We piece together fragments. Distorted voice notes, the depths of the comments section and snatches of conversation make up Pip Williams’s lithe little nightmare. Unpacking the internet and the violence it plays host to, Guidelines follows the aftermath of a murder, filmed on a phone, as its impact ricochets outwards in real life and on our screens.
James Nash’s clean direction immediately unsettles. Rachel-Leah Hosker and Alex McCauley flit between reeling off community guidelines for social media with fierce fixed smiles, and playing a pair of teens unable to escape the story of the girl who was murdered in the woods. Patch Middleton’s sound design sustains tension from the start, with a thundering message from a worried mother mutating into an ominous threat.
The production echoes the act of doomscrolling. Shattered text, sometimes over-reliant on lists, loops and jumps, like our short attention spans provoking us to consume one more slice of horror between clips of cats and silly dances. Parents and teachers flail for the right words to console and protect, while the guidelines select only the phrases that cover their own backs.
The script is deliberately vague. We get specific details of gore, but names and character specifics are absent. Roaming in the context-less world that makes up much of our interaction online, it hints at a universality of the dangers of social media combined with the cruelty of teenage girls, but the lack of specificity holds the emotion of the story we’re told at a distance. A period coda jolts the play into the safety of satire, but the strength of this production is in its effort to capture the spiraling feeling of watching horror play out online, questioning our capacity to consume and be consumed by violence.
• At New Diorama theatre, London, until 14 February.
• This article was amended on 10 February 2026. Pip Williams is the writer of Guidelines and James Nash is its director, rather than the other way around as a previous version incorrectly said.
