Out of the Margins

A hip, charismatic young con artist, inspired by the now infamous Anna Sorokin, weaves a web of deception and seduction amongst New York’s social elite, laying bare a world obsessed with image and exclusivity. 

Golden Globe Award-winner Emma Corrin (The Crown) and Royal Television Society’s 2019 Breakthrough star Nabhaan Rizwan (Informer, BBC) made their debut with this searing tale of self-invention, determination, and deceit. 

In this annotated first edition, Joseph Charlton notes that he has directly quoted many tech start-up CEOs throughout (“I steered this magazine to being art and fashion because they are the same. Sex can be architecture, can be a party, can be an artist.” - Oliver Zahn, whom the playwright based the O2 editor character on). “Toys are preludes to serious ideas” (Evan Spiegel) is an “idiotic quote, Joseph Charlton remarks. 

As well as sharing his pride over coining the name “Jed Grigorian”, the playwright points to what he finds to be the funniest moment of the play, self-corrects his UK-centric vocabulary for a play set in the US, and remembers how certain parts of the script were cut and added in production. He reveals that Nabhaan Rizwan ad-libbed the line – “It’s cool. Lotta pain. Reminds me of… Roth cow.” And there’s another line (well worth a read) that’s very connected, in the playwright’s mind, to Trump.