Take It Interns[author-post-rating] (4/5 posts)

A few years ago, Take it Interns wouldn’t have existed; it concerns a curiously modern phenomenon. The people who fought for workers’ rights such as minimum wage would have been appalled at being expected to work for free, but internships seem to be something almost every young person today has to do to get anywhere – though only those who can afford to, of course.

The team of writers behind 1945 Productions’s new musical seem to be broadly aware of both the class tensions and the absurdities associated with internships, and while their script is not the last word on this cultural oddity, it succeeds at a far harder task. Take it Interns is a very modern musical, complete with pithy title; you’d to expect it to be a shallow cash-in on the Zeitgeist, a flash in the pan and fall flat on its face. It isn’t and it doesn’t. 1945 Productions has created a musical that is funny, entertaining and impressive: Take it Interns is far better than it has any right to be.

When five young interns are taken on by an advertising agency, the staff don’t know what to do with them. Eventually, in a plot development slightly reminiscent of an episode of The Apprentice, the young people are given the task of coming up with an ad campaign for empty bottles of water, to keep them out of the way. Clearly defined characters played by a strong cast, especially Eliot Salt, hilarious as the bright but charmingly recalcitrant Amber.

Interns aside, there’s also a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of the CEO’s PA Fiona, played by Daisy Jacobs. Fiona is still stuck in the first job she got as an adult and silently desperate to leave, not because it is hateful but because she is beginning to be crushed under the weight of her boredom, of being made to do something every day that is of no interest. Fiona isn’t angry, she’s just quietly disappointed, and at moments like this Take it Interns puts its finger on some fairly universal problems with understated profundity.

It doesn’t quite ring true that all the interns are recent school-leavers, shanghaied by their teachers, as the really culturally significant thing about internships is generally that so many interns have already done a degree, which they were told would be enough to get them a job. The plot is riddled with holes, too – but nobody minds, because it’s also riddled with decent jokes, and both the comedy and the music are surprisingly tight and well-rehearsed.

With catchy songs, well-written music played live by an orchestra and impressive young performers, who can – and this is rarer than it sounds in amateur musicals – both sing and act, Take It Interns is plenty of upbeat fun.

Take it Interns can be seen at 22.00 at C, every day until 26 August. For more information and tickets, visit the Edinburgh Fringe website.