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I Want To Speak To Your Manager (How I Was Radicalised And Became...Karen)

 
Elanor Parker Review by Elanor Parker 3 Published: 16 May 2026 The Actors - Theatre Show Dates: 14 May 2026-15 May 2026

You don’t need to be chronically online to know what a ‘Karen’ is. Karens have hit the mainstream. There’s even – if you can believe it – a film based on the works of Charles Dickens called A Christmas Karen. These self-entitled women, with a list of complaints as long as their arm, have become the butt of jokes worldwide. After years of demeaning memes as the internet’s favourite love-to-hate stereotype, is it time that they were defended?

A highly talented comedic performer

In I Want To Speak To Your Manager (How I Was Radicalised And Became...Karen), writer and performer Holly Hughes attempts to do just that. This seemingly semi-autobiographical take aims to explain how she (a mostly plant-based, micro-fringed millennial) inadvertently became a Karen herself.

The first half hour is packed full of jokes that easily build rapport with an audience all too familiar with over-fussy ordering, men underperforming in bed, and hipster baristas. Hughes performs with warmth and panache, lightly interacting with the audience when their reactions elicit a response. Her choice of costuming also brings the Karen concept to life, with well-chosen accessories that really do transform her before your eyes into the kind of face that launched a thousand memes.

It’s only later on in the show that Hughes strikes a more serious tone as she delves into the more problematic aspects of being a Karen. Here her central thesis ends up a little muddled: is becoming a Karen a bad thing, as she implies with AA-style confession at the beginning, or empowering? Her complaints about being fined on Australian transport or the faulty campervan she rented were presented as ridiculously over the top, but it felt that most of the audience were unironically on her side, uncertain as to whether to laugh or cheer.

The truth is that even memes are more complex than they seem once you scratch the surface. Hughes tries to draw parallels between Karens and the Suffragettes, but it’s a comparison that wears a little thin under scrutiny. She also touches on the fact that Karens can be racist and transphobic, and here lies the dichotomy of a Karen: often the joke of the ‘speak to the manager’ Karen is about a woman complaining too hard about seemingly trivial events, but other so-called Karens can cause deep harm. The weaponisation of white women’s tears can have deadly consequences, and these dark aspects are mentioned but brushed over in favour of a more girl-power-style Karen who defeats the people-pleasing nature of a good Catholic patriarchal upbringing.

Of course, ultimately this is a light-hearted show – and not everything can be discussed in detail in just an hour – but it is Hughes’ choice to unpick the DNA of a Karen as she shifts into giving more of a lecture in the last 15 minutes. A whistle-stop overview of the sexism of the Karen archetype presents strong arguments, but also doesn’t address the inherent ageism, with the name Karen being more reminiscent of a certain generation of women. This makes the narrative of the show feel patchwork as you flip-flop between loving and hating Hughes’ idea of a Karen.

Hughes is a highly talented comedic performer and sells her jokes well. In fact, she’s so good at selling herself as the Karen-esque character that this is when her political arguments land the strongest. Her first steps into being a Karen see her labelling an Australian pint of Guinness a ‘war crime’ and lead to a diatribe on how war crimes aren’t taken as seriously as they used to be, which is both funny and cutting. If I were to speak to the manager, I’d suggest that Hughes rewrite this as a character comedy stand-up, allowing her Karen to speak for – and critique – herself. After all, if there’s one thing we can agree about Karens, it’s that they sure can hold their own in an argument.

Amir Nisi

Elanor Parker

Elanor is a Brighton based marketer, freelance writer, and English graduate. Pursuing her interest in live performance, Elanor has trained with Nottingham's New Perspectives theatre company and worked at Edinburgh Fringe, where one year she managed to see over 65 shows during the festival.

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You’ve heard this woman in a café, complaining her extra-hot-skinny latté isn’t hot enough. You’ve seen her in a restaurant, demanding dishes that aren’t on the menu. You’ve met her in the ALDI car park, where her SUV takes up multiple spaces: the dreaded Karen. But could you – down-to-earth, humble, people-pleasing – become her? Holly did. And she’s ready to speak her truth. This debut one-woman-show from internationally-acclaimed slam poet and accidental keyboard warrior Holly Hughes is a bold, hilarious and brutally honest interrogation of who gets to be angry in today’s society. After all, what is so wrong with holding people accountable? When broligarch losers are destroying the world, is being a Karen REALLY that bad? Join the most hated woman on Google reviews to celebrate society's unsung heroes (serial complainers). After a sell-out run at Dublin Fringe Festival, Karen is ready for world domination. This is more than comedy. This is a movement. One complaint at a time.
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