Emmy Happisburgh trained at the Poor School and Guildford School of Acting. Her debut play Second of Summer of Love, about 90s rave culture, parenthood and coming of age, is following on from a successful Edinburgh Fringe run with a UK tour, stoppping at the Alma Tavern on the 12th and 13th September. Tickets here.

What did you want to get across about rave culture, particularly how it was in the 90s, in the show? It can feel like a more niche part of the nightlife most people don’t tend to encounter.

When the rave movement first started in the UK, it was called “the Second Summer of Love” between 1988-90. It wasn’t one summer at all but a subculture and, some would argue, a political movement against Thatcherism’s ‘Winter of Discontent.’ A movement against the status quo, against the greed and individualism promoted by the Tory government and the yuppie lifestyle. Most of us didn’t view it as a protest but with hindsight that’s very much part of what it was; our last great youth movement rebelling against the establishment. Young people creating these exciting, secret, unified communities, meeting in large groups, to dance to this new music which had come initially from Chicago and Detroit and then from Europe, listening to DJs beat-matching as they mixed on vinyl and yes, ecstasy was the dancing drug of choice it’s hard not to talk about rave culture without discussing that too. 

The Summer of Love – 1969 – had been the peace and love movement of the hippies – and this ethos, this openness, was present in early rave culture – hence the ‘Second’ Summer of Love. It’s still the motto of early ravers, PLUR – peace, love, unity and respect. It may sound cheesy and naive now but at the time it felt magnificent like we’d found a new way to live in ‘Sweet Harmony.’

How did you come to writing? And how did your experience as an actor in other work inform it?

I studied playwriting as part of my Theatre degree and I guess I had used it a little in my teaching job – I used to teach drama at a boys’ junior school and at a Saturday acting class for kids and teens and we’d put on shows. I remembered when I was that age school casting could be really unfair with only a couple of main parts and the rest in the chorus, so I started writing scenes to give every kid a chance to shine to their best ability. It almost killed me but I made it a personal mission! So I guess I found out I could write for the stage there. As an actor I knew what worked on stage from the ‘inside’ of a show if that makes sense? I think actors come to writing with an innate stage craft; I hope that shows in my play.

I had never thought about writing for myself until I got to my forties. I felt compelled to weave my experiences of the early rave scene into a stage show along with my thoughts on reaching mid-life. I guess it was my way of processing leaving my youth behind. I also wanted the scene represented accurately. Early on rave was a gentle, magical movement. Many filmic representations focus on the gangsters or the hedonism getting out of control but my experience was pretty wholesome; coming of age in fields at a very lucky time. I probably also needed to process the not so wholesome part; my drug use. I have been ‘clean’ for twenty five years now but in my early twenties I had several friends who ‘made it’ as performers.  I clearly remember one of them turning to me in our late teens and saying after a party, “I’m not going to take drugs anymore! It’s so boring!” They left and went back to their house to write songs. She rarely partied with us after that. That person became a superstar a few years later. I often wonder if I had followed her example would I have ‘made it’ as a youngster like she did? Or, as there are so many talented people, would I still be where I am now? Did it hinder my potential as much as I liked to believe it did? These are all questions I try to answer for myself in the play. I guess it was something of a healing experience to write it.

You worked on the show for a long time before bringing it to the Fringe and now on tour. How has your relationship to it changed, especially given the expansion of the cast to include your daughter and your experience of chronic illness?

That’s such a good question and very layered. I think when you develop the same material over time some parts cease to resonate and you have to find ways to reconnect to them. Other parts can feel like putting on a comfortable cardigan and the text has more depth than it originally did. The words seep into your bones so you can really live it for your audience. In different societal contexts different themes shine. At the moment the theme of unity and inclusivity seems to resonate because of the polarity we are experiencing in society.

I originally wrote this show for my 46 year-old body – and I realise now that was probably partly so I could show off my ridiculous old-school rave moves and physical theatre ability! I’m now 51 which means warming up for a lot longer but I still go as hard in the show with the quick character changes, dancing and physical theatre element. Since I wrote the show I have been diagnosed with M.E. which started to rear its head in Edinburgh at the fringe. Bringing two more actors on board to play the other two focal characters has helped take the physical pressure off me. I have thirty-nine minutes of solo work which is enough for both myself and the audience. Bringing other actors on gives the show a different texture with naturalism acting. It grounds it. 

These characters are there on the present evening – which is set in 2023 – everything else is Louise’s (my character’s) memory, be it of the previous week or further back in the early 1990s, she takes the audience with her to try to work out why she is unravelling. So the solo show element has become a theatrical device for going back in time.

Then at the end of the play we come back to the present evening again. It’s not just a theatrical device but also a necessary one because of my health. It means I can continue to share my solo work without pushing myself to hold the stage alone for an hour. I’ve done that in Edinburgh and it was a great experience for me theatrically but health-wise it was not very clever. Being onstage with Chris (who is the husband of one of my dearest friends from my teens) has been a treat – he’s fairly new to acting and has thrown himself into this experience whole heartedly. Being on stage with my daughter is not just a career highlight but a life highlight. She is brilliant, in another league to my ability at her age, and the part was more or less written for her. It’s been a great way to spend the summer before she heads off to LIPA to study performance and song writing.

What advice would you give to writers and artists who are trying to create a piece of work based on their own experiences? Did you have to seperate it from your own life at a certain point to observe and judge it objectively?

Go back and read old diaries, letters, look at photographs and videos of your experiences. For me listening to playlists of the era transported me back to that time. Then write morning pages. I would write a stream of consciousness by hand every morning in bed for at least half an hour as soon as I woke up. This was non-negotiable. My husband thought I was going crazy. Most of it was rubbish but I did this for a couple of months and then I went back through it all and, with a highlighter, I circled parts that interested me. Then I sat at a computer to type scenes up. Real life events wove themselves into fictional stories. Real life memories of people amalgamated into new fictional characters.

I didn’t consciously separate it from my own life, it did that on its own because I realised what I wanted to say was more important than my own experience. I wanted to say that just because you reach mid-life it doesn’t need to be boring – you can still be creative, dynamic and energetic. I wanted to reassure younger people that letting go of their youth (when the time came) and accepting mid life does not mean that you are irrelevant as we have been led to believe by the cliches about middle age. I also wanted to reach out to my generation – we invented raving and clubbing – and to represent the scene and all its idiosyncrasies authentically so that it would resonate fully with them, they would feel seen as well as it contributing to the record of early rave culture for the younger generation as I think they find the ‘history’ interesting. I wanted to find a more honest approach to talking about recreational drug use with teens – although I would like to add that the way Louise talks to her daughter about ecstasy is definitely not parenting I have modelled in my own life, but it is funny when staged. 

In this way I would advise writers to ‘take things to extremes’ for example, a person you might quite fancy becomes ‘the love of my life.’ A great night out becomes ‘the best night of my life.’ This raises the stakes and takes the audience on more of a rollercoaster ride with you. 

What I have ended up with is not my story at all but another person’s completely. There are elements of me in all the characters but the one I am most similar to now is probably Brian which I think would be a surprise for most of the people who watch the show.