Return to: Home | Arts & Culture | Theatre
On the other end of the phone
Published 01 November 2007
This quirky play set in a call centre captures the grind of a dead-end job
Five Tanks Hackney Empire, London E8
Power play and the time-wasting antics of a reluctant workforce come under the spotlight in Five Tanks, a new play by Lab Ky Mo set on one day in a call centre somewhere in London. Four hapless telephone interviewers, their supervisor and their boss are stuck in a sweaty basement. The callers are paid £7 an hour to cold-call interviewees all day; there are targets to meet and bonuses to win. It's only a fortnight after the 7/7 attacks in London and that morning a bomb has failed to go off on a London bus, but work must go on regardless.
The writer came up with the idea of setting his play in a call centre after working in one himself, and its 90 minutes ring with authenticity. Deductions for lateness and the "Top of the Pops" board for Employee of the Day are all wryly convincing details. Indeed, many of the petty restrictions ring true for offices more generally, from the bosses who forbid use of the photocopier for "home" purposes and time your lunch breaks, to the colleagues who revel in saying, "I can't do this, it's not my job". I've never come across a lighting sensor that times one's use of the Ladies, but I have worked in a factory where my bag was locked up during the day, and I can imagine such inventions exist.
The four callers are under the merciless thumb of Nick (Matthew Coombes). White with bottled-up fury and suffering from a killer hangover, all Nick cares about is that the staff reach their target so he can have his bonus. He's not pure malice, however. His is the unenviable task of dealing with wholly unmotivated employees who clearly prefer to malinger in the loo, in the kitchen, outside having a fag or even praying to Mecca, so long as they can spend as little time as possible cold-calling their given list of interviewees. Coombes plays the role with winning despair, provoking pity rather than dislike, particularly when he is pinned up against the wall by an ex-army nutter, whose experience in Iraq with a quintet of armoured vehicles is the play's titular inspiration.
Although Lab has good fun observing that people go slightly mad when they are forced to do something they don't want to do for a length of time, his main point is a bit more woolly than this, since it hinges on the "special nature" of artistic souls. It would seem that call centres tend to attract a workforce made up of resting actors, frustrated writers and unemployed film-makers - people wholly unsuited to this type of activity, Lab suggests. In the programme notes, he points out that "the petty bureaucracy of working in an office environment often grated against [their] artistic sensibilities". Creative types must be saved from such dreary labour because it is bad for them. Well, sort of. Obviously we are all relieved that Charles Dickens was saved from any more time working in the blacking factory, but on the other hand, his (and, for that matter, Lab's) experience was possibly a springboard for artistic creation.
Equally, Lab does not convince us with the wasted artistic potential in those manning the phonelines; there is the ex-army nutter, a City trader on his uppers, a man who ran away from home some years ago and a failed actress whose only hope of a comeback is doing amateur dramatics in a cemetery. "None of us should be here!" protests one of the characters. But why not? Presumably the cast of Five Tanks would much rather that cold-calling were left to Indians sitting in a basement somewhere in New Delhi, but that is not an adequate argument against call centres per se. Equally, none of them is forced to undertake such work. Only Dougal, the man who ran away from home, articulates the peculiar attraction in performing a job of undistinguished routine.
Still, this play is quirky and the carefully articulated characters shine an intriguing light on a world which most of us encounter all too often. The next time I'm on the phone to a call centre, I'll pay a bit more attention to the person with whom I'm talking.
Pick of the week
Cloud Nine
Almeida Theatre, London N1
Caryl Churchill’s most famous play about women’s liberation directed by Thea Sharrock.
Macbeth
Gielgud Theatre, London W1
Triumphant production starring Patrick Stewart as the blood-soaked Thane. Scary and thrilling.
Henry V
Courtyard, Stratford-upon-Avon
Geoffrey Streatfeild plays the flag-waving monarch.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
