Jobsworth is billed as a riotous comedy about a woman, Bea, juggling multiple jobs, some overlapping with others. A handbag dog that she is paid to look after ends up being smuggled into her office drawer most mornings. This black comedy presents the financial trap she is in and it is performed by Libby Rodliffe with caffeinated speed and great verbal dexterity. But beneath the vitality is a tragedy waiting to happen, it seems, just inches away from Bea’s bionic hustling (“All this is fine, mostly fine,” she says, tightly).
Bea is a personal assistant, data inputter and overseer of luxury flats as well as a dog-sitter. Rodliffe, who wrote the monologue with Isley Lynn, plays every character, from Bea’s depressed father whose debts she takes on to a mother who she feels has left her in the lurch financially, alongside various venal and demanding employers.
Each of them has a distinct and characterful voice. The language of the office is brilliantly skewered in Rodliffe’s enactment of Zoom meetings and workplace protocols, from the free lunches every Tuesday (where Bea pilfers food supplies) to the “fit temp” and Steve from IT who “doesn’t like his son’s girlfriend because she wants the next James Bond to be a woman”.
Directed by Nicky Allpress, the show has a big but contained energy in its navigation of multiple elements, including Bea’s simmering romance with an intern, but never becomes chaotic. The subject matter is based in real-life stories, yet the play rigorously maintains the rule of showing not telling in its presentation of financial crisis, the abuses of the zero-hours economy and its soul-sapping effect on the psyche.
There is no resolution and Bea is still plate-spinning by the end, but a moment of pause brings warmth and also tears for her fortitude. If Bea refuses to be broken by the complexities of her life, Rodliffe does a formidable juggling act of her own in a stupendous performance.
At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 26 August
