Reality Bites: A Show in Search of Its Own Format

Image Credit Tunde Euba

Rating - ★★☆☆☆

The promise of five minutes of fame does not always deliver. Reality Bites, currently playing at the Arches Street Theatre in Battersea (formerly The Turbine), sets out to explore that very idea. While the premise is intriguing, the production struggles to make it land.

Structured around four monologues, the show offers snapshots of characters whose lives have been shaped or affected in some way by a fictional reality TV programme. There are moments of wit and humour, but the piece lacks narrative shape and emotional weight. It often brushes against big ideas

without ever fully committing to them.

Structurally, the piece falters from the start. Although the characters are eventually revealed to have been impacted by a fictional reality show called Reality Bites, the name is only mentioned briefly and never properly explained. Audiences are left to guess what kind of show it was, what its format involved, or why it mattered to these people at all. The only visual hint comes during the brief crossover transitions between monologues, when coloured backlit boxes glow at the rear of the stage. These eventually suggest a format similar to Naked Attraction, but that implication only becomes recognisable in the third of four monologues, far too late to anchor what came before. The boxes are not used during the monologues themselves and feel more like decorative flourishes than a deliberate visual language.

Image Credit Tunde Euba

Image Credit Tunde Euba

Each character leans heavily into stereotype. First is an out of touch, upper class gay man, played by Luis Donegan Brown, who sneers at his boyfriend’s preference for Brixton Nando’s over the ENO. His exaggerated mannerisms, which at times resembled salsa dancing, felt artificial and affected. The character never felt real, so when the monologue shifted into darker territory, there was little to connect with.

Simeon Willis plays a cocky geezer obsessed with sleeping with a woman simply because she has been on television. His delivery has moments of grotesque humour, but the material itself is thin. The monologue stalls rather than develops, and any attempt to interrogate fame, sex or misogyny remains surface level.

The second half is far stronger. Laura Shipler Chico is excellent as a nauseatingly American, peri menopausal evangelical Christian divorcee on a chaotic journey of self discovery. Navigating her relationship with religion, shame, sexuality and body image, she delivers a sharply observed performance full of warmth and intelligence. Her comic timing is flawless. The character, though played with heightened energy and exaggerated optimism, feels complete, and I would gladly have watched an entire play focused on her.

The final monologue, performed by Robert Eades, brings a rare moment of stillness and emotional depth. His portrayal of a man undone by heartbreak and loneliness is both tender and restrained. It is the only point where the show’s intended themes of identity, vulnerability and emotional fallout begin to land with real impact.

Image Credit Tunde Euba

Image Credit Tunde Euba

But even in these stronger moments, Reality Bites falls short of its stated ambition. According to the programme, the piece aims to “hold up a mirror to the performative chaos of modern identity, connection and our human need to be loved, no matter the cost.” That ambition never fully materialises on stage. The monologues drift without shape or resolution, and the emotional consequences of reality TV fame, which should be the show’s core, are merely grazed rather than explored.

Ultimately, Reality Bites is a show of two very uneven halves. The first is muddled and superficial, weighed down by thin writing and characters that never rise above cliché. The second is lifted by two excellent performances, but even they cannot disguise the lack of cohesion or focus. Jamie Christian’s script needs reshaping, with a more defined sense of purpose. Andy McLeod’s direction offers little in the way of tonal guidance, and the staging, almost entirely bare during the monologues, adds nothing at all. It feels like an afterthought.

There is potential in the concept. But when the post show conversations with actual reality stars are more engaging than the show itself, it becomes painfully clear which version of Reality Bites had more to say.

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Reality Bites is playing at the Arches Street Theatre, Battersea

8 July to 20 July 2025.

🎟️ Tickets and info - www.archesstreettheatre.co.uk/reality-bites

📍 Venue - Arches Street TheatreBattersea, London