The play, as described by the producers:
The lives of a gangster obsessed with "The Lion King," a junkie stockbroker trying to kick the habit, a teenage male prostitute with a death wish and two club kids dealing X crash head-on in this disturbing black comedy. WARNING: The play contains nudity, violence and very explicit sex.
From Wikipedia: When first produced, Shopping and Fucking received mixed reviews. Some were shocked by the play's sexually-violent content, which includes the pseudo-rape of an underage male by other males. Other critics were drawn to the play's black humour, and its mixture of Sadean and Marxist philosophies. Along with Sarah Kane's Blasted, it was a prime exemplar of British in-yer-face theatre of the 1990s.
The sexual violence of Shopping and Fucking explores what is possible if consumerism supersedes all other moral codes. To this effect everything, including sex, violence and drugs, is reduced to a mere transaction in an age where shopping centres are the new cathedrals of Western consumerism.
Aspects of consumerism and sexuality rampant in popular culture recur throughout the play: drugs, shoplifting, phone sex, prostitution, anal sex, and oral sex in the London department store Harvey Nichols.
The characters' names (Mark, Robbie and Gary) are taken from the Manchester, England boy band Take That, and from the singer Lulu who collaborated with them on their hit single Relight My Fire.
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