Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Timely play delves into fake news

Remote Control is a play about a win for the little guy after employees at a small Canadian TV station fight a corporate takeover
Remote Control
Employees fighting a corportate takeover of their TV station, begin creating fake news, including a story about a missing cosmonaut.

The story of corporate takeover is a common theme in today’s headlines. Sometimes it’s a little firm taking over a larger competitor or two giants merging into a new super corporation, but more commonly it’s an existing corporate empire expanding into a new territory swallowing up local businesses.

But, what if the locals don’t want to be swallowed up and they find that they have the skills to resist and maybe even stop the takeover? This is the premise for Remote Control, a two-act multimedia comedy, using live actors, music videos, pre-recorded segments and some cartoon-style costume performances. The story is set in modern day near the turn of the century.

Remote Control
As a group of media employees fight off a corporate takeover, they start creating fake news for their new American bosses.

The corrupt New York-based Lancaster Broadcasting is expanding their empire into Canada and they’ve put in an offer to purchase the Scott Network in the western provinces, which must be approved by Canadian regulators. Lancaster plans on stripping the Scott Network, which also means shutting down all of the local community television stations. Six resolute and technically savvy souls at Peppercorn Community Television on an island in the Strait of Georgia find out and vow to hoax, spoof and lambaste their new head office however they can. The Peppercorn crew has also developed a computer generated intellect dubbed “Darwin” that now takes their efforts in a whole new direction. The mystery begins when the audience must figure out who is spoofing whom.

The idea for this story came about while David Robertson was producing a real community TV production for Delta Cable in the 1990's. After unsuccessfully trying to get one of his screen plays produced, Robertson decided his only option was produce a story himself and he started with Christmas in Spuzzum: A Comedy about Life, Death and Lost Body Parts. Robertson then approached Delta Cable with the idea for a multi-episode TV series about Delta, B.C., called Encounter. This production ran for 17 episodes and also spawned the idea for Remote Control. He pitched it to local TVas a kind of Canadian sitcom similar to the Beachcomers, but again had no success.

Remote Control
The set of Remote Control is based around Peppercorn Community Television.

Those efforts ate up close to 30 years and Robertson was ready to quit, but then a new family member read Christmas in Spuzzum and encouraged him to try again. A re-write ensued and once again Robertson was trying to produce a screenplay. But this time he decided that if he couldn’t finance a screenplay, he could finance a play. Thus Remote Control was dragged out and reworked into a two-act play.

Robertson says Remote Control is unique in a several ways.

“First, it won’t be performed in just one theatre, but in five theatres around the Lower Mainland. Second, there is only one set, the control room of Peppercorn Community Television. Third, almost 35 per cent of the acting takes place on giant TV screens and in some cases the action takes place between screens across the set. Fourth, one of the stars of the show is just a human head, no body, arms or legs, just a human head on a box. While none of these aspects are original they do combine to give the audience a raucous, laugh-filled performance.”

Remote Controlopens in Vancouver at the Annex Theatre at 823 Seymour St. and runs from March 26 to April 3. There are several earlier dates at theatres across the Lower Mainland. For a complete schedule and more information, visit remotecontroltheplay.com.