Shopping and Fucking (sometimes billed as Shopping and F***king) is a 1996 play by English playwright Mark

Ravenhill. It was Ravenhill's first full-length play. It received its first public reading at the Finborough Theatre, London, in
1995. It was performed in 1996 at the Royal Court Upstairs (located temporarily at the Ambassadors Theatre in
London's West End), before embarking on a national and international tour, co-produced by Out of Joint and the Royal
Court Theatre.
When first produced, Shopping and Fucking received mixed reviews. Some were shocked by the play's sexually violent
content, which includes the pseudo-rape of an underage male by other males. Other critics were drawn to the play's
black humour, and its mixture of Sadean and Marxist philosophies. Along with Sarah Kane's Blasted, it was a prime
exemplar of British in-yer-face theatre of the 1990s.
Contents
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1 Central themes
2 Theatrical productions
3 References
4 External links
Central themes
The sexual violence of Shopping and Fucking explores what is possible if consumerism supersedes all other moral
codes. To this effect everything, including sex, violence and drugs, is reduced to a mere transaction in an age where
shopping centres are the new cathedrals of Western consumerism.
Aspects of consumerism and sexuality rampant in popular culture recur throughout the play: drugs, shoplifting, phone
sex, prostitution, anal sex, and oral sex in the London department store Harvey Nichols.
The characters' names (Mark, Robbie and Gary) are taken from the Manchester, England boy band Take That, and from
the singer Lulu who collaborated with them on their hit single Relight My Fire.
Theatrical productions
20/21 May 2013 - The Victoria, Swindon. Directed by Peter Hynds and Sarah Lewis. Produced by TS Theatre
Productions. This production starred Ella Thomas as Lulu, David Paris Malham as Robbie, Pete Hynds as Mark,
David John Phillips as Gary and Howard Trigg as Brian.
References
External links
Archived production: Shopping and Fucking at Out of Joint.
Ravenhill 10. The Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing. Goldsmith's College, University of London.
November 11-November 12, 2006. (Symposium marking the 10th anniversary of the first production of Shopping
and Fucking.)
TS Theatre productions version on YouTube



Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_and_Fucking