INDEPENDENT NEWS

Love in the Key of Britpop

Published: Thu 9 Jan 2014 12:55 PM
Love in the Key of Britpop
They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gave poet Emily Andersen a Britpop-related heartbreak, Emily made a Britpop-related heartbreak spoken word show.
Emily, who recently returned to her home town Melbourne after two years living out her indie pop and poetry dreams in the UK, is excited to be bringing Love in the Key of Britpop to a New Zealand audience as part of NZ Fringe Festival.
Love in the Key of Britpop debuted at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where the Scotsman described it as “A must-see for anyone who grew up in the 90s and enjoys playing ‘spot the lyrical reference’” and the BBC 6 Music Breakfast Show invited her on air to deliver the weekly Friday poem. In 2013, Emily performed the show at FRINGE WORLD Perth, Adelaide Fringe, Sydney Fringe and Melbourne Fringe.
Emily, a self-confessed Anglophile and British pop tragic, is keen to find out how a New Zealand audience receives her work. “I met heaps of Britpop and poetry fans in the UK and Australia doing this show, and had a beer and a music rave with quite a few in the bar afterwards, so I’m very much looking forward to meeting the indie kids of Wellington in February!”
Love in the Key of Britpop is a spoken word show telling the tale of young indie lovers experiencing a relationship through the prism of Britpop.
An anglophile Aussie girl meets her English Britpop prince in a Melbourne indie disco in the early hours of New Years Day 2006, and expects the couple to ride off happily into a 90’s sunset on matching vespas, waving union jacks and singing Girls and Boys all the way. But is singing along, hand on heart, to all the same favourite songs enough to sustain a relationship? Can any romance live up to the fantasies we create?
Emily performs a funny and poignant poetic narrative, set between Melbourne and London, exploring the place of music in relationships, and feminist conundrums and contradictions. This solo show is an ode to Britpop, nightclub romance, visa marriages, and anglophilic love.
**** “Andersen’s poetry has that magic ability to err between pithy one-liners and something more honest and bleak” Broadway Baby
“A must-see for anyone who grew up in the 90s and enjoys playing ‘spot the lyrical reference’” The Scotsman
Emily Andersen is an Australian poet who lives in Melbourne, and sometimes London, whose work is inspired by the themes of pop music, politics and place. Emily was mentored by the late, celebrated Australian poet Dorothy Porter between 2004 and 2005, and made her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in 2012 with her one-woman spoken word show Love in the Key of Britpop. She has performed her poetry on the BBC 6 Music breakfast show, as well as at spoken word events in the UK and Australia. Emily is such a British pop fangirl that her London flat is on the street where the video for the Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony was filmed.
www.loveinthekeyofbritpop.co.uk
@LoveKeyBritpop / facebook.com/britpoplove
LISTINGS INFORMATION – Love in the Key of Britpop at NZ Fringe Festival 2014
FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 1, 7:00pm (55 mins)
FRINGE BAR, 26-32 Allen St, Te Aro, Wellington, 6011
TICKETING: www.fringe.co.nz

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