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It’ll Be Alt-Right On The Night
Pleasance Courtyard
31st July – 26th August (not 12th)
14.00 (60 mins)
Book Tickets
Returning to Edinburgh with a brand new show, Pleasance Theatre associate artists Wound Up Theatre, the team behind critically acclaimed Bismillah! an ISIS Tragicomedy, present the world premier of It’ll be Alt-Right on the Night. A story of extreme political polarism – social justice warriors and the rise of the farright – this new piece of comedic theatre explores the impact of our post-Trump political climate. It examines the experiences of disenfranchised working class men through the story of two Yorkshire scallies – best mates who find themselves on opposite sides of an impassable ideological divide, scored to live jazz renditions of punk rock classics.
Greeny and Stevo grew up punks – squats, dumpster-diving and PVA-glue-spiked hair. But they’ve changed. No, f*ck that, the world’s changed. One’s a soyboy, one’s a fascist, and, in a world of trigger warnings and snowflakes, conservatism is the new punk rock. With a jazz-punk score and a friendship ending in a Lidl carpark with a punch-up and accusations of Nazism.
Writer and performer Matthew Greenhough grew up in working-class Sheffield, not far from prominent alt-right vlogger Paul Joseph Watson, whose activist videos and contention that “conservatism is the new punk rock” have garnered a cult following. Greenhough and Watson both worked as a cleaner in the early 2010’s after the global financial crash left them with limited prospects and Greenhough, a diehard liberal, has many childhood friends who vocally support Tommy Robinson. Matthew asks: “How do two people who’s world views have been formed by such similar circumstances end up so politically different? What pushes people towards alt-right fascism – and towards being a liberal warrior? How different are we really? And are those differences insurmountable?”
Wound Up Theatre will also be producing Matthew Greenhough’s play Bismillah! An ISIS Tragicomedy (also directed by Jonny Kelly) at the Underbelly Cowgate.
