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Tucked at the back of Hope Street’s swankiest bar at Frederiks, a miniature theatre was set up and lit by fairy lights making it to be a stereotypical hipster hideout which really fit the bill for Alex Ferguson’s In the Millennial Dome.
For two nights only, Alex and his accomplice Geraint Williams, who is also an actor, wanted to showcase a preview of their theatrical story before heading over to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August.
The Liverpool-based poet and writer channelled his creativity to produce a comedic hour that looked at a 20-something’s constant battle with indecision and getting the best out of life.
Alex, who is currently a business manager for MATE Productions, said: “What I thought I was writing was quite annoying as it was from the same middle-class-liberal perspective, so I wanted to mock myself in a sense and that is where the idea came from for the show.”
Based on some episodes of Alex and Geraint’s lives, this is how the story took place…
In a bar somewhere in a trendy part of London that you’ve probably never heard of, Tim and George, two classic 20-something Millennials, consider their futures. Tim, a poet who seems to have his life on track, helps George play through hypothetical possibility of life in the Millennial Dome. It promises to provide comedy and intrigue, but also highlights the issues facing an internet generation given a lot of choice without direction.
Writing from the perspective of a millennial as a millennial really enabled both Alex and Geraint to create a comical and poetic spectacle of hurdles that 21st century 20-something’s experience in their lives.
Alex said: “I love the idea that anyone can do poetry, and there is no poetry that is bad—there are just different styles and that is what I love.”
Mocking Facebook and social media, celebrating Jeremy Corbyn, and getting ripped at the gym were just some modern rites of passage that were mocked.
Spectator Scarlett Warrington, who is a drama student at the University of Birmingham, said: “The simplicity of the setting of two chairs and a coathanger, and the use of props to change the scene setting were very clever.
The microphone that was used as a point of poetry, yet it was not switched on, really added to it.”
In the hope of becoming a producer or a professional playwright, Alex wants In the Millennial Dome to have more exposure by performing in smaller spaces at local theatres and to look into bringing more actors in.
Geraint, who will be starting at Oxford School of Drama this September, said: “It would be a shame to let it fizzle out and disappear, as Alex does do a lot of poetry.
We are proud of what we have created, and we still see people now who are connected with it, with the stories that are told throughout.
We thought that we could take the negative connotations of the word millennial and allow people to see it from our point of view that it has its problems as well as its privileges.”
To keep up to date with Alex and Geraint on their journey to Edinburgh this summer, you can head over to their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/InTheMillennialDome.