Buckle up for a ‘tale of chaos, revolution and the final days of the seaside’ at Front Room
By Caitlin Wills-Lower
From the minds of Weston-super-Mare-based theatre company, Me Monster, comes Nudgement Day, a brand new comedy show about a seaside town ‘standing up to levelling down.’
Hitting close to home? That’s because it is. The producers of Nudgement Day were inspired by the seaside town they all call home and the incessant need for the press and the public to bring it down.
“Look at the cities. Full of hopes, dreams, and shops. Now look at your town. Rundown. Deserted. Not like the good old days. It needs a good pep” reads a quote from the show’s blurb. The story follows a newly-elected MP for Weston-super-Mare, who finds herself unintentionally leading a plan to ‘nudge’ the entirety of Weston-super-Mare into the sea via bulldozer.
The initially bizarre idea for the show came to fruition after the group came across comments left on local Facebook groups expressing some quite outlandish proposals for the future of Weston-super-Mare.
“There’s this one guy who seems to comment on every single community Facebook page, and he always has a problem,” said Jess, producer of Nudgement Day. “So a big inspiration for us was a comment he made about bulldozing the whole town, and we were like let’s go with that.”
This left the group playing on the idea that if the powers that be actually listened to everything people posted online, they might end up getting a lot more than they bargained for. Like a bulldozed seaside town nudged right into the sea.
Aside from being a satirical piece of comedy, the subtext of the show urges its audience to look at the town they call home with a fresh set of eyes. After all, it can be all too easy to get sucked into the same old rhetoric, often fuelled by contradictory click-bait media.
“We found articles where one month a paper would be saying ‘Weston is so terrible, everyone hates it there’,”said Sophie, a member of Me Monster. “And then the next month it would say ‘Weston has been voted the top seaside town’ on the same website.”
How often have you read or heard negative things about Weston-super-Mare, or been told that nothing ever happens here, and felt yourself agreeing? It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, Jess says, “because that’s all people hear about Weston, that’s then how people think about Weston. People say nothing ever happens here but actually if you are looking for things to do, there’s so much going on here.”
Me Monster comprises performers and creatives who call Weston-super-Mare their home. It’s fitting then that the show will be hosted by Weston’s only fringe theatre venue, Front Room, where it will show 8th, 9th, and 14th to 16th March.
If you haven’t already checked out Front Room, it’s a definite must. Nestled between All Stars Sports Bowl and Cineworld, Front Room fills the space that was left by the closure of Pizza Express. It’s a home to local creativity, & brings year-round touring theatre right to the heart of Weston.
So take this as your nudge to grab tickets, and use your voice to share the wonderful things that do happen in Weston.
Images of Me Monster by ALeppard Photography