Dirty Wonderland
Devised by Frantic Assembly, scripted by Michael Wynne2005
Overview
Commissioned by Brighton Festival
First performed on 19th May 2005 at the Grand Ocean Hotel, Saltdean
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This was an extraordinary opportunity! Our original idea was to take over a small hotel or guest house and create a site specific show inspired by the escapism of dirty weekends.
Our co-producers, Brighton Festival, encouraged us to look at the Ocean View Hotel in Saltdean. It was huge!
We walked in and snooped around and got kicked out by the manager who told us there was no point being there as they were closing in a month.
Not only did this visit massively inspire the show (the last days of a hotel and the relief or denial of the people who worked there) but it also meant that we could go straight to the new developers who granted us full access to the place as they were not planning on beginning their renovation for a while! We were so lucky. Everything just fell into place!
Working on this kind of canvas is very rare. 40 people at a time were led through the show, taking them through ballrooms and bedrooms, barbaric kitchens and the world's saddest happy hour. All to the music of Goldfrapp.
This show was important to us as it demonstrated a desire to make shows on a large scale and an ability to make it work. It was also an extraordinary amount of fun.
