Georgie Bailey is an award-winning writer and producer of ChewBoy Productions, and the writer of DJ Bazzer’s Year 6 Disco, which will open at Riverside Studios.
Starring Jack Sunderland and directed by Mike Cottrell, DJ Bazzer’s Year 6 Disco is a multi-award nominated multimedia, solo adventure.
DJ Bazzer’s Year 6 Disco by Georgie Bailey is at Riverside Studios 16th – 20th November 2021.
Your play DJ Bazzer’s Year 6 Disco, is coming to Riverside Studios, what can you tell us about the play?
DJ Bazzer’s Year 6 Disco follows Bazzer, the resident DJ of Brigdale primary school. Bazzer has longed to be a DJ, it’s all he’s ever wanted, but not in the capacity he’s working at the moment. He wants nothing more than to be orchestrating big raves, playing sets for the thousands and appeasing his childhood dreams. He’s getting ready for the Year 6 Disco tonight – the biggest gig of his year, when a familiar face crops up from the past, forcing Bazzer to recollect some buried trauma which is defining him as a person.
It’s a fun, heart-warming play about the things we choose to hold onto, with the audience at the centre playing games with Bazzer, being his judge and jury and ultimately, helping him to finish his story. It asks us who we are as individuals and what makes us the way we are, with a lot of laughs, fun and nostalgic-ridden bangers along the way!
What inspired you to write DJ Bazzer’s Year 6 Disco?
I was fascinated by this idea of who primary school DJ’s actually were. We knew them in the context of the discos, village hall parties etc. but what were their lives like outside of that world of kid’s birthdays? What drove them to this career path?
That was my starting point, and a period of (to be brutally honest) awful mental health and a toxic state of mind in comparing myself to other’s around me brought this story out incredibly quickly. I’ve always been interested in exploring new perspectives which are familiar but relatively unspoken on stage and considering an audience’s perception of character and what they can do in a performance space to make it interactive and fun, without being too invasive.
Why did you want to explore themes of anxiety in this particular way?
Anxiety is always something which I feel is relatively spoken about in vague or broad ways, and I wanted to explore my own anxieties about the world, about the creative industry and about my future in an interesting way.
I also wanted to analyse the relevant side of anxiety, thinking about those moments when we all try and get to sleep and begin to rabbit hole in our minds, and achieve this through comedic moments too.
I think as we grow as humans in today’s society, one of the most important things we need to hold onto is honesty and openness without judgement, and this is the main reason I wanted to explore the ideas and perceptions of anxiety in this way – to continue that conversation past the stage.
How big a role does music play in the production, and how have you incorporated it into the script?
The entire process from start to performance has been an incredibly collaborative and inclusive one. We worked with a sound designer right from the off which has been so valuable in putting the technical aspects at the forefront of the creation process.
I had an idea in my head of how sound would work as a secondary character when I originally sat down to write the piece and create an aural experience which layers the performance and embedded this into the script. However, without our team around me from the get-go before the script was even finished, it wouldn’t be even as close as it is now to a finished product with the layers of nuance it has. Sound is used in an incredibly interesting way in the piece, and I can’t wait for audiences to see how it’s used ranging from emotional weight to nostalgia.
What are you looking forward to most about Jack Sunderland’s performance?
Jack and I have worked together a great deal in our careers so far, starting with a short play at Theatre N16 many years ago. Jack is an incredibly honest, versatile, and exciting actor who brings so much life, energy, and dedication to every role he’s taken on. For me, I’m incredibly excited to see Jack deal with the emotional shifts in the play, and to see how much fun he’ll have playing Bazzer again. When we debuted the piece at the Golden Goose, Jack was commended heavily for his 110% performance as Bazzer, and I can’t wait to see how that’s developed and changed with his further understanding and life changes since then. Ultimately, I think Jack Sunderland is one of the most exciting, promising and one-to-watch actors in the industry right now.
What would you say to anyone thinking of coming to see DJ Bazzer’s Year 6 Disco?
If you want to laugh, cry, and reflect in the space of 10 minutes, this is the play for you. Come in with no expectations. Try to have no perceptions about what you might see. It’s a rollercoaster ride of thought and emotion with a brutally honest and raw story at its heart with a stellar performance at its core, created by the most brilliant team possible. Oh, and you’ll have a heck of a lot of fun. We’re fun people. I swear.
