Review: Racists, Recessions & Revolutions

📍 Hen & Chickens Theatre

🗓️ 4th August 2026

🎟️ PR Invite

📸 Image Credit: Daragh Drake

Racists, Recessions & Revolutions is a new play by Isabella Heaver and Harry Conway, which debuted at Camden Fringe this week, ahead of its Edinburgh Fringe run over August.

The play is based on the fascinating true story from 2016, when a group of teenagers in a small Macedonian town took the opportunity to spread fake news across the world... the effects of which are still felt today.

This story is told through the eyes of Nadica, a young woman living in the UK, who gets caught up in posting the fake news while visiting her family in Macedonia. As the lies begin to spread, she gets dazzled by the grandeur of life when the world believes them. The teens take the world by storm... and create a media storm in the process.

This one-woman play is performed by Isabella Heaver, whose ability to engage an audience is incredible. With the staging quite simple but effective, the focus really has to be on our protagonist, and she does an amazing job of telling this story — a story I was either unaware of or had simply forgotten about.

The format is very much that she is telling the audience this story, so there’s a lot of audience interaction through eye contact and directly speaking to audience members (there is no audience participation).

Heaver is a natural storyteller. Her ability to engage an audience and completely pull them into her story is a joy to watch. She captures Nadica’s emotional journey incredibly well. 

We see her begin to question whether they are doing the right thing, before seeing the effects and the money rolling in. She becomes lost and jealous of others, ultimately making a series of questionable decisions. You really feel yourself being pulled further and further into her story as it escalates.

With the set being quite small for a performance like this, the lighting really helped with the storytelling, pulling the audience even further into the story. Voiceovers and sound effects elevated this further, adding another layer to the experience.

With so many political events taking place during the period in which this play is set, it’s easy to see how everything escalated so quickly. The play really highlights how easy it is for information to spread and for people to believe what they see online. 

In a world where people look to the internet for all sorts of news — no matter what the outlet — it’s a frightening and eye-opening thought just how much people will believe simply because they read it online, and how quickly that information can spread.

The digital age has changed so dramatically over the four years in which this play is set. In 2016, people were still primarily turning to news websites for information, but as the digital age grew and grew, social media began to take over, creating a whole new and accessible world for people to take advantage of opportunities and spread fake news like this.

With the US elections, Brexit and Covid-19, the entire world was constantly online, absorbing everything — but how much of it was real?

The play also raises an interesting and relevant point about the effects of social media: how it can cause people to obsess over what others are doing and posting, and how comparing the success of your own posts to those of others can negatively impact your mental health.

This is particularly interesting when looking at Nadica’s character. It is clear from the play that she both envies and admires her mother’s decision to follow her dreams and move to the UK, which is perhaps the biggest reason she yearns so much for attention and to make an impact on the world — even if it is a negative one.

Overall, I found this a really interesting story and, for the most part, it had me completely hooked.

There were moments in the middle where the pacing dropped a little and could benefit from some tightening, but this didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the production.

It’s a true story, cleverly told in an immersive and engaging format. I was really drawn in by the storytelling and Nadica’s emotional journey throughout the play, and I found myself thinking about the wider themes of fake news, social media and how quickly information can spread.

A thought-provoking play with plenty of humour throughout, an incredibly engaging performance and a story that feels just as relevant today as it did in 2016 — well worth your time.

This play has now begun its Edinburgh Fringe run at ZOO (Playground 3) at 15:55 until 30th August.