Expensive Shit is both a 2017 play and a 2020 short film both written and directed by Adura Onashile.
Expensive Shit was written by Adura Onashile, an English playwright of Nigerian decent [1] who lives in Glasgow, Scotland. [2] It was funded by the Scottish Government's Made in Scotland program and debuted at the 70th Edinburgh Festival Fringe. [1]
Onashile's 2020 film of the play debuted at the BFI London Film festival. [3]
Expensive Shit is a fictional play inspired by real events at The Shimmy Club in Glasgow, which was forced to remove one-way mirrors from its women's toilets. [1] The play protagonist is Nigerian toilet attendant Tolu (played by Sabina Cameron in the play, and by Modupe Adeyeye in the film) working in a fictional Glasgow nightclub. [1] Tolu previously worked as a dancer in Fela Kuti's Shrine nightclub in Lagos. [1] While at work, Tolu is pushed by her manager to encourage two women to sexually expose their breasts in the mirror in nightclub's toilets; unbeknown to the women, male customers are watching via the one-way mirror. [4] Tolu is later forced to choose between harming the women or saving herself from the situation. [2]
Themes in the play include women's liberation and exploitative working conditions. [1]
Expensive Shit was nominated for the BAFTA Scotland 2021 for Best Short Film. [2] It also won the audience and the critics award at the Glasgow International Film Festival, [3] and The Scottish Audience Award and The Jury Award at the 2021 Glasgow Short Film Festival. [5] It was praised by Andrea Arhagba writing in Empire for highlighting gender dynamics in nightclubs. [4]
Joseph McFadden is a Scottish actor, best known for his roles in The Crow Road,Sex, Chips & Rock n' Roll, Heartbeat and Holby City. He won the 2017 series of the BBC One series Strictly Come Dancing with professional dance partner Katya Jones.
The Glasgow Film Festival is an annual film festival based in Glasgow, Scotland. The festival began in 2005. By 2015, the festival had seen audience figures top 40,000 for two consecutive years. It is now considered one of the top film festivals in the UK.
The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England in collaboration with the British Film Institute. The festival runs for two weeks in October every year. In 2016, the BFI estimated that around 240 feature films and 150 short films from more than 70 countries are screened at the festival each year.
Gary Stevenson, better known as Gary Lewis, is a Scottish actor. He has had roles in films such as Billy Elliot (2000), Gangs of New York (2002), Joyeux Noël (2005) and Eragon (2006), as well as major roles in the television docudrama Supervolcano and the Starz series Outlander.
Sandra Alland is a Glasgow-based Scottish-Canadian writer, interdisciplinary artist, small press publisher, performer, filmmaker, and curator. Alland's work focuses on social justice, language, humour, and experimental forms.
Sheena Elizabeth McDonald is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster.
Steven McNicoll is a Scottish actor, director, playwright and television presenter.
Anthony Robert McMillan, known professionally as Robbie Coltrane, was a Scottish actor and comedian. He gained worldwide recognition in the 2000s for playing Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter film series. He was appointed an OBE in the 2006 New Year Honours by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to drama. In 1990, Coltrane received the Evening Standard British Film Award – Peter Sellers Award for Comedy. In 2011, he was honoured for his "outstanding contribution" to film at the British Academy Scotland Awards.
May Miles Thomas is a film director and screenwriter.
Francis Martin Patrick Boyle is a Scottish comedian and writer. He is known for his cynical, surreal, graphic and dark, often controversial sense of humour.
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed by Jonathan Glazer and written by Glazer and Walter Campbell, loosely based on the 2000 novel by Michel Faber. It stars Scarlett Johansson as an otherworldly woman who preys on men in Scotland. The film premiered at Telluride Film Festival on 29 August 2013. It was released in the United Kingdom on 14 March 2014, and in other territories later in the year.
Heather Ann Croall is an international arts festival CEO and artistic director and documentary producer, best known for leading Sheffield Doc/Fest and Adelaide Fringe, and her work on live music / archive films including The Big Melt, From the Sea to the Land Beyond, Girt By Sea, From Scotland With Love, Atomic, Living in Dread and Promise
The Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) is an international film festival which takes place annually in York, England, at the beginning of November. Founded in 2011, it is a celebration of independent film from around the world, and an outlet for supporting and championing filmmaking.
The Scotsman Group is a Scottish hospitality and leisure operator based in Glasgow, Scotland. It is run by its founder Stefan King. The company operates more than 50 venues in cities all over Scotland, most notably in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour is a play based on the 1998 novel The Sopranos by Alan Warner, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. It received its world premiere at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2015, before embarking on a short UK tour. The play is a co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre. The production ran at London's National Theatre in August 2016 and was scheduled to transfer to the West End's Duke of York's Theatre in May 2017.
Tope Oshin is a Nigerian television and film director, producer and casting director, listed as one of the most influential Nigerians in film in 2019. In 2015 Pulse magazine named her as one of "9 Nigerian female movie directors you should know" in the Nollywood film industry. and in March 2018, in commemoration of the Women's History Month, Tope was celebrated by OkayAfrica as one of the Okay100 Women. The interactive campaign celebrates extraordinary women from Africa and the diaspora making waves across a wide array of industries, while driving positive impact in their communities and the world at large.
The Shimmy Club was a nightclub in Glasgow that operated from 2013 to 2022. The club installed a one-way mirror allowing viewing into the hand washing area of the women's toilets, prompting Glasgow City Council to intervene, forcing the club to temporarily close for a week to rectify the issue.
Adura Onashile is a British actor, playwright, and director. She wrote and directed the 2013 play Expensive Shit and adapted it into a film in 2020.
Sabina Cameron is a British actor who played Dr Ley in the soap opera Hollyoaks and who starred as in Tolu in Adura Onashile's play Expensive Shit.
Girl is a 2023 British drama film written and directed by Adura Onashile in her feature debut. It premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Filmed and set in Glasgow, Girl opened the Glasgow Film Festival.