Sex, drugs, and violence; cartoons and fairy tales. Just another day for the people who decide movie ratings. But how do you rate a person?

You see the letters and numbers every time you watch a film – U, 12A, 15 etc, flashing up on the screen. But for Sarah and Charlie our two film classifiers it’s not all romantic comedies and action films, in fact very little of it is, it is mostly p*rn and hard-core p*rn at that.

They must stay professional, no emotions or personal opinions allowed here, but for one of them at least it becomes too much to endure. Add some romantic heat and the film viewing booth becomes a pressure cooker.

This serious comedy is based on the writer Jan Woolf’s own time as a film examiner in 2001. It was first performed at the Hackney Empire in 2009 to acclaim. The play was revived Upstairs at the Gatehouse Highgate last year in response to themes raised in the Netflix series Adolescence.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Riversmeet is a production company which produces high quality writing, performance and teaching which engage with contemporary issues by linking the past to the present.

The different parts of the Riversmeet project are held together by a simple proposition. That the past can help us understand the present. What the past doesn’t offer us is a series of blueprints by which to understand where we are now. What it does offer us is analogies, other perspectives from which to view the present moment.

www.riversmeetproductions.co.uk

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Aidan Casey is an actor and writer who trained at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London. Over the last ten years he has divided his time between London and the Westcountry working across both theatre and screen.

He directed the updated version of “P*rn Crackers” which had a week’s run Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate in November 2025.

Other recent directing credits include the play “The Ocean Can Be A Bridge” in Exeter, October 2025, which transfers to the Alma Tavern in Bristol in October 2026.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Jan Woolf is a London-based writer and reviewer whose four plays include “P*rn Crackers” originally produced for the Hackney Empire, “Blood, Gold and Oil” performed at Riverside Studios. Her short story collection Fugues on a Funny Bone was published in 2010 by Muswell Press and her second Stormlight in 2020 by Riversmeet. A varied working life as teacher, events producer, political activist, film classifier and editor has informed her work.

★★★★★ “A Wee Cracker. In the era of Jeffrey Epstein, grooming gangs, child abuse, and open internet access to depravity of all kinds, nothing could be more topical.” – Morning Star

Additional information

Duration: 70 mins

Age guidance: 18+

Content warning: Brief and implied intimacy is depicted. Discussion of p*rnographic images.

Venue: Studio 1, Exeter Phoenix

*Subject to a £1.50 ticketing system charge. We don’t charge this to make a profit. Find out more >>