A fame-hungry supermarket cashier is selected to star in an extreme one-man reality where the lines between entertainment and sadism are blurred and a narcissistic television host will do anything to hold on to ratings. 

SYNOPSIS:

Inspired by the exploration of suffering for entertainment by performance artist Marina Abramovic in her 1974 piece ‘Rhythm 0’, and based on the extreme 90’s Japanese reality TV show ‘Susunu! Denpa Shōnen’, THE JOHN DOE SHOW examines society’s thirst for suffering as a form of entertainment and the immoral exploitation of contestants on reality TV shows, where 36 ex contestants have committed suicide around the world. Stylistically, it is the high-powered game show of The Running Man meets the humanistic poignant voyeurism of The Truman Show.

Famous people are modern Gods who have everything - followers, wealth, power, reverence. Congregations of adoring fans worship their every word and flamboyant national treasures, like TV host DALE DOZIER, are the hyper-glossed pinnacles of success, giving these stars their platform.

For MALCOLM MORRIS (32), he remains a fly on the wall of life. Working in a tiny supermarket in the remote rural town of Llangollen in North Wales, he lives with his simple parents and blends into the monotonous grey of existence, yearning for stardom and acknowledgement. The only person that acknowledges he’s alive is fellow cashier, EVE, who only wishes Malcolm would notice her.

When Malcolm tries to create a viral video of himself running across the A5 dressed as a chicken, his arrest and brief appearance in the news brings him to the attention of ROSE, a London TV producer part of a Network on its last legs from terrible ratings. Seeing his desperation for fame, she invites Malcolm to be the star of a new extreme reality TV show which they hope will save the Network - The John Doe Show - promising to “Make someone, Someone!” by living in isolation and completing gruesome challenges to win prizes for the nation.

The show’s host, Dale Dozier, along with Rose and the rag-tag producers, all hell-bent on increasing the Network’s ratings, churn out gruelling challenges for Malcolm to perform each week on national TV as Eve and Malcolm’s parents watch on helplessly from their sofas - he is now famous for eating a tray of soft-boiled foetal ducks without vomiting and standing up for 24 hours. Rose is sent to interview Eve and Malcolm’s parents, who all plead for the show to be cancelled, forcing Rose to question the morality behind Dale and the network.

When Malcolm requests to leave the show, Dale and the Network must find a way to keep him on. They broadcast the interviews with his parents and Eve, but the interviews are “deepfakes" and make out that they’re proud of his performance. Infuriated by this, Rose vows to help Malcolm. In a twist to keep him on, Dale and the producers decide to hand direct control over to the general public to decide what challenges Malcolm should do. Malcolm cannot deny his adoring public and challenges bordering on torture and sadism flood through on live TV.

Rose disrupts the show and airs the real interviews for Malcolm and the nation to see. For the first time, Malcolm sees Eve and his parents as enough. He has decided his 15 minutes of fame ends now. He conquers his grand ambitions of fame by confronting Dale and the Network live on television and smashes down the walls of the studio apartment, only to find himself in an empty TV studio, with no TV audience and walks out, ready to rejoin his previous life.