The Late Great Andrew Tate currently playing at The Blue Room Theatre as a part of the Summer Nights program takes a satirical take on the cult following of Andrew Tate with a look into TERF’s (Trans-exclusionary radical feminists) and queer people. The show follows Gym as he journeys from his underground society of Andrew Tate devotees to the overworld where he comes across a TERF dreamscape.
The show begins in a deep underground society where a large gathering of men live in devotion to Andrew Tate and his teachings, they read scripture, worship, and pay tribute to their god. Featuring often niche references to some of the garbage that Andrew Tate has said over the years, this is where we see the bulk of actual parody of Andrew Tate and his followers. While the comedy comes through in the exaggeration of the followers it often came overdone with repetitive bits and jokes.
The performances shine in this section, all completely devoted to their characters and the exaggeration of them. Lily Baitup starts off the show playing a priest like figure delivering a sermon of Andrew Tate’s life, meanwhile the ensemble act all of this out with fantastic physical commitment and melodramatic representations of these people. Another stand out is James Madison who goes all in on his portrayal of the Andrew Tate die hard in the throes of an identity crisis, he has complete conviction and made me genuinely nervous at stages.
The Late Great Andrew Tate. Photography by Andrea Lim.
After a transman (Daylof) stumbles along the underground complex, insisting on staying to live in the hyper masculine life, Gym goes to where Daylof emerged to travel to the overworld and invade in the name of Andrew Tate. Upon emerging he comes across a society of bio-essentialist women, run by a matriarch named She-Der, who have a clear hate of anything that isn’t cis women. They are intense caricatures, playing on borderline misogynistic stereotypes of women exaggerated for the effect of ensuring we hate them because of the TERF behaviour.
After a while Gym is then abducted by a rebel society of queer people who were exiled, Gym is convinced by the rebels to fight against She-Der as a surprise invasion takes place. Gym stops the invasion and also allows the men from underground to the surface, from here we have a wrap up by the narrator (an AI recreation of Andrew Tate’s voice) who says that the women in the TERF society lost their ways, the men from underground mellowed on out the hateful rhetoric and everyone lived together in peace.
The Late Great Andrew Tate. Photography by Andrea Lim.
The Late Great Andrew Tate covers a range of issues but ultimately lacks depth on any of them. It seems a massive misstep to choose to write a satire on Andrew Tate and his followers and then have your villain be a woman and her being responsible for why society is structured the way it is. Despite queerness being a motivating force in the changing of the show’s society, I found the queer characters lacking enough depth to be characters on their own and are mostly used to forward the plot or giving the protagonist moments of realisation. Daylof, despite being the inciting incident for the show, appears on stage for less than a few minutes, and the remaining group of queer people exist to educate Gym and perform the majority of mental and physical labour in changing the fabric of society.
There are two different shows merged here which seem to clash and fight at each other for who the villains and heroes are. I believe The Late Great Andrew Tate could be a fantastic biting parody on a new movement of masculinity and showing how cycles of abuse perpetuate these actions. Instead, I think it gets lost in trying to accomplish too much, as a queer person I understand the frustration at both Andrew Tate, over masculine figures, and at TERF’s but I also understand these issues are far too complex and solutions too varied to try and boil down to one resolution.
The Late Great Andrew Tate on at The Blue Room Theatre is sold out.