Alumnus Alex debuts his first play, Trippin

Next week, graduate Alex Canwell  (Music Production BA(Hons) 2011), debuts his inaugural play at the Printers Playhouse in Eastbourne (4–6 May). Alex tells us about more about the play and what inspired him to write it.

My years at the University of Brighton were a vibrant snakebite and alcopop-sodden affair. I arrived from an existence of punk squats at age 19, alive with cheap drugs and the loud sounds in London to do a BA in Music Production.

I never thought I’d write a play. Yet here I am, sat in Spoons besides the remnants of my veggie breakfast, tasked with getting you, my University of Brighton comrades to come and see it.

Trippin is a darkly funny play about Dennis, a weekend warrior who feels lost. Alone in the busy bustling city, chomping drugs to escape the pressure of the expectations placed on him by himself and others, he happens across a mysterious new drug called 2CR-100. This catapults him into the trip of a lifetime where he is found by a sexy fairy who takes him on a quest to find the mystical and elusive ‘key to all doors’. On the way, he bumps into a crazy old bug lady, a Spanish drug dealer and Satan among other comic (and not so comic) characters.

The play faces exactly what it means to live life meeting up to expectations. It explores what it is to be happy in this constantly buzzing society we reside within, where we all communicate instantly over screens but can sometimes forget to express how we really feel about things. It looks at how our culture shapes who we think we have to be whilst at the same time trying to answer how us adults can become childlike and free once more. Because one thing is for certain, we were all born and we will all die, so we may as well enjoy our time here right?

Come and see Trippin, I guarantee it will be an experience you will not forget in a hurry.

Alex has this advice for students: “Everything you have learnt or are going to learn during your time at university will play the part it needs to on your journey, I promise you that. I have applied the skills I learnt across everything I do, just because what you train in has a title as one thing, does not mean it is not applicable to something else. Nothing is ever wasted.”

View the promotional video for Trippin here.

University of Brighton students and alumni get tickets for £6.50 here.