‘Have you seen this?’: Constructing and controlling reality in The Assassination of Katie Hopkins (2018)

Abstract

In 2018, against a backdrop of post-truth politics, celebrity culture and shock journalism, Chris Bush and Matt Winkworth premiered their fake verbatim musical, The Assassination of Katie Hopkins. This musical explored the ramifications of the fictionalized death of the notorious tabloid-topper Hopkins, while questioning the authenticity of the verbatim form. In doing so, the creators considered new possibilities for musical theatre. This article will explore Bush and Winkworth’s attempt to critique the cultural and political landscape, using the already ethically complex vehicle of verbatim theatre. It will consider the musical in relation to the political promiscuity of performance and slippage between the polarities of an ever-changing political spectrum. It will consider Jannerone’s concept of vanguard performance and explore the performative responses to the musical about Hopkins in the alt-right press. As we question dominant ideologies within musical theatre and embrace the sense of being, at all times, ‘post-something’, this article considers how writers can document this time of interregnum to reflect a world where ‘change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty’.