Salvador Kent
In my opinion, Heads on Crooked are one of Edinburgh’s most exciting emerging theatre collectives. A brain child of wildly different playwrights from all over the world, their theatre is undoubtedly improved by this. I caught the work-in-progress of their sophomore outing Nosejob at the Capital Theatre’s Studio back in May – and it remains one of the best things I’ve seen all year. Wild, risk-taking, and deliciously DIY. I caught up with Heads on Crooked and asked them about further adjustments to their “brain-rot reimagining of Nikolai Gogol’s Nose” ahead of its Fringe run this August.
You can catch Nosejob at the Studio at Paradise in Augustine’s on August 17-30 (not the 23rd) from 19:10 (55 mins). Tickets available online through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Salvador: How’s it going Heads on Crooked? A really interesting element to this play is that its highlighting of contemporary themes – algorithms, tech and AI (especially AI slop) means it seems to have a “futuristic” aesthetic. What would you argue the aesthetic of the piece is with this in mind? Where does it draw from?
Lola Rose: If you would call Scratch n Sniff the theatre of the future then sure! We’re hoping Nosejob will engage ALL of your senses including those under-exploited nostrils, making Nosejob one of the stinkiest, smelliest, most pungent shows at Fringe this year. It’s also full of our signature Heads on Crooked style of anthropomorphising inanimate objects, cuteness, weirdness, grossness and the unsettlingly ridiculous.
Plus a brain-rot aesthetic that is both playful and punchy. You can choose to enjoy the play for what it is: a great night out, a brilliant storyline with evil bogeymen, chronically online protagonists and knotty, snotty plot twists – or, you can choose to zoom out and look at the big picture: to ask what ‘brain rot’ actually is, who makes it, what is it for, what messages is it subliminally carrying, what is it doing to the way we understand ourselves and the way we understand the world around us?
Nosejob wouldn’t exist without the pop culture and internet culture we are all steeped in (whether we like it or not) We love reels! We hate reels. Tiktok is so useful! Tiktok is stealing our lives. Instagram makes me feel connected! Instagram makes me feel so alone. I think one of the most interesting things to come out of co-writing this play between the four of us, is that Nosejob draws equally from the ‘male’ and ‘female’ coded sides of the internet, meaning it spans everything from GRWMs and looksmaxxing to conspiracy theories, niche memes and horoscopes. IFYKYK, amirite?
Nosejob draws from Bella Hadid telling Vogue “I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors. I think I would have grown into it.” and all of the myriad implications of that statement, from the white-supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal, colonisation of our faces to fit a highly politicised ‘beauty standard’, to the relatable angst of teenage insecurity.
It also draws from the company’s own individual relationships with our noses: Till’s inability to breathe due to a chronic dust allergy, Yash’s surgically altered septum, Garrick’s second degree sunburn scar, Leah’s pre-teen desire to save up for a nose job, and that time when COVID stole my sense of smell – all of it’s in there.
Salvador: The show is unafraid to take risks, and a big discussion at the end of the last version was around who the work targets, how and why. If Nosejob is a satire, and you might refute that – how does it satirise?
Leah: I guess we’re pointing the dagger at our weird relationships with billionaires: there are these weird, ooky spooky little devils who pose real threats to our freedom (stop reading my WhatsApps, Mark Zuckerberg) and we’re so tired/desensitised/convinced change is futile that we just let them nick our personal data. It’s a look at that mad bargain we’ve all made with ourselves where we agree to risky violations at the hands of our phones (because…we love them) on the presumption that bad things could happen to somebody else but never, ever us. More than anything, we’re ripping apart the idea that anyone – even the tech bro gazillionaire gods – is anything more than a body. Systems suck, oppression sucks, the myth of meritocracy sucks – but it feels so important to resist that myth that any one person should have that much power or aspire towards that much power because we’re all fallible, imperfect, brilliantly flawed little skin sacks. Come laugh. Come cry. Come chuck your phone out of a window.
Salvador: You billed this show as “a brain-rot re-imagining of Nikolai Gogol’s ‘The Nose”. Why Gogol? Why brain-rot?
Till: “Brain-rot” is possibly one of the most fantastic words of the 21st century (or all the centuries). It ironically and self-awarely perfectly encapsulates and comments on what we consume on the internet. It referred to a very specific set of memes originally, but has since come to express the feeling of an entire generation of digital natives like us. After all, we are what we eat.
It is wonderfully in-line with words like “Dada” or “Punk”. If anything “Brain-rot” is the true Cyberpunk, admitting its destructive nature but at the same time embracing the rebellion against sense innate in it. Just like “The Nose” did in the 19th century with its phantasmic rebellion against the bureaucracy of czarist Russia.
A true adaptation of the spirit of this novella, which this play is based on, had to be Brain-rot.
In a funny turn of events however, we have to ask ourselves this time: who is making use of this destructive and rebellious spirit in our times, and who do they aim to destroy and rebel against?
Salvador: How have both rehearsal rooms been? What processes have been useful, did the preview change the rehearsal room in any way?
Garrick: Rehearsals have been a laugh a minute – a complete joy to be a part of. The nature of the play kind of demands a process that embraces silliness and exploration, and we’re working with such talented performers who are so open hearted in the way they go about breathing life into the text. It’s any director’s dream really – every day I wake up buzzing to get in and get rehearsals going again. And yeah, I definitely learned a few things from the R&D in May – I think my primary aim for the run in August is that the show remains honest and true to what it’s trying to do. It’s such a crazy, funny, mad piece of writing that it’s easy to drift away from the heart of the play in pursuit of the comedy. And as funny as this play is, it’s also speaking out against the trend-coded matcha latte lower case k- kylie jenner collagen and peptide TikTok everything-is-for-sale-and-nothing-is-permanent sniff sniff bitch culture of it all. If that makes any sense hahaha – come see the show. It’s gonna be fun!
Salvador: The show genuinely feels like you’re trapped inside a doomscroll – what technical challenges and designs informed the show’s unique feel, and how much of a conversation was that between writers and technicians?
Yash: The most challenging aspect of the sound design and visuals for Nosejob was supporting a story told through a doomscroll, which functions like a game of roulette, presenting random pieces of content from a curated selection of topics the user is interested in (decided by the algorithm). The real challenge lies in helping the audience follow the narrative when it’s presented in a non-linear format. The writers get all the credit for making this structure work, whereas the sound design and visuals simply act as the tissue connecting these fragments to deliver a seamless experience that leaves the audience wanting for more.
Salvador: With EdFringe now just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
All: We’re preparing our bodies for the return of the Cheese Man. If you know, you know – get there early.
Salvador: If your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
All: A pint of melted ice cream with ALL the sprinkles, sauces and toppings you can imagine. Mmm yummy.
Sounds great! A reminder, you can catch Nosejob at the Studio at Paradise in Augustine’s on August 17-30 (not the 23rd) from 19:10 (55 mins). Tickets available online through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Shay Mace
