F. OFF to Debut at Edinburgh Fringe

F. Off comes to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, inviting the audience to become judge and jury in a new production that sees the Facebook generation put the social network on trial, presented by the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain (NYT). Written by London Evening Standard's 'one-to-watch' Tatty Hennessy in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the play delves into the darkest depths of social media with a cast of 12 interrogating the highs and lows of Facebook. Wittily directed by NYT Artistic Director Paul Roseby, F. Off will run at Underbelly's Belly Button from 2 to 25 August with performances taking place at 12.50pm.

As the extremes of social media kick up an unsettling and unsavoury stink, we are kicking off in response in true interrogatory style to put Mark Zuckerberg and his social media colleagues 'on trial.' With the growth in surveillance capitalism and data swaps to make any liberal blush, the question on our lips will be who really is to blame and who is following who? So we ask you, the audience to be the jury and the National Youth Theatre company will be the disrupters. All done with a heavy helping of humour, some knitting and hard-core experts.

F. Off is created by NYT's Artistic Director Paul Roseby, writer Tatty Hennessy and the NYT Company. It was developed as a workshop production at the Criterion in the West End in 2018, with 30 members of the National Youth Theatre from across the UK. F. Off now receives its world premiere at the Fringe presented by the NYT who return following the sell-out success of The Reluctant Fundamentalist at last year's festival.

Paul Roseby OBE, CEO and Artistic Director, National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, said: "Inviting our young cast to leave social media for 24 hours in developing this show has unveiled a unhealthy over dependency on social media voyeurism and violation in equal measure. F. Off will stick a few digits up in the air and ask our post-millennials who is really to blame."

Paul Roseby OBE is a broadcaster and CEO and Artistic Director of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. Last year he was awarded an OBE for services to young people and drama. In over 5 years as CEO and 15 as Artistic Director he has commissioned over 200 plays. Pioneering innovations at NYT under Paul's leadership include the NYT REP Company, a free alternative to expensive formal training, a ground-breaking international cultural exchange programme in the Middle Esat and China and performances at the Beijing 2008 Olympics Handover Ceremony, the London 2012 Olympics and the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Paul's directing credits include Story of our Youth - a Diamond Anniversary Gala at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End, Generation X for Sky Arts, the London 2012 Welcome Ceremonies, Relish by James Graham, When Romeo Met Juliet for BBC2, Silence by Moira Buffini and Tom Stoppard's abridgement of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice at the Royal Opera House and the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing. Paul has also written and presented a number of shows on Radio 4 and presented TV shows on Channel 5, UKTV and the BBC. He is a member of the Global Futures Advisory Board.

Tatty Hennessy is a director, writer and dramaturg. She has been an assistant director at Shakespeare's Globe, including on the Globe to Globe World Tour of Hamlet, and an associate director at the Lyric, Hammersmith. She is an associate director with Merely Theatre, a gender-blind touring Shakespeare rep company. Tatty was dramaturg for Portia, by Lindsay Dukes at Theatre 503, and has also developed In Soft Wings by Hugh Salmon and Trusting Atoms by Rowena Fletcher-Wood. She is currently developing a new one woman play A Hundred Words for Snow

NYT is very pleased to thank Arts Council England, The David Pearlman Foundation and the Pureland Foundation for their support of our work and The Leverhulme Trust for their support of The NYT Bursary Fund.

Tickets on-sale at www.nyt.org.uk and www.underbellyedinburgh.co.uk

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