The Edit (Belvoir 25a) ★★★★★

Written by Gabrielle Scawthorn. Unlikely Productions. Legit Theatre Co. Belvoir 25a. 7-26 October, 2025.

Reality TV get its own ‘villain edit’ in The Edit, podcaster and actress Gabrielle Scawthorn’s brilliant drama set in the world of a reality TV relationship show. Spoiler alert: this might be one of the best dramas I’ve seen all year.

Influencer Nia (Iolanthe) wants to find her life partner on the reality dating show ‘Match or Snatch’. She’s been assigned to Field Producer Jess (Matilda Ridgway), who explains how things work and ensures Nia gets where she needs to be on time. Jess is thrilled to discover that beneath Nia’s fantastic body and bubbly personality, Nia is a genuine romantic at heart — she is reality TV gold. Maybe this beautiful Black girl is exactly what Jess needs to break through the racism of reality TV casting. Maybe she can be the one to help this girl win the show. But in a world of image manipulation, who is actually telling the truth?

Gabrielle Scawthorn (who pulls triple duty as writer, director and costume designer) has produced an incisive work that never gives away its intentions. It’s full of shifting power dynamics that constantly play with the audience’s expectations, delivering surprise after surprise. From the opening scene, we realise neither woman is who she first appears to be. Nia is playing up to the show’s tropes — she’s sexy, romantic and upbeat — but in truth, she’s arrived with a carefully thought-out strategy. Meanwhile, Jess presents herself as a powerless junior newcomer to the show, when in fact she’s worked on it for years and has her eyes on the Executive Producer role. They are both as dangerously ambitious as each other.

Crafted from interviews with former reality TV contestants and producers, it’s clear Scawthorn (who has had her own brush with reality TV in the past) understands the world of reality television and the people in it. There’s a cold, constant awareness that everyone is projecting a version of themselves — everyone is playing to an unseen camera, working their angles, playing the game – even when there are only two people in the room.

The beauty of Scawthorn’s writing is how convincing and genuine both women are. Even at its darkest points, Nia and Jess’s harsh summation of their options carries a clinical, but honest, truth. These women have complex motivations and are placed in complex situations — it’s the stuff great drama is made of.

As sharp and exhilarating as the script is, the show rests on the shoulders of Iolanthe (Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, Sistren) as Nia, and Matilda Ridgway (terrific in everything from Bell Shakespeare’s Coriolanus to Belvoir hits like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Master and Margarita) as Jess. These are intelligent, multilayered performances. The intimacy of Belvoir’s Downstairs Theatre means you can really watch each moment unfold. This is the kind of show where the smallest look can get a gasp from the audience.

And the production elements match the scale of the writing & performances. Scawthorn brings a clean specificity of the costume choices as well that accentuates the drama. The scene & set changes have even been elevated to mini-moments – this is Scawthorn’s vision from top to toe and it’s exhilarating. Ruby Jenkins’ set never lets you forget the reality of the world we’re in. Phoebe Pilcher’s lighting add a harsh, thumping heartbeat to moments. The Edit also makes excellent use of its audio – terrific sound design from Alyx Dennison & Madeleine Picard.

Full disclosure: I’m a reality TV post-producer (that’s my day job), so this is a world I know well. The events of The Edit are incredibly rare — but they are, sadly, based on true stories from around the world. Scawthorn has used the genre’s worst impulses and magnified them to create a heightened drama that is, for me, close to perfect — I can’t recommend this one highly enough.