Laura Wade’s Posh and the Performance of Privilege in University Culture

Much like Oxbridge, St Andrews has a long-standing reputation for harbouring a particularly plummy student demographic. In 2018, The Sunday Times Good University Guide ranked it second to last in the UK for equality and social diversity, with Oxford and Cambridge tied for the bottom place. This lack of social diversity at university, and the culture of privilege that often accompanies it, sits at the heart of Posh, Laura Wade’s 2010 satirical play being staged by Mermaids later this semester. The play follows one shocking evening with the fictional ‘Riot Club,’ an all-male dining society at Oxford modelled on the notorious Bullingdon Club. Over the course of the night, Riot Club members engage in increasingly extravagant displays of privilege and illustrate the structural, self-sustaining nature of power within elite social circles. By staging Posh in St Andrews, the production’s creative team (composed of Molly Robertson, director, and Laila Allsopp, producer) is intentionally bringing Wade’s satire into a setting with cultural similarities to the play’s Oxford backdrop. 

“I think this play is unique in the sense that some of the people in the audience might find it entertaining because it’s realistic to them, and I think some people will find it entertaining because it’s ridiculous to them,” commented Allsopp. 

The Mermaids production intends to lean into this potential familiarity by foregrounding the closeness between the audience and the action. The play will be performed at The StAge Theatre in the Student Union, with the set in the centre area of the theatre and seating surrounding the stage. This close setup will reinforce the play’s focus on the social mechanisms at work within the Riot Club, while drawing implicit parallels to the structures that exist within St Andrews. According to Allsopp, “it’s going to be intimate, the audience is going to be almost at the table. And I think [...] the dynamics you’re seeing in the play are things you might experience in a tutorial. It’s very real.” 

While the play’s staging and content may lean into existing St Andrews social dynamics, the creative team has decided to be more unconventional in their casting process. 

“We actually cast entirely openly,” Robertson disclosed. “Specifically, one thing we were focused on with the boys was not to have any sort of gender specific casting, just because it’s a very male play. To us, we didn’t really need to see them being played by men; it’s just enough to know that they are men from the way they’re acting and the way they’re behaving.” This approach reflects the production’s broader interest in examining behaviour rather than identity. By avoiding rigid expectations around who should perform the roles, attention is shifted away from the performers and toward the actions, circumstances, and power dynamics that define the Riot Club. In doing so, the production will emphasise that the attitudes explored in Posh are learned and performed rather than inherent to any one group. 

For both Robertson and Allsopp, this perspective is shaped in part by their own outsider status to the upper-class world that the play critiques. Robertson commented: “We are outside of that […] I’m from a state school just outside of Dundee, so it’s very strange going from there to an hour away; it’s so different here.” 

Allsopp extends this idea by connecting the play’s themes to the wider student experience at St Andrews, noting the culture shock that can come to students far from home. As she explained, “I think so many people in St Andrews experience new things here — experience dynamics that they may not have been exposed to before, and I think this play is presenting that.” 

Rather than being an easy viewing experience, Posh is designed as a kind of exercise in discomfort. While it can be hard to watch, its value lies in prompting reflection on the structures of privilege that can exist closer to home than audiences might expect. The play may be set in Oxford, but in St Andrews, its topics of power and privilege feel irrational to ignore. 

Posh will be performed on April 6 and 7 at The StAge theatre in the Student Union.