THE ILLUSIONISTS

Mad Men goes troppo …
A satirical scramble through the dog days of commercial colonialism in Asia.

Wane Sullivan was an insecure young advertising copywriter (aren’t they all!) – the golden-haired boy sent by head office to salvage a crucial account in the Far East. He was told to get out there and do what he does best – knock out a campaign to save the day.

Simple? He sure was.

With his head filled with classic tales of the mysterious Orient, he was counting on romance, adventure. The romance he found he could never have even imagined, and then the adventure quickly turned into tragedy.

In the end he couldn’t even save himself. Everyone said what happened to him was a shame. But they only said it for a minute.

Bitingly funny, rich in local colour, and with razor-sharp insights into the Machiavellian world of advertising, The Illusionists is a story about character, identity and displacement; about the dangers of ignorance and the loss of innocence; about isolation, temptation and destruction.

And it’s quite a bit about the perils of strange sex in a strange city.

It is also about advertising, which means tricky business, the pursuit of power and the whiff of corruption are never far away.