The Painted Revolutionary - Tip Top Theatre Collective’s Fionn Donnelly on politics, philosophy and The Painted Revolutionary at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
- Cultural Dose
- Aug 14
- 7 min read
Tip Top Theatre Collective bring The Painted Revolutionary to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a witty and imaginative political satire that reimagines concepts including 'Struggle', 'Revolution', 'Order' and 'Class' as people debating how society should change. Set inside a struggling bookshop run by 'Struggle', the story unfolds as 'Order' fights to keep everything in its place while 'Revolution' returns demanding upheaval and change. Drawing on the ideas of political thinkers including Rousseau, Voltaire, Marx and Hobbes, the production combines comedy, philosophical debate and emotional drama to ask who gets to define justice and progress, and what people are truly willing to sacrifice for change. We caught up with the team to find out more about the show.
Tell us about The Painted Revolutionary. What can audiences expect?
The Painted Revolutionary is a political dramedy where political concepts are very real and very flawed people. It follows the character of Struggle, on her quest to bring change to the world. Along the way Struggle will meet allies, adversaries and be left asking, is bringing change worth the sacrifice? We want the show to act as an open forum for people to explore politics without the labels or connotations, distilling each political concept down to their raw self. We don’t have an agenda, but we do want to educate and dispel some misinformation. At the end of it all it’s for the audience to decide where they fall, but we mostly just want people to be able to play with us for an hour and (hopefully) go some way to exploring why politics of the last few millennia, usually feels cyclical.
Where does the title The Painted Revolutionary come from?
It’s funny really. It started out as the title of a much earlier draft, where a group of progressive, bohemian artists are living in a flat in 19th century Vienna together, when their world views are shaken by regime change. It honestly wasn’t very good, but the protagonist in that was what later became Struggle. They were called “The Painted Revolutionary,” in pamphlets because they were always contradicting themself and rarely stood by their morals. It was originally an ironic title as this name bothered them deeply and was the driving force for more extreme action on their part. Eventually, the script adapted into the one we have now, which is very different, but some elements remain. In the end, I kept the title because I liked how it raised a question about our protagonist immediately, particularly whether they stand by what they believe. Struggle commits to her ideals in theory, but she does have moments where, in practice, she contradicts herself a little, so I liked that idea carrying over.
Order visits Struggle under the guise of concern. Revolution is her ex who believes change can't happen without him. These ideas behave like very recognisable people. How did you decide who each concept would be?
I largely based it on the concept themselves. Some concepts, like Peace, are straightforward in what they want to achieve and the type of person you imagine when you think of them. Others, like Passion, or Order, have contradictory notions and features within them. This makes them very fun to write, but it does require thinking very carefully of the nuances of the character. Revolution, also, has a fairly straightforward image when people think of them (largely driven by 20th century propaganda), but with him the challenge was how to present that imagery, whilst also exploring him a bit more and adding nuance by subverting expectation. Struggle has the most time on stage, which meant I really got to play with her and she ended up a very different character, overall, to the one I expected I would write. The hardest thing was deciding where allegiances lay amongst these characters and how to group them into opposing sides in a way that would be engaging to the audience.
The troublesome triplets, Love, Passion and Hate, cause complications at every turn. Which character was the most fun to write?
Well, I do, of course, love them all in their own way. I think Hate is fun as a character as he’s not what you’d expect and we give him a really interesting backstory that really adds layers to the character and why he’s that way. I must say, though, my favourite to write is Passion, especially in his scenes with Love. He’s a little goofy and has some very strange hobbies, but he has a big heart, and I think he’ll be a real crowd pleaser. I think it definitely helps that Campbell Maddox is playing him and he was the devil in God, the Devil and me and Alan in Growing Pains and those are also two of my favourite characters we’ve brought to life.
The show draws on thinkers from Rousseau and Voltaire to Marx and Hobbes. How do you get centuries of political philosophy on stage in sixty minutes without losing the comedy?
There’s a degree to where it’s just about people. Lots of these theories are quite large and daunting, but when you work out what they say about humans and how we behave, it becomes really easy to create characters and dynamics that play them out in reality. Hobbes is a cynic, he see’s everyone as inherently selfish. The character most prone to this ideology is definitely Order, but in a way, it frightens him. He doesn’t want this to be the way of things, but he fundamentally can’t stop himself believing it’s the case and he’s constantly finding evidence for it, even when there’s lots of evidence to the contrary. It’s also interesting, though, to see how this flares up in other characters in times of distress or panic. Struggle is more aligned to Rousseau, yet when she’s arguing with Order, or frustrated by revolution, Hobbes kinda slips out with really bad consequences. Basically, once you hone each character’s objective and action, you watch those theories come to life. I find it really interesting how, if you give the characters certain objectives (particularly dark sordid ones) you see much more Hobbes, but if you give them softer objectives then Marx and Rousseau start to really come to life. That’s the joy of theatre, we get to play. I’m not certain how many political philosophers we’ll get who’ll really see those theories play out, but really all those political philosophies boil down to who we are as people and a society and whether we’re light or shade. I’m interested to see where people fall and whether they may look up some of these philosophies and be surprised at where they landed. Also, lots of the ways people behave in these theories is also, genuinely very funny. Especially, when the characters are working in conflict, the comedy becomes quite natural.
At its heart is Struggle's experience as a woman navigating a political world whose terms were never set with her in mind. Why was it important to you that Struggle was a woman?
It really was the only thing I was certain of when I started writing. I think you can’t ignore the intersectionality of politics. Whether it’s gender, sexuality, race or class all these things will impact where you fall on the political spectrum and all of them have different impacts on each other as well. It was important that Struggle was a competent woman, in a world of (potentially) less competent men, who doubt her ability. Her experience as a woman should ground the audience in how identity politics impact theory as well (it can’t be ignored most of them, pre-20th century, were written by men) and how her existence as somewhat of an outsider allows her to see clearly (or unclearly) what needs to be done. It was also important that Struggle, be fairly middle-class and have a degree of social and cultural capital, where maybe other characters lack that, because she is still privileged even in her own oppression. Basically, it goes back to how glorious it is to play with contradiction and how these theories both exclude and encourage Struggle.
This is a young company of recent graduates, and the show marks your director Miranda McEwan's debut. What has it been like building a world premiere together at this stage of your careers?
It’s exciting. We have had a lot of fun building this company these last three years and it really feels like a culmination of everything to be where we are now (though it feels like that every year). I think for all of us, we love the work we make and we honestly can’t wait to bring more to Edinburgh and beyond. I think we’re all, naturally, nervous as well, but we are really proud of how far this company has come and we just hope it will continue to grow over coming years. Miranda is an outstanding director (especially for someone so young) so it’s also a joy to watch her work and really sink her teeth into this project. I’m excited to see what she does with it in the end (rehearsals are still on-going) as I write this) but from what I’ve seen there’s a lot to be excited for. It’s a joy to work with her and all our team, we’re very proud of them all every year and I hope The Painted Revolutionary will be something people can enjoy.
Protest can feel futile at the moment and progress can seem impossible. What do you hope audiences carry out of the theatre with them?
I suppose that we all have more autonomy than we think. The play could seem a bit pessimistic, but the point isn’t to say that ultimately none of us have choice or power, it’s that the systems that exist confine us - that doesn’t mean we can’t change or dismantle them. The end of the play is really us throwing to the audience and asking “what should we do next?” My hope is that more people will be driven for Struggle’s quest for change, knowing better why it’s usually so elusive. We want people to be empowered. The point of the play is to say “you do have power, but a lot of systems have been put in place to take it from you.” We know that it will always be the case that people disagree on how we get the change we crave, but I think we also want to re-centre where a lot of modern politics has shifted to make everyone on all sides feel helpless and without self-governance. Ultimately, wherever you sit on a spectrum, I’d hope we could all agree that we only have one global humanity and we should be (if we even are) arguing over how we make the world better for us all, rather than whether certain people deserve a better world. The philosophers we cover were never arguing on whether the world should be better, they were mainly arguing about how humanity works to decide how we could make it better. Oh and for me personally, I hope most people don’t side with Hobbes, I never really liked him that much, but you can’t ignore him in this subject-matter.
The Painted Revolutionary will be performed at 7:25pm at The Space @ Surgeons Hall from 7th – 15th August.
