After witnessing a mysterious death outside the Monolith corporate tower, Ben Weaver picks up the victim’s lanyard and transforms from a regular job candidate into the titular “Ben Manager”.
Finding himself before The Panel (the audience) he proves himself a consummate “details guy”, wielding his PowerPoint presentations with a blend of naïve earnestness and dark wit, boasting “64Gb of confidence”. What begins as an eager job interview quickly spirals into a Kafkaesque climb up the corporate ladder.
Soon he is “gaining traction”, obsessed with Key Performance Indicators and navigating the hollow rituals and the baffling jargon of a world awash with acronyms but bereft of real purpose. While he tries to resign, he is sucked into relentless promotions which feel less like achievements and more like a Faustian bargain as ambition and alienation gradually twist him into something monstrous.
When he is pulled into The Loop he learns the truth about the literal corporate jungle. Ben’s fascination with leafcutter ants and the symbiotic chaos of office life underscores a potent metaphor: workers as interchangeable parts in a grinding machine, unaware of who really pulls the strings. It’s a place that reminds us that behind the corporate facades lies a wild, often monstrous reality.
Inventively staged it blends absurd physical comedy, live music and video to pulsing effect. The haunting puppet of Derp (an old school friend inexplicably still a child), embodying lost innocence adds layers of eerie charm and menace, emphasising both the infantilising and ruthless nature of corporate hierarchy.
This surreal satire with tonal shifts from dark comedy to moments bordering on horror offers a bizarrely hilarious reflection on ambition, identity, and the search for meaning in a world obsessed with scaling rungs that might lead nowhere. While occasionally the narrative feels a bit unfocused it’s polished in its execution.
In his curtain call Parris himself refers to the work as weird and divisive and it is certainly theatre that challenges and entertains in equal measure.
Ben Manager’s rise is as equally humorous, unsettling and unforgettable if you are up to the job.
Show Times: 31 July to 25 (not 11, 12, 13) August 2025 at 5.20pm.
Tickets: £10, £15 to £17.
Suitability: 14+ (Note - Show contains strobe lighting, strong language, scenes of violence, references to suicide and strangulation).