A humorous and thoughtful look back at the rave scene of the late 80s from the viewpoint of someone who lived it and now wonders if life has perhaps become a little too mundane.Rating
Excellent
Can you believe there was a time when we didn’t have mobile phones or the internet? No instant messaging to arrange a night out with your mates. Instead, you had to use the landline and hope someone was home! It also meant getting to an illegal rave, a scene that thrived during the late 80s, involved a lot of planning, locations spread by word of mouth or secret messages left for people to follow. If you wanted to go you really had to know someone who knew someone!
It’s this era of illegal raves that Louise finds herself reminiscing about as she approaches 50, when the most exciting thing now seems to be the weekly rave/exercise class. It’s brought on because her daughter is revising for a test about the perils of drugs. Because yes, raves and drugs went hand in hand as Louise knows only too well. As she recollects, we travel back to her younger life and she recounts her adventures, lamenting the loss of the fun times, wondering when her life became so mundane and respectable.
Second Summer of Love will strike a chord with anyone who lived through that era. It’s clear that much of the audience at Drayton arms Theatre did, the laughter that of people who realise how true to life something is. But even those too young to have been there aren’t left out of the fun, because as much as it’s a show about that moment in time, it’s also about being young and thinking life will always be like this; wild, adventurous, daring – having a belief that we will never grow old and boring like the generation preceding ours. Because surely our time as young adults was the greatest it’s ever been or ever will be! Admit it, we’ve all said that at some time or other.
The flashbacks take us back to the raves; the sound and music brilliantly helping in building the picture. A scene involving driving to find an illegal rave sees writer and performer Emmy Happisburgh take on all four car passengers to great results. She hops from one to another, passing the spliff between her characters as they hunt out the location. It’s a humour that shines throughout.
Happisburgh’s Louise is a bundle of contradictions, striving to warn her daughter of the dangers of drugs whilst admitting her drug taking years were the best of her life. She is a middle-aged woman struggling to acknowledge she is no longer the carefree youth she imagines herself to be. Her outfit alone speaks volumes; a full body psychedelic-print leotard that conventionally no ‘self-respecting woman’ should ever wear – something her daughter highlights when enquiring if she plans to be seen in public like that. There’s wonderful interplay between mum and daughter throughout, Rosa Strudwick’s surly teen Molly making clear her embarrassment and bringing her own level of humour to proceedings.
Importantly, Happisburgh’s depiction of drug taking isn’t all rose-tinted. Louise demonstrates the euphoria the raves and drugs delivered, the connectivity and feeling of belonging for those who often felt marginalised, but there is a balance; Christopher Freestone’s Brian, who has struggled in his adult life, being one of them. Happisburgh seemingly doesn’t want to preach about drug taking, more lay out that there are dangers involved.
What Second Summer of Love really does is reminds us that being young and carefree is an exciting part of life, but getting older doesn’t means we stop living: we just live differently. We all do love to hark back to how great our youth was, but might just remember not to do so at the cost of enjoying what we have today as well.
Written by Emmy Happisburgh
DIrected by Scott Le Crass
Lighting design by Nell Golledge
Produced by Emmy Happisburgh and Lucy Wylie
Second Summer of Love has completed its run at Drayton Arms Theatre. It will next play at The Alma, Bristol on 12 and 13 September, and then Cranleigh Arts on 4 October.
