Many of Britain's seaside resorts are crumbling shadows of their once highly prized selves. The Victorians and Edwardians revelled in the health- and pleasure-giving potential of these towns. You only have to look at the ornate architecture, the piers and the social spaces. Literally a world away from the grime and bustle of Britain's industrial cities. Margate was part of this English riviera – like Brighton, a place that attracted rich and poor alike and inspired generations of painters, poets and novelists Scratch the surface of memory in Margate and you encounter beautiful stories stretching out to us all the way from the early 20th century, two world wars, the 50s, 60s and 70s. The beginning of the Thatcher years of despondency saw a sharp decline in the town's sense of itself, lasting until more-or-less the present day. For many the last, sad reminder of the thrill and pleasure of living by the sea was the closing, dismantling and, recently, the burning of Dreamland, the once legendary seafront funfair. Recent visions of Margate in films, TV dramas and national newspaper stories detail a quality of life increasingly more down-at-heel, impoverished and lacking in aspiration. Advertising campaigns for holidays further abroad have made holidaying at home inconceivable to the idea of modern living. And the knock-on from this was to consign, in the popular imagination, the people who live and work in these places to a category of 'poor things', on the edge, in several senses of the word. Net Curtains Theatre Company has begun a collaboration with the recently reopened Theatre Royal Margate, to curate a theatre event around a series of new short plays on the theme of ‘Dreamland’. The existence in the popular memory of a place called Dreamland at a time when a community is discussing and devising its future is a theatrical goldmine. Net Curtains is developing three site-specific plays around this transition from the past to the exciting future. We aim to engage the residents in not just simply seeing the plays. They will vote which play they have enjoyed the most and think best represents Margate now. We will then develop that play into a full length production which we’ll take back to the Theatre Royal Since the launch of this 2008 project, the response from writers, directors and actors alike has been one of fascination and excitement. Three short plays are in their final drafts now, responding to Margate as it is, how it was and what it could be. Collaboration with the Theatre Royal will ensure that this not just a London-based theatre company making clichéd judgements about a town who’s had a negative run in the press about its decline, but a committed group of theatre investigators responding to a fascinating area. |