Win! Win Win was the first production from Rational Madness. It premiered at Komedia Southside at the Edinburgh Fringe 1999.
Press Reviews…
“A fine satire” The Stage
“Turned its hearers to a giggling jelly” The Scotsman
The Original Press Blurb
You are invited to a unique event – truly a one off. Rational Madness hosts international business guru Alan Winner,
hotfoot from his “Win, Win, Win!” Tour of South America.
“Learn how to get ahead. Learn practical techniques for winning the Darwinistic Corporate Race!”
As Alan Winner says: “Do not try to win at all costs. Try to win at NO costs!”
This show takes a powerfully satirical view of competitiveness.
Insightful and challenging, practical and controversial, Win, Win, Win! is a piece of performance, a comedy, a tragedy, a practical training session. Managers, change agents, entrepreneurs, consultants even ordinary human beings will all be shocked, inspired and entertained.
Background to the show
Most people do not even question that the basic premise of a business is competition. The idea of competition seems almost a self-evident truth. It is seen as the fundamental driver of innovation in the commercial world. Business is a battle for survival, where there will be winners and losers. Survival of the fittest ideas, technologies, products and processes are proof of Darwinism in action in the human sphere.
Who could possibly question it? If a business doubts its existence it simply needs to remind itself of the statement:
I win or lose therefore I am.
Yet does business genuinely thrive within a solely competitive paradigm?
Research, particularly into the management of change and innovation, suggests that cooperation is also a powerful means to generate wealth and stimulate innovation. Of course, cynics see cooperation simply as the clever packaging of competition in a kind of ‘you don’t bomb us and we won’t bomb you’, gunfight-type standoff that creates a culture of ‘caring and sharing’ built in reality on the same old utilitarian, selfish strategies of the separate organisations concerned.
As soon as the benefits of the alliance lessen, we may well stab each other in the back, given that reality it is a hardnosed, cruel, Darwinistic fight for survival of the strongest. The less cynical believe, and indeed research into many industries suggests, that altruism, genuine cooperation based on a sense of community and good will can also act as a strong motivator to innovate and generate wealth, sustaining innovation in the long term.
Into this whirlpool of ideological discussion, comes Alan Winner, an international guru of shop floor Darwinism, who sees cooperation as the dying corpse upon which the opportunistic vultures of corporate strategy can greedily feed.
Meet a man who has reached the top of his professional ladder through practicing his creed of ‘I win therefore I am’, a living example of Nietzsche’s ‘Ubermensch’, or ‘superman’, packaged, marketed, differentiated from the competition, rich and famous, able to command huge fees all over the world, from New York to New Guinea, a man so utterly alone and unhappy that all that is left to keep his inner soul company on cold winter evenings is the gentle hum of a Psion 5 electronic organiser and the warmth of an overheating PowerPoint slide projector.
“Do not build castles in the air. Build them outside by cities and put theme parks around them.” Alan Winner
Cast
Alan WInner has been played by award-winning actor, Mark Brailsford, Paul Levy and, most recently, by Dave Mounfield.
Dave Mounfield
In his twelve years as a professional performer and writer, Dave Mounfield has done everything from Shakespeare in the Park and a year in the West End in Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink to panto at Brighton’s Theatre Royal and having a nervous breakdown in a field just outside Haywards Heath dressed as Beau Brummel. As a co-author of the Cheeky Guide series,
Dave is the long-time (non-sexual) partner of Brian Mitchell, having been involved in pretty much everything he has done, from The Ornate Johnsons to The Ministry of Biscuits, and the two, as Mitchell and Mounfield, enjoy screaming rows on a daily basis. He also founded, hosted and ran The Comedy Diary and Take This And Shove It at Brighton’s famous Komedia and comperes regularly at The Hampstead Clinic and Ealing Broadway comedy clubs.
In Edinburgh 1997, Dave won, with Jerry Sadowitz, the Panasonic People’s Choice Award for a live chat show he co-wrote and performed with the curly-haired, foul-mouthed Scot. Other TV appearances include The People Versus Jerry Sadowitz (Channel 5) The Barfta’s (C4, Associated Rediffusion) and a starring role in Slightly Filthy for LWT.Dave is one of the regular performers on It’s That Jo Caulfield Again for Radio 4. He also has two cats.
Rational Madness Theatre 