Expensive Sh*t

Watch the world’s social power dynamics come together in this play about a Nigerian nightclub toilet attendant.

'The country change, the city change, the people dem think they change, but I tell you dem sh*t the same. Dem all dey run from it the same.'

Written and directed by Adura Onashile, Expensive Sh*t is the story of Tolu, who works in the toilets of a fictional nightclub based on Glasgow’s Shimmy Club. In 2012, a true story broke about a spy mirror in Shimmy Club’s women’s toilets. It was revealed that unsuspecting users of the women’s toilets were being watched by male punters, who were paying for the privilege.

Tolu is paid next to nothing by the club, so she relies on tips from people using the toilets. Driven by the need to earn more money, she manipulates the behaviour of the women in the toilets for the titillation of the men watching behind the mirrors. But how far is Tolu prepared to go?

The play is set in the toilets of the Glasgow nightclub, and also in the toilets of The Shrine club in Lagos, Nigeria, where a younger Tolu dreams of becoming a dancer in the revolutionary band of Fela Kuti.

Expensive Sh*t reveals the ways in which the male gaze still reigns supreme and women continue to struggle under the weight of objectification, in the dual contexts of present-day Britain and Fela Kuti's revolutionary politics in the Nigeria of the 1980s and 1990s. The play is performed by an all-female cast.

Adura Onashile’s first written piece for theatre – HeLa, a one-woman play performed by Adura herself – won the Scottish Arts Club and Edinburgh Guide Best Scottish Contribution to Drama awards at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe. HeLa toured India, Brazil, Trinidad, Jamaica, South Africa, Zimbabwe and New Zealand in 2014 and 2015.