Interview: Deepfakes, Disaster, and De Facto Justice: The Wild West of Imposed

Imposed, The Hope Theatre

Running throughout January 2026, Write Club is The Hope Theatre’s premier festival of new writing, dedicated to showcasing bold stories and expansive ideas. Designed to breathe life into the London fringe during the winter months, the festival provides a vital platform for up to thirty selected shows to make their debut. Under the curation of Joint Artistic Directors Laurel Marks and Toby Hampton, Write Club fosters a collaborative community by offering playwrights and theatre-makers multi-night runs, professional venue support, and dedicated networking opportunities.

We will be chatting to many of the creatives bringing shows to the festival over January. You can find all those already published here.

Next up we chat to Elizabeth Colwell, who will be performing in Imposed, playing from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 January, 7pm each day.

What can audiences expect from the show?

Deepfakes, disaster, and de facto justice.

It starts out as a comedy between three friends before things take a very dark turn. Roommates Allie and Kate are living in DC and discover that someone has put AI-generated explicit content of them online. With no measures in place to hold any perpetrators accountable, they take matters into their own hands.

We hope this play will engender a greater awareness of just how easy it is for the internet to run rampant with next to zero accountability and urge us to consider the danger of these digital tools outpacing our ability to control them. The play also engages with the global rise of the manosphere. We think audiences will be challenged by the shifting perspectives and twists and turns the play takes, and will hopefully leave interrogating their preconceived notions – it’s a roller coaster!

What was your inspiration behind the show?

Ben Hatt was inspired to write this show after reading a BBC article about a woman who received an anonymous email letting her know that she had been deepfaked and that the explicit content was circulating online.

Since we’ve been in rehearsals, it’s crazy how much deepfaking has been in the news, whether it be Grok AI or the horrifying proliferation of nudification apps being used in school settings. In a world increasingly fraught with megalomaniacal potentates, misogyny, and the unbridled mutations of social media outpacing our ability to grasp hold of the reins, Imposed poses questions without preaching, and we believe deeply engages audiences to grapple with the Wild West of the world we’re now living in.

Is Write Club going to be the show’s first time on stage, or have you already performed elsewhere?

This is the UK premiere of Imposed. There was an initial reading of an earlier version of the play presented in conjunction with a panel discussion at the Center for American Progress. Ben has further developed the play with us as we’ve been in rehearsals, and we’ve worked through about 5 or 6 different drafts to reach this current version that will be presented at The Hope Theatre.

We are so excited about how it’s developed, and there are already rumblings of how the one-act could be expanded into a full-length two-act play with new characters and a new setting being introduced in act two – stay tuned!

What was it that drew you to this show and role?

The content of the show is so relevant right now, whether it be related to social media, politics, or just our own interpersonal relationships. It’s been an absolute gift collaborating with theatre makers that I consider such close friends, and the chance to premiere something brand new has been incredibly exciting. I think it’s very easy to see ourselves as these characters, and I hope the audience will be able to find part of themselves in each of us as well. Ben’s writing is such a joy to work on – it’s funny, cutting, and has an authenticity that is so easy to slip into.

What brought you all together?

There has been an incredible spirit of collaboration throughout. I’ve known Ben from collaborating on his plays with him in New York, and before that on mine in LA. Aaron Lynn, who plays Mark, and I have been friends since we met studying abroad in London almost a decade and a half ago and both moved back at the same time to go to grad school, and Josselyn Ryder, who plays Allie, has been an absolute dream of a friend and scene partner that I met at LAMDA. We both were first introduced to the incredible Hannah Eidinow, our director, while at LAMDA, so as a group, we are all artists that have gravitated towards one another – often from far-flung beginnings – because of a shared artistic sensibility, despite being very different.

How important is audience interaction to you?

Audience interaction is paramount – not in the way of bringing anyone up on stage or improvising a conversation with an audience member, but in deeply engaging audiences and involving them in the story so that they can’t help but interrogate their own points of view. We hope that the audience can identify in some way with all of these characters, which may not always be comfortable.

I think one of the best things about theatre is it is live and forces us to be physically present with all the human messiness in front of us. I think theatre at its best sends an audience off with more questions than answers, and my hope is that our play is a jumping-off point for conversations that continue long after we’ve all left the theatre.

Are there any plans for what comes next after the show has finished its run– for you or the show?

We’d all love for Imposed to have a life that continues after our run at The Hope, whether that be in its current form, or expanded into a full-length play. All of the cast are jobbing actors, so we continue to audition and collaborate on our own work together. Josselyn is an incredible singer, Aaron and I have been discussing a short film we’re co-writing and he’s in Masters of the Universe later this year, and I’ll be in the next season of Slow Horses coming out later this year. Hannah works as a freelance director, and Ben continues his work as a writer for the stage and screen—he also just finished a novel and simultaneously works as a speechwriter in Washington, DC.

What’s the weirdest or most unconventional prop used in your show, and how did it come to be part of the production?

We don’t want to give it away, so you’ll have to come see it! But I don’t think we’ll ever look at this seemingly innocuous piece of equipment the same way ever again.

What words of advice/encouragement would you give anyone thinking about doing Write Club next year?

Literally just do it. Dive in before you feel ready. You will figure it out as you go – that’s the beauty of fringe!

Thanks to ELizabeth for her time. Imposed plays at The Hope Theatre from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 January.