b'Scandals and Scams: How has my relationship withmanipulation is, the medias cunning in endorsing a so-called Katespiracy relates morality evolved through creating a Peep Show? to that of the Raree Man. Using Lidingtons definition of a clever fool with radical intent, the cleverness of both social commentators comes from their ability todeliberately provoke the general public, then sit back and delight in the ensuing Eliza Clarkchaos (Rao 2024). During the sharing of Nephew Spike Bones Punch and Judy Show (Exeter, February 2024), Lidington highlighted our atavistic pleasure inIn this essay, Eliza Clark reflects on the ethical challenges of creating a depictions of harassment and violence. According to perceived modernsatirical Peep Show that engaged with contemporary voyeurism, using the sensibilities, which often soften or censor such difficult themes, provoking this media speculation around Kate Middleton as a central provocation. She pleasure in performance may be seen as radical intent. Katespiracy teaches us explores how her initial discomfort with showmanship evolved throughout thethat scandal, particularly concerning female bodily privacy and autonomy, is ancreative process, questioning whether playful or provocative performance caninevitable thread within societys fabric. So why should we deem performance still hold moral weight. forms that reflect it irrelevant or unworthy of cultural presence today? This essay will postulate the moral concerns I had surrounding showmanship atTheatremakers fortunately have control over the moral stance their work emits. the start of the module, Popular Performance, in terms of both the subject matter itPresenting immoral speculation in front of the people, fuelling it through media typically handles, and the deceptive nature of the performance style. I will consumption, is not the same as condoning it. This view helped us establish the challenge my preconceptions of the role of showmen by often returning to basic arc our performance would have to map, from reflecting real rhetoric, and Lidingtons definition of the Peep Shows Raree Man as a publically accessible,causing chaotic hyperbole, to switching it back on the audience and giving us the clever fool, with radical intent (Lidington 2017: 52). Kershaws ideas on final laugh.revitalising the legacies of itinerant traditions guide us in how to reflect thecontemporary moment (Kershaw 1999: 24), and ideas on audience complicity andEliza ends by questioning whether satire can ever claim moral high ground:autonomy will open up discussion on possessing and maintaining the moral high ground in popular performance (Bevis 2013:84). Uniting this theory with embodiedBut did we ultimately have the last laugh? Two days after our performance, itpractice, I will track the creation of our Peep Show through the lens of my growingtranspired that Middletons disappearance from public life was due to a cancer understanding of how a piece can be both lightly delivered and contain integrity ofdiagnosis, causing upheaval against internet personalities and media companies standpoint. that fuelled the intrusive speculations. How this revelation might have affected the audiences willingness to pick up our gauntlet is unknown. Middletons filmed She turns her attention to the challenge of adapting voyeuristic traditionsexplanation was earnest, empathy-arousing and for us, who had capitalised on within a contemporary ethical framework, exploring how social commentaryfantasies of her suffering, felt reproachful (BBC News, 2024). Did we no longerand performance collide: possess the moral high ground, despite our good intentions? Bevis ponders: Does satire establish and defend a moral high ground, or does it make us unsure of I wondered if there was a way to carry forward the legacy of voyeurism without thewhether such ground actually exists? (Bevis 2013: 84). Indeed, we established crass, explicit objectification in historic examples such as the What the Butlerourselves morally, as previously explained, by satirising existing theories andSaw mutoscope 1 , through questioning the ownership of the female body throughundermining the peepers for participating in such speculation. Yet, one may argue a contemporary gynocentric lens. One particularly topical class discussion was onthat the very fact we perpetuated a potentially harmful subject matter pertaining to the Royal Familys rights to privacy, sparked by the controversy of Kate Middletonsintrusion of individual privacy, in creating the show, makes us no more absolvable disappearance this year. Within this subject, we questioned whether the public,than the peepers. However, I believe that to make a piece in defence of Middletons as taxpayers that fund the royal institution, indeed own the royals and thereforeprivacy through reflecting public discourse, even if handled comedically, surely deserve information of whatever level of intimacy we demand. As immoral as truthshows more moral integrity than passively consuming or simply avoiding it.1The Mutoscope was a late Victorian device that allowed coin-operated access to a short film. ABevis summarises the clever fool in a similar way to Lidington: both idiot and popular theme of the 1900s was What the Butler Saw, a sequence where a woman undressed,iconoclast (Bevis 2013: 65). Since believing that integrity and deceit could not seemingly unaware of being observed. This theme was inspired by adivorce scandal involving Lord Colinwork together in performance, I have learnt that idiot(ic) presentation can actually Campbell and his wife Gertrude Elizabeth Blood, in which the butler testified about what he had seenallow for greater iconoclas(m) within intention. To conclude, earnestness ofthrough the keyhole. Mutoscopes became synonymous with this type of narrative. Eds.48 49'