It’ll Be Alt-Right on the Night is about two lads, Greeny and Stevo who grew up punks – think squats, dumpster-diving and PVA-glue-spiked hair. They take us on a journey through their friendship, from childhood to their adult lives and are as close as can be until their twenties, when they change… or the world changes, they’re not quite sure which.
By age 28 one’s a “soyboy”, the other’s a “fascist”, and, in a world of trigger warnings and snowflakes, conservatism is the new punk rock.
“This is a story of social justice warriors and the far-right stuck on different sides of a seemingly impassable ideological divide. But can their friendship survive? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Are they stupid? Are they caught in a tide of unstoppable and destructive political populism or just a couple of knobheads?” asks writer and performer Matthew Greenhough.
The initial idea for the show was sparked when Matthew was reading an article about an ‘Alt-Right’ YouTuber, a huge figure in the ‘New Right’ community.
“I couldn’t believe that someone with such a similar background to me could have developed such polar opposite views to me,” he says.
“It seemed bonkers, so I started watching his videos to try and work him out, and found him fascinating, strangely charismatic, occasionally funny, and completely ideologically opposed to me in almost every way.
“Then I discovered he had made a video called: “Conservatism is the new punk rock, deal with it” and we were off!
The result is Wound Up Theatre’s It’ll Be Alt-Right on the Night. So what to expect?
“In this time of ever-widening political polarisation, we wanted to explore where the palpable anger is coming from, what’s fuelling it, and what lies behind such strong opinions in 240 characters on Twitter,” Matt adds.
“What’s the reality behind the stereotype of the ‘Social Justice Warriors’ and the ‘Alt-Right’?
So Wound Up Theatre is doing it with honesty, nuance, impartiality, live jazz renditions of seminal punk songs and some top quality jokes.
Wound Up Theatre’s It’ll Be Alt-Right On The Night is at OFS on Friday 21.
http://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/itll-be-alt-right-on-the-night/
