With 90s nostalgia popular after the Oasis reunion, Marc Burrows takes a deep dive into a much-maligned genre with his latest show…
Burrows brought The Britpop Hour to the 2025 Fringe, and it’s since been expanded with a ‘support act’ first half; this is prefaced with clips from his VHS collection with everything from MTV trailers, Shed Seven playing on Live and Kicking, and Chris Evans chatting to Blur’s Damon Albarn on the recently rebooted TGI Friday. Not all the clips have aged well, such as Gary Glitter presenting Top of the Pops!
Music as a source of comfort sits at the heart of the show; it’s helped Marc through difficult mental health periods, soundtracked early romantic adventures, and his relationship with his stepdaughter also steers into Britpop territory with her providing reviews of classic albums and even the artwork for the show’s ‘Three Wise Men’ of Britpop: Damon Albarn (described hilariously as ‘a sociology lecturer cosplaying as the Artful Dodger’), Liam Gallagher, and Jarvis Cocker.
There’s a few ‘deep cuts’ for hardcore indie fans but the material is mainly very accessible for those who didn’t live through the era as a teen (like the table of twenty-somethings making Marc feel old…) It’s by turns nerdy, funny, and joyful; we’re treated to a timeline of civilisation between the two important milestones- the birth of Christ and Taylor Swift’s Eras tour- and a chart classifying bands as Britpop depending on their styling being too slick or too bad. To illustrate Britpop borrowing heavily from the 60s/70s, Marc gets out his Union Jack guitar and expertly fuses Elastica with The Stranglers, Oasis with Bowie and so on. His research is exhaustive!
The genre emerges as frivolous nonsense (mostly the lyrics!) but also the antithesis to an insular, jingoistic attitude, with its hopeful optimism and sly dig at the foibles of British culture. A rousing singalong to Pulp’s Common People rounded off another excellent effort from Marc.
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The Britpop Show is touring UK-wide- visit Marc’s website for more info.