Fictionalised look at the birth of Uber that’s worth catching

You’ve visited the Eiffel Tower – it’s a wintry night and you want to hail a cab, but none is cruising in the vicinity. What do you do? You just reach for your smartphone, of course. It was different in 2008 when two Silicon Valley hotshots, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, faced exactly that challenge. And thus Uber was born.

Crowd-funded to the tune of £2,000, with an able, multitasking cast of three pacing a strip of stage, Brilliant Jerks is a low-budget fictionalised look at the workings of a multi-billion-dollar giant. Journalist Joseph Charlton, making his playwriting debut, has talked to Uber staff but avoids naming the company. All the same, the play features a recognisable portrait of Kalanick among its main characters, contains details that are Uber-specific, and members of the company flocked to see it on its first night. After a very brief run as part of the Vault festival beneath Waterloo station, the ambition is to tour the show, directed by Rosy Banham, to “cities and towns where the app operates”.

The title derives from Uber boardmember Arianna Huffington’s vow last summer, in the wake of reports of institutionalised sexism and sexual harassment in the company, that “no brilliant jerks will be allowed” – the repair of the corporation’s reputation entailed Kalanick’s resignation. Is the fictionalised version of him jerk-like? As played by Luke Thompson, “Tyler Janowski” brims with self-assurance and abrasive impatience, but this is no demolition job. Thompson’s CEO revels in the way that he has transformed lives and brought so many people along with him for the ride; and he vents frustration that he is held accountable for the actions of a rapidly ballooned workforce. He goes from birthing a game-changing concept to seeing his baby taken from him – and finding himself a disposable cog in the new gig economy.

The turmoil of that loss is reinforced by a storyline about a former addict – cabbing in Manchester to make ends meet – who had her son taken into care. Mona Goodwin’s Mia has to face down sleazy male passengers, and further doses of toxic masculinity are evident as we hear from a gay Irish coder (Donal Gallery’s Sean) who finds himself alienated by office politics.

It almost loses its way at points, but if you’re going to tackle Uber, you’ve got to over-do it, right?

Run now over.