The Lesson

The Lesson presents a self-absorbed wedding DJ as the newest addition to Jessica Westhead’s trademark cast of offbeat protagonists. This posturing narrator is showing a new recruit the ropes, but what begins as a monologue full of blue-collar bravado grows more menacing over the course of the night. He becomes fixated on a female wedding guest—you know the type, spiky hair and feathers on her dress. As he dwells on the woman he feels is using dance-floor requests to “hijack” his song list, his true colours begin to show.