Original Interview: The Reviews Hub
Education, Education, Education: then, a nineties political mantra, now a nostalgia-fest of nineties music, Tamagotchis, and timely political poignancy in a riotously funny and reflective piece of theatre from the Bristol-based Wardrobe Ensemble. Putting politics in the comprehensive, the play is a charming charge through the hopeful optimism of teachers and children alike in the aftermath of Tony Blair’s election, as well as the changes and truths that only came with time and perspective in the twenty years that have passed. Company member Jesse Meadows talks politics, the creative process, and 90s musical jams.
The play is the perfect mix of 90s nostalgia, political poignancy, and feel-good fun, so what’s it like to perform night after night? ‘It’s as important to us that people have a good time and a good night out at the theatre! Those points that we’re hitting that make people go, ‘oh God!’, those poignant moments, we can reach people through the funny, and through making them laugh.’
It’s also a period piece, and one that’s ‘very much set in the nineties and that’s very fun to play with.’ With everything from Cool Britannia to Britpop, Tamagotchis to Take That, ‘all the references we make are funny now because they’re set in this world of fake nostalgia’, and it’s fun to ‘take people on that memory journey with us’. And twenty years is lifetime in politics and pop culture. ‘We thought a lot about 1997. We were really interested in the hope and positivity, the promise and excitement’ of its politics, and there are representations of that in the play: ‘we put up Union Jack flags everywhere because that was really ‘in’, just think of Geri in the Union Jack dress! But now, you put Union Jacks up and people cringe. Pride for your country has just totally flipped. It feels like a divided country now, whereas then it felt like coming together.’
While politics polarise, pop culture has the power to unite: in the words of hapless headteacher Hugh, in light of the election the teachers must remain politically impartial in all classes, but, ‘we did win Eurovision, so talk about that as much as you wish’, and it’s something Jesse echoes, as ‘things like winning the Eurovision Song Contest, these are the things that unite us as a country’.
This playful approach to politics is also found in their creative process, despite the divisive events that were going on whilst devising Education, Education, Education. Continue reading “Politics, the Creative Process, and 90s Musical Jams: An Interview with Jesse Meadows from the Wardrobe Ensemble”
