Where creativity meets connection
“Who am I? I want to grow into an adult, suppressing the child, suppressing play, in favour of seriousness and work. But is that a long-term strategy in terms of mental or societal health?”
Jack Parris, a Brighton-based writer, performer and member of Bunkum Ensemble, is talking about the company’s latest satirical work. Whether you worry about appearing plausible or want to embrace your inner child, The Unstoppable Rise of Ben Manager is a darkly comic rallying cry for anyone who’s questioned their office hierarchy. Nominated for an OFF-Fest award at the Brighton Fringe in 2024, this comedy musical sits at the intersection of Apple TV+’s Severance, Peep Show and classic 70s dystopian sci-fi.
Now the show is moving to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe later this month, to continue examining how the outward appearance of achievement is maintained. Parris has developed a beautiful conceit, where many of his characters appear to be on top of the world, but secretly have no idea about what they’re supposed to be doing.
“If a person is constantly driving forward, where are they actually heading? In terms of reference points, certainly there’s a bit of The Office in there, but there's a lot of Kafkaesque satire and the nightmare of bureaucracy.”
They’ve just done some London previews, and now The Unstoppable Rise of Ben Manager is transferring to Pleasance Courtyard for an Edinburgh Festival Fringe run on Thurs 31 July – Mon 25 Aug. During its development, Parris and Bunkum Ensemble’s artistic practice revolves around bringing musicians and performers together and seeing what the collaborations blossom into.
“We create stuff that wouldn't happen if I were just sitting in front of a computer typing.” Just outside Gatwick, he gathered five musicians and four performers in a room for a two-day process. Through a range of games and exercises, they all began to create their own, slightly strange, pocket universe, to act as a framework for a story.
He was reading David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs: A Theory at the time. Originating with a viral essay penned in 2013, the book suggests that over half of the jobs in modern society are meaningless and potentially psychologically damaging. If you ask most people, they’d say they work inside a mechanism or infrastructure where few would notice if their role evaporated overnight.
"I think the corporate world is just ripe to be satirised.”
“I've always loved absurd, dark spaces,” says Parris. “And I think the corporate world is just ripe to be satirised.” In response, he asked everyone taking part in the two-day workshop to wear a suit and bring a lanyard, in an attempt to create a business environment. “Obviously, the work we were doing is strange, experimental physical theatre. We set up lots of exercises around improvisation.”
As well as a framework to work within, the process enabled the evolution of a loose narrative and a central character: Ben Manager. Parris describes him as a kind of everyman who just wants to succeed. “He really wants a job, but he’s so naive. He speaks to his mum throughout the show, attempting to prove to the world that he’s succeeding.”
For Parris, the rhythm of a show’s dialogue is almost as important as the narrative. “It's about creating a kind of musicality to the way that the speech comes out. Especially if it’s a comedy. That’s about precise moments, where there's a pause or a thought dropping in.” He’s also a musician, which seems to lend a sense of pattern to his writing, and how he’ll stay just a little bit ahead of the audience; dropping in motifs or hints to suggest the way ahead.
“It's about really pushing forward at pace. I think most shows could probably go about one and a half times faster. If you think about people's attention spans and what we're competing with in a theatre comparison. I like to have a bit of an assault on the senses.”
Another big influence is revealed to be JG Ballard’s 1975 novel, High Rise. This saw the visionary writer explore runaway consumerism, survival instincts and civilisation’s inherent fragility.
“That also sees the lead character trying to get to the top of his building. With Ben Manager, the comedy and stupidity is framed by this lanyard he’s found. He’s going for an interview, and witnesses a death. When the body gets carried off, a lanyard is left behind, which he puts around his neck.” The simple piece of plastic suddenly awards him magical powers of corporate authenticity and plausibility.
“He gets relentlessly promoted through the hierarchy, but doesn't really know why. This destroys him eventually. While it is about work, it's also about play.” Parris suggests that some employment structures take away our sense of playfulness. While most offices are not a place for fun and games, the links between creativity and success are well-documented. Humans are impulsive and instinctual creatures.
“When we remove that, it’s quite sad, a dark and distressing thing to see. It's not just a show which is mocking jargon, bullshitification of various industries or how dehumanising it all is, we’re asking people to look at their own lives and what they’re being asked to do.”
A winner of 2025’s Charlie Hartill Theatre Fund, when Ben Manager was performed in Brighton, each audience member was presented with a lanyard of their own when arriving. “We set up the idea that it was a meeting of senior management. That gave an element of complicity to everyone and prompted all sorts of questions. What kind of bullshit is in your life? What are you doing that suppresses your humanity?” The lanyard was printed with a QR code, directing participants to a website for feedback. Most of this indicates Parris and his company have stumbled upon something universal.
“With the dawn of AI, how much of this work do we actually need to do?"
It seems there are legions of people in similar positions, ruled by buzzwords, filling out forms like robots and feeling like they’re stuck on a treadmill. “With the dawn of AI, how much of this work do we actually need to do? There's a sense that Ben finds, when he rises up the corporate hierarchy, that you don't have to do all of this work. He's given a bit of a free pass. But faced with the choice of doing anything you want, how does the average human react?”
He suggests AI does provide possibilities for humans and work, relieving a lot of pressure. “It's creating a pure flow of capital with no labour input. Essentially, that seems to be the desire of the capitalist system - we don't have to put anything in, but can just keep the money coming. If that’s possible, then there’s potentially a beautiful future ahead of us. Or not..”
There also seems to be a theme of identity politics in the work, not just the roles we assume, but the expectations assigned to us by others at work. “Ben is faking it. His friends know that, but he lies about changing his name to match that on the lanyard. In a way, he’s hiding behind it. We are all a different persona at work, in some ways.”
The character of Ben is almost like a miner’s canary. This is an exploration of what someone experiences when they're driven by only validation, then realise it’s all nonsense.
What makes us human is our ability to play, and not just do what we're told, but to play a problem or situation and create. If we lose sight of that, we lose sight of how important that is in societal development.” While it sounds deep and meaningful, Parris admits the show also provided a brilliant excuse to explore the corporate world’s love of empty jargon.
“Are you gaining traction? Are you hitting your smart targets? This sort of language has permeated into modern culture. In some sense, it’s about control. It's like, yeah, all of the flow of information. I can communicate something very clearly, but I also channel thoughts and energies in a certain direction. You might be talking about KPIs and metrics, but you’re signalling how you’re efficient. And becoming even more efficient.”
Parris isn’t a total stranger to the corporate world, having worked at an admin level for an investment bank. “It was an interesting job. In terms of Ben Manager’s journey, it was very entry-level. I got to wear a suit, which became dirtier and dirtier and baggier and baggier. But, there was a great sense of worth attached to that ‘uniform’ and feeling like you're part of a structure.” The show does discuss costume and transformation; wearing certain clothes to become a different person.
“I've had lots of bad jobs though. I've worked in a factory, carrying dead chickens onto a frying line. There’s been a lot of catering. They’re not bullshit, because someone needs to get the food from the kitchen to the table. If you're working in an office, there often isn't a material output. Nothing is being created. It's basically humans creating mechanisms to extract capital.
“There is an invitation for Ben to live in a utopia. But he can't accept that, because it requires him to let go of his ambition and desire to achieve. What happens when you let go of that ambition? Can you embrace something more fundamental to you as a human? That is his ultimate internal conflict.”
Bunkum Ensemble present The Unstoppable Rise of Ben Manager at Edinburgh’s Pleasance Courtyard (Above) on Thurs 31 July – Mon 25 Aug 2025, as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Stuart Rolt
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