The Last Incel, a dark satirical show by writer and director Jamie Sykes, is set to take the stage at London’s Pleasance Theatre this May. Following a critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2024, where it was shortlisted for the Popcorn x BBC New Writing Award, this production delves into the toxic world of ‘incel culture’ with a uniquely Irish blend of humor and empathy.
The show centers around a young man known online as “Cuckboy” and his fellow incels “Ghost,” “Crusher,” and “Einstain.” The narrative follows a typical day in their lives, highlighting the group’s ideologies and the challenges they face when one member, “Cuckboy,” sleeps with a woman named Margaret. Margaret, a journalist, serves as a voice of reason, confronting the incels and her own history with toxic men.
Set in an online meeting, The Last Incel uses unique and abstract digital staging to emphasize the loneliness of its characters. Each actor holds a frame to echo a chat window, translating the digital world into a live performance that humanizes the real stories at its core. The show raises important conversations about masculinity within social media and pop culture.
Jamie Sykes comments, “I felt the incel ideology was ripe for satire. There’s something inherently funny and self-defeating about not being able to have sex and then, as a solution, adopting a world view that guarantees other people won’t want to have sex with you. In satirising the ideology these men hold, we hope to tell a story that is funny, entertaining, and enlightening, while allowing audiences to engage with this digital world in a medium that is human and cathartic.”
The Last Incel is funded by Culture Ireland and was chosen as Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of The Fringe 2024. The show tackles the subject of incels through comedy, maintaining the weight it deserves while fostering dialogue on how best to engage with this social phenomenon.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
