie’s funeral, and the whole family from across the British Isles and beyond has been invited to carve up the remains of a life of grotesque imperial self-indulgence. Disaster Plan’s outrageously fanciful and delightfully frightening cross-section of a decaying empire evokes the most satanic and disturbed characterisation in Auntie Empire. It is a truly extraordinary feat of Bouffon clowning, practical body horror, and skilful crowdwork, that unpacks all the things British society has decided to bottle up and hide away from about the origins of its wealth and power.
As you take your seat, Auntie gleefully bats her eyelids at every audience member while Loch Lomond plays dutifully in the background. With a teacup on her head, teeth that stick somehow every which way out of her mouth, and a large puppet theatre sat behind her, all adorned in purple tartan, it becomes very clear you’re in for a ride over the ensuing hour from the moment you take your seat. Julia Taudevin’s spotless solo performance straddles biting satire of the ruling class with something deeply sinister and confronting, and pulls apart a neo-colonial legacy and reality that ends with the mirror being turned on the audience.
With unrelenting goof in the opening act, Auntie conducts us like an orchestra, with various audience members being recruited to hand out tea, Tunnocks tea cakes, become her rehearsal funeral horse (as this fortunate theatre journalist was lucky to be chosen to do), and of course, to decide who will inherit each of Auntie’s favourite holiday destinations (and do not expect politically correct answers from Auntie on such matters, ever).
There’s an odd matriarchal affection between Auntie and the audience that emerges in these moments which is dutifully unwound as we burrow deeper under the skin of what built, financed, and serviced the British Empire. A wonderfully inventive puppet show exploring the Act of the Union and the complicity of each of the UK nations adds nuance, and is also the catalysing moment for a visceral, horrifying onslaught of body horror that pangs through about fifteen minutes of gut-wrenching and jaw-dropping nastiness.
Disaster Plan pull together an impressive cohesion of bonkers physical comedy, visual fancy, and whip-smart satire that doesn’t let go of its core ideas for a moment. The expansive list of creatives involved is unsurprising in the quality of the end result – with tight direction from Tim Licata and what were no doubt some hysterical sessions of dramaturgy from Sara Sharaawi and Kieran Hurley – the latter of whom Taudevin is a frequent collaborator with in the world of Bouffon clowning.
There’s a whole rung of audiences out there who would find this piece crass for a million different reasons, but Taudevin, Hurley and co. don’t seek to just unsettle the uncomfortable, but also pick apart how we all relate to benefitting from our colonial past and neo-colonial present. It’s a dastardly smart gambit that peels back what lies beneath our society, and asks us to stare at its bloody entrails, even, and especially, if you’re an arts-loving person who can stick out the more outlandish sections of this piece.
Put simply – if you’re not ready to watch Auntie shit out the Koh-i-Noor diamond and present it to you on a plate, you’re not ready for the conversations this play opens. And if that is the case, maybe you need to examine the contents of your own proverbial post-colonial shit.
Unforgiving, outlandish, and perfectly pointed – there’s little to want more from Auntie Empire other than for the show to be bookended by an unreserved apology from the ghoulish and omnipresent British past that created her.
Recommended Drink: Pair this with a cup of tea, if you can still stomach it by the end.
Performances of Auntie Empire have now concluded at Manipulate Festival 2026.
