Perhaps the most striking thing about Max Wilkinson’s Night City is just how close we all are to the source material – whether we want to admit it or not.
At some point we’ve all relied on a Deliveroo rider to weave through London’s traffic to bring us a takeaway or hurriedly crammed ourselves into an Uber to get home after a night out long after the underground has stopped running. Very little is ever thought about London’s gig workers – they’ve simply become part of the fabric of life in the capital.
Night City, currently showing at Southwark Playhouse, aims to change that. It shines a light on the lives of three ordinary people forgotten about in the darkness of London’s gig economy.
We meet Jack, Tamara and Riva all struggling to keep their head above water, beholden to zero-hour contracts. Jack (Jack Ambrose), a ride-share driver for ‘GoGo cars’ who rips though the city every night at the mercy of the algorithm to keep him employed. Tamara (Helena Pipe), a carer enlisted to take care of elderly heiress Gigi Mitchum – whose son has recently bought the company Tamara works for and plans to move the business in a more corporate direction. Finally, there’s Riva (Bex Smith). A young – albeit naive-waitress with dreams of becoming a writer. Their stories are told as standalone pieces that intersect when tragedy strikes.
The chemistry between Ambrose, Pipe and Smith is undeniable. Together they work seamlessly and despite being a cast of three people, they each take on the roles of several other side characters flitting back and forth within seconds. It’s a clever wink to the camera at what it’s like being a gig worker in this current economy. Jumping from job to job, wearing many different hats and being several different versions of yourself on any given day.
Movement is also central to the storytelling in Night City. Between scenes the trio throw themselves across the floor of Southwark Playhouse, not wasting any opportunity to punctuate a tonal shift or moment of chaos. This is made even more pertinent by just how pared back the staging is – a series of industrial chains dangling down from the ceiling intertwined with LED lights. Again, a possible reference at the brutal reality of working in London, while still being pulled in by the bright lights of city life.
A show about the gig economy was always going to pull from real-life events. The proposal of a ‘Worker’s Bill’ (much like the Employment Rights Act 2025) is positioned as a beacon of hope for gig workers. Meanwhile, the likes of big tech, capitalism, surveillance culture and the prevalence of AI are the major villains. A creative choice that feels a little bit too on the nose? Perhaps. I was hugely impressed with Wilkinson’s writing touching on the intersectional challenges of gig work whereby women and black and brown people battle racism, sexism and classism on top of the backbreaking hours and lack of financial security.
Admittedly, there is a lot crammed into 90 minutes. This is typically the case with newer playwrights who are bursting with ideas. Side characters like Tamara’s son who has an impending court case and a sleazy publishing executive Riva encounters show promise as compelling characters in their own right. But there’s not nearly enough time to flesh them out, making them feel one-dimensional.
While impressive from a production standpoint, the speed in which Ambrose, Pipe and Smith jumped in and out of their characters sometimes made it tricky to follow the story the whole way through. More than once I heard the hushed whispers of audience members asking the person next to them “who is this now?” There are several moments that would have benefitted from carrying on just a beat longer or scaling back the physicality and letting the dialogue do the heavy lifting.
The show starts with an intensity and potency that never quite eases up meaning once you already start at such a high level of drama, you have nowhere else to take things further. The courtroom scene in the final act pulls the three stories together and instead of throwing in one last twist, it feels like things run out of steam and proceedings resolve themselves in a matter of minutes.
Still, there is a lot to enjoy about Night City. It’s a complex love letter to the capital and the gig workers that help keep it running. Wilkinson shows immense promise as a playwright. It embraces London’s beauty and boundless stream of opportunity. But also concedes that London isn’t without its flaws – it’s a hard city that will make you cynical if you’re not careful. What we take for mere convenience is built off the backs of people struggling to make their rent at the end of the month and never being afforded the basic job security we take for granted.
Night City might just have you thinking twice when you decide you don’t want to cook tonight or don’t have the patience to wait for the tube. And I guess a sign of any good theatre is when it makes you stop and think.
Featured image credit: Lidia Crissafulli
