NEVER mind the lockdown, here comes Oxy, a night of Alarming virtual theatre on Saturday night, presented live on Facebook by musician Mike and Jules Peters.
This “life-saving New Wave musical”, co-written by The Alarm frontman, Steve Allan Jones and Paul Sirett, will be streamed from 7pm as part of the weekly Big Night In With The Alarm broadcast at facebook.com/theofficialalarm.
“Turn your home into a theatre for the night,” comes the invitation. “Get dressed up, prepare the pre-show dinner and chill the drinks for the interval. Play the music loud and pogo along from the best seats in the house – your front room – and help save lives.”
The Big Night In broadcast also will feature live interviews with cast members, writers and production staff and the chance to join in the live commentary and interact with theatre and music fans from all over the world.
In Oxy, when a routine check-up leads to a startling diagnosis, Andy decides this is the time to put the band back together, to crank up the amps and party like it’s 1978!
Why not re-form the legendary Oxy & The Morons, who burned fiercely before exploding in a riot of rivalry, jealousy and bitter betrayal?
Andy’s mission involves twisting arms, healing wounds and putting his family and friendships back together, but can that New Wave spirit of DIY defiance be rekindled more thirty years later? Will they play their trademark version of It’s Not Unusual as an encore? Can you still pogo when your knees go?
Driven by a machine-gun playlist of a dozen new Peters and Jones songs and a powerful message, Oxy’s affectionate look-back at the days of teen spirit suggests “we could all do with some of that garage band power right now”.
The life-affirming theme of Peters, Jones and Sirett’s fast, furious and funny musical helped to save someone’s life during its first production run at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich.
Now, Peters and co hope the online premiere during the Coronavirus lockdown “might just save even more lives”. Through Mike and Jules Peters’ association with the cancer charities Love Hope Strength and DKMS, an online bone-marrow donor drive will be taking place throughout the evening.
Recorded on film by All Media Works, Saturday’s online premiere features a cast of Robbie Jarvis, Janet Fullerlove, Sean Kingsley, David Rubin, Mark Newnham, Matthew Durkan, Molly Grace Cutler, Adam Langstaff and John Hasler, directed by Peter Rowe.
The Big Night In With The Alarm has been broadcasting throughout the lockdown, attracting 100,000 viewers each week.