In his show at this year's Chichester Fringe, University of Chichester graduate Tom Pagett is conjuring precisely the corporate nightmare he desperately hopes to avoid.

Tom offers 735 as a participation-based satirical comedy on June 4 from 19:00-20:00 in

The Nest at Chichester Festival Theatre.

In the piece, Corporate Management Solutions are “delighted to invite you – yes, you – to attend one of our exclusive, behind-the-scenes presentations of the proper workplace of the not-too-distant future.”

placeholder image — Tom Pagett (contributed pic)

It will be your worst nightmare. Or at least Tom’s.

The show grew out of Tom’s time at the University of Chichester: “I graduated in 2024 from the theatre course. I loved it. The course that we have at Chichester is a wonderful space to learn and to explore and to play. The lecturers and the course are fantastic and they are really giving of their knowledge and really let you explore and to become the kind of performer you want to be.

“In your third year you have three things called cycles. There are a number of modules that you can do but one that you have to take is a solo performance, a 20-minute solo show that you do everything for. It can be a little bit intimidating but by the time you get to the third year you have made so much and you have done so much that it's a really great chance to take off the safety belt and just really run with something. I had what I wanted to do in the back of my mind for a while and I loved having the chance to do it.

“The original inspiration is that when you are a young person you're acutely aware of what the job market is like and just how expensive things are getting. There is so much pressure to get a proper job! I was really worried about it all, and the show is me exploring what would happen if I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do and if I ended up instead in a dead-end corporate office, exactly the kind of job that I know I would hate. This show is me putting the worst-case scenario on the stage in the hope that it never becomes real. It is an exaggeration of the terrible modern office culture, the corporate culture which is all about making money.

“To make the show I did a lot of watching YouTube videos to see what it was like. There are a lot of vloggers who talk about their nine to five office culture and are very pro it. They're talking about the kinds of things and culture that for them are just normal but which I know I would hate.”

Inevitably the show touches on office speak: “The corporate language is something I've become more aware of in recent versions of the show. There is that language and there is that pretension and it's a weird kind of walking the line.”

When Tom first did the show at the University of Chichester, it was selected for the university’s sudent showcase showing the best of the year: “From that I got seen by some professionals who gave really good professional advice.”

Tom has since had the opportunity to develop the show, increasing it from 20 minutes to an hour.

“It has changed direction quite a bit since then. Leaving the safety of university and being pushed out into the world of work, you become much more aware of paying the bills and just what the job market is like and just how there is less and less for the people that are graduating now, really just how difficult it is. You become more aware of the stress and the worry, and I think that has worked its way into the show. And you think well, at least if I did end up in some dead-end corporate dystopian job then at least I would have a job but then you think is it right that people should have to do that kind of thing?”

And yes, the kind of job Tom is depicting here remains absolutely his very worst nightmare…

Tickets from the Chichester Fringe.