Losers

What would you do to be famous? For many the thought is a horrible nightmare, but there's an increasing number for whom the prospect of paparazzi and popularity is their idea of heaven.

These people are the focus of Losers, a late-night interactive reality gameshow, where four friends who are desparate for the spotlight decide to do a test run to try to attract the attention of a big shot TV producer for his latest reality show. Inspired by their heroes—Joey Essex and Jade Goody—they'll do anything to make it big. But here's the catch, only one can win.

We're given voting handsets and through eight rounds—including who's the most talented, genuine, tragic, offensive, deserving—the quartet try their best to out-entertain each other. The winner of each round gets adulation from the crowd – the loser, a punishment.

The cast (Arthur Jones, Rachel Johnson, Sophie Thompson and Tommy Swale) play caricatures of themselves with razor-sharp wit alongside raw emotion. Thompson is particularly good: a comic genius in the making. The show swings from hilarity to squirming embarassment, sympathy to disgust as the contestants get more desperate and punishments get more sadistic. In a world of constant judgement, it takes a scary look at the lengths people go to for fame. 

Only one contestant triumphs in the end, but with Losers Tit4Twat Theatre have a winner on their hands.