In our contemporary world where Paris Hilton types stagger around on legs so thin they could snap, doped up to the eyeballs with money to burn and put on pedestals the world over, it’s no wonder Australian playwright Van Badham has taken on the juicy subject matter. After five years of overseas playwriting success, Badham is back with the premiere of her latest work, Poster Girl, directed by James Beach. Our heroine (and I use the term loosely) Mindy Xyloine is kidnapped, blindfolded and, forced to eat lentils. Inspired by Patty Hearst’s kidnapping in the 1970’s by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Poster Girl is a black comedy charting how one so-called airhead works the media and wields her sugar-coated power. Badham injects her trademark wicked humour into the world of a celebrity who is famous for nothing in particular, then dumped into the role of a modern-day revolutionary.

Shannon Dooley is stunning and perfectly primped as Mindy, the daughter of billionare Walter Xyloine (Laurence Coy). While she whines to her kidnappers for snapple, snickers, fanta, and especially a whopper, her kidnappers have their own issues to deal with. Called the Army of Revolutionary Struggle (ARS for short) they even have their own logo which they are currently rethinking. To us, the amused audience, the ARS symbol looks just like a hairy behind. Demanding free organic vegetables, they are far from believing themselves kidnappers. Put simply, the ARS considers Mindy a ‘relocated symbolic target.’ She is of course, consumerism personified.

Mindy, as she likes to reinforce, is an actor and knows just how to manipulate the situation to her superstar advantage. Of course, she also finds the means to create new fashion trends with her fatigues, beret and coyly placed gun. She does in fact turn out to be more trouble than she is worth to her abductors. One feels suicidal at her constant whining (played by the brilliantly tortured Simon Corfield), one coos and babies her (the hilarious Serene with a “head full of carrots” played by Lucinda Gleeson), one falls in love with her (the romantic anti-hero Leon, played by Andrew Lees) whilst the leader looks on exasperated at the disintegration of her team (stoic and slightly nutty Camilla, played by Marika Aubrey). Mindy also completely ‘re-brands’ ARS and teaches them the fine art of working the media. As the ARS spend more time making sure their processes of communication are adhered to than what exactly they plan to do with Mindy, this is situation comedy at its best.

Badham’s writing is deliciously feisty. She draws on contemporary culture at a cracking pace with a darkly barbed tongue. Indeed, some of the lines were so shockingly funny the audience was groaning and shaking their heads through their amusement. Her characters are raw and unapologetic, and each is more than willing to expose their many flaws to us. While Mindy stays perfectly media-friendly, those around her disintegrate and somehow expose themselves as morally rotting. Sam Haft as reporter Rob Brough, is consumed by his sexual flaccidity and coke addiction. His girlfriend Rowena, played by a grungy yet ethereal Susie Lindeman, is searching for sex as a base bargaining tool. We watch as Detective Larda, Fayassal Bazzi, loses all credibility as he descends into product placement during his televised police reports.

The pace of the Poster Girl only falters with some awkward transitions and filmed sequences. Laurence Coy’s video interludes as Mindy’s billionare father Walter, lag the pace with his slow American drawl. By all means these video cuts offer the superficiality of the world of Mindy, but surely this could have been performed live. The reason we go to the theatre is to see live performance, and I feel these detracted from the immediacy of the play. The sheer number of scene changes meant that transitions were frequent. Director James Beach marked each with a burst of Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera pop which matched Mindy’s perkiness, but again made for frequent interruptions to pace.

Mindy manages to convince us that being glamorous and talentless doesn’t mean you can’t have power. Poster Girl is fantastically wicked fun. On the outside it appears like sugar-coated fun, but you can trust Van Badham to bring home some wonderfully sordid laughs and lampoon the celebrity and media cultures we take part in everyday.