ajhlovestheatre

REALLY GOOD EXPOSURE 

written and performed by Megan Prescott 

direction and dramaturgy by Fiona Kingwill

Soho Theatre London – until 13 September 2025

running time: 70 minutes no interval 

https://sohotheatre.com/events/really-good-exposure-by-megan-prescott/

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to high profile child actors once they fade from the public eye, Megan Prescott’s partly autobiographical solo show provides some answers, but not necessarily ones you might expect. Megan and her twin sister Kathryn were teenage leads in the seminal Channel 4 series Skins which ran from 2007 to 2013, and Molly, Really Good Exposure’s main character, was similarly a youngster thrust into the spotlight in an edgy mainstream TV show. This is no lament for past fame though; rather it is a look at the objectification of women, abuse of power and the brutal way some members of the general public assume ownership over a human that they used to watch on the telly. 

At the curtain call, Prescott points out in a speech that what we’ve witnessed in the preceding seventy minutes, some of it witty but most of it downright gruelling, is a composite of her own experiences and those of others she has interviewed. Indeed, Really Good Exposure probably works best seen as an act of defiance, a testament to survival, than a traditional one person show. The writing is pedestrian and lacking flavour, but it’s the palpable unease and low level fury that lends this monologue what power it has.

Although we witness her go from lisping, high energy childhood show-off to fledgling TV actress – the chronology is conveyed via a series of alternating projections of fictional newspapers on the back wall – the story is framed by a 30-something Molly recounting her past to an unseen director in an audition situation. Her recollections are prompted by the enquiry of how she got into porn, and what follows is a gradual breakdown of how a chirpy, ambitious young woman is repeatedly exploited by men, by turns let down then supported by other women, and ends up reclaiming a degree of power and agency in an industry commonly perceived as deeply misogynistic. It’s also about what people have to do to get by.

Some of this is very uncomfortable to watch – there’s full frontal nudity which, in all honesty, doesn’t feel entirely necessary – but Prescott’s Molly recounts a litany of disrespects, disappointments and outright humiliations with a remarkable lack of self-pity. Her matter-of-factness sometimes obfuscates just how grim a lot of what happens to Molly is, and there are times when it seems that she is baring her body to us but not her soul. Her unwillingness to succumb to victimhood is undeniably admirable and, although nothing here feels revelatory, her lightness of touch as narrator of her own story means that Really Good Exposure never quite plumbs the depths of depression a different treatment of such a tawdry tale might reach.

Fiona Kingwill’s music-punctuated staging is over-reliant on having Molly reacting to unseen voices or speaking on the phone, but keeps up an insistent pace. Men, unsurprisingly, don’t come out of this well -even the sympathetic director Molly is reminiscing to turns nasty- but several of the women are not much better: Molly’s deadbeat alcoholic mum and an exploitative snake of an agent are presented with little nuance but plenty of distaste.

The episodic structure and sometimes rudimentary storytelling suggest that this is a couple of drafts away from being something really special; it could be punchier and more inventive. There’s something haunting and raw about Prescott though, and her ability to project toughness and vulnerability almost simultaneously is remarkable.