Revenge porn is a phrase we’ve heard in the news but what does it mean when someone is the victim of it and can that person assert some authority over the situation?

Those are the challenging themes explored in Clickbait, a darkly comic play which comes to Battersea’s Theatre503 from January 19 to February 13.

Playwright Milly Thomas – whose debut A First World Problem received rave reviews when it opened at the same theatre in July 2014 – said: “The decisions you read about in the news have an emotional knock-on affect for the people involved – we don’t get to read about that, really.

“The reality we know is people get shamed and that’s that. We don’t get to go any further than that.”

Clickbait does go further. The story follows Nicola, who is the unwitting star of a compromising video and posts it online herself in a bid to stop the footage being used against her.

It leads to a unique opportunity for her and her two sisters as the line between empowerment and exploitation becomes blurred.

Thomas said: “What I haven’t yet seen is the idea that you can capitalise on this, the idea that if that were to happen to someone, what are the steps that would potentially take back your control and the journey that would take you on?

“Every potential decision that could be made is like a sort of flow chart. There are just so many options that come off that decision.”

Thomas was initially inspired by a news article that stayed with her.

“The more I thought about it the less it became about that original article and the more it became about our attitudes to pornography, our attitudes to people who work in pornography and also the dialogue we’re having with women and women are having with each other about sex,” she said.

Clearly, art with this subject matter is likely to be provocative.

Thomas said: “I just want to get a dialogue going. I don’t have any answers. It is something that has preoccupied me for a long time that I would just love to open the floor up because there is no point having a conversation with yourself.”

And while most of us will not directly experience revenge porn, Clickbait does have elements that will ring a bell with everyone in the audience.

“The framework of this is about sisters,” said Thomas. “It is also a play about sisters and family and about how those family dynamics work when rocked to their very foundations. All our families do hilarious and infuriating things and families are the gift that keep on giving.”

Leading Clickbait’s cast is Georgia Groome, who credits include the lead in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. She has her work cut out.

Thomas said: “We auditioned for a long time for this.

“It is a tough ask when we follow someone right from the point of crisis and you watch them adapt to their environment.

“They evolve the way do as humans, but we don’t notice it. As an audience you can’t help notice them evolving because we condense a few years into a few hours.”

Clickbait is at Theatre503, above The Latchmere in Battersea Park Road, from January 19 to February 13. Tickets cost £15 or £12 or pay what you can on Sundays. Go to theatre503.com