‘Katie Hopkins’ musical opens at Welsh theatre
A NEW play which asks what would happen if Katie Hopkins was murdered is to open at a theatre in Wales.
The Assassination of Katie Hopkins will use the fictional death of the former Apprentice contestant- turnednotorious-right-wing columnist as a way of exploring themes of “truth, celebrity and public outrage”.
The production, a musical, follows the story of two young women – one a charity worker and the other a trainee solicitor investigating the unrelated deaths of migrant worker – both of whom get caught up in the aftermath of Hopkins’ killing.
The opinionated and much-reviled 43-year-old has gone from one controversy to another in recent years, dividing opinion and provoking strong reactions with her inflammatory thoughts on subjects like race, religion and refugees, who she infamously compared to “cockroaches” in a 2015 article for The Sun.
In addition, she suggested at a Ukip party conference in the same year that the heartbreaking photograph of Aylan Kurdi, the three-yearold Syrian whose body washed up dead on the Turkish shore in 2014, was staged. She then went on to criticise dementia sufferers for being a drain on the NHS.
“Dementia sufferers should not be blocking beds,” she tweeted to her followers – currently numbering 849,000. “What is the point of life when you no longer know you are living it?”
She suggested that Wales’ only contribution to the world was “Jihadis and a bloody silly accent” – a reference to revelations that some terror groups had training links to Ceredigion, Powys and Pembrokeshire, while attacking a group of Welsh mums “for being allowed to breed at all.”
Hopkins left The Sun to join Mail Online, only to have her column there axed two years later in 2017.
Prior to that she was sacked from talk radio station LBC after she appeared to call for genocide following the Manchester terror attack which left 22 dead.
“I disagree with the vast majority of what Katie Hopkins has to say,” the play’s co-writer Chris Bush told The Guardian. “Politically, I couldn’t be much further from where she is on the spectrum. Whether she is useful or has any right to say what she says is a much more complicated question.”
Bush added that the show would examine social media, specifically the limits of free speech and the mob mentality encouraged by Hopkins.
“Does having the right to a voice give you a right to a platform?” Bush asked.
■ The Assassination of Katie Hopkins runs at Theatr Clwyd from 26 April to 12 May, with previews from 20 April.