Carry On Jaywick
To record over 500 hours of conversations, and then edit those down to produce a script for a one hour show is a huge responsibility. To deliver a performance that is at once sympathetic, honest, and thought provoking, and also entertaining, is also a real challenge. Full marks, therefore to writer Dan Murphy, and to director Hannah Joss and the cast of Carry On Jaywick for a beautifully assembled and poignant tribute to the people of this recently maligned Essex coastal community (In 2010 Jaywick was described by BBC News as 'the most deprived place in England'. Five years later it became the subject of a Channel 5 'reality' series, Benefits by the Sea).
Using four actors and a recorded delivery system (edited recordings are silently fed through wireless headphones to the cast, and are then simultaneously and accurately verbalised to the audience, complete with any coughs, stutters or non sequiturs), we are transported to present day Jaywick, a community of disparate characters with differing priorities and overlapping concerns. Many feel isolated and forgotten, either by the local council or by government policy, or by both (Until recently Douglas Carswell, the first elected UKIP Member of Parliament, represented Jaywick). Some residents claim that the beginning of Jaywick's decline can be traced back to 1983, when Butlin's closed the 6,000 bed holiday complex that straddled the coastline right the way back to Clacton-On-Sea. Others that have moved here more recently, displaced from the larger towns and cities by cheap rents or a desire to escape their past, talk of isolation, boredom and of dilapidation.
Today, Jaywick still has a seawall and promenade, and possesses a lovely beach. But behind that seawall lies a rag-tag assortment of freehold properties, in some cases dating back to original weekend homes erected on plots purchased from landowner Frank Stedman in 1928. Some properties remain as holiday cottages, but many have become private lets, whose tenants sit cheek by jowl with retired couples and a new wave of property pioneers.
And all of these people feature in the words that emerge via the mouths of Georgia Brown, Laura Cunnick, Clive Keene and Matthew Wernham during Kuleshov Theatre's ground-breaking production. At times they seem dangerously familiar characters, like unwitting inspirers of situation comedies like Gavin and Stacey, or observational sketches brought to life by Catherine Tate or Julie Walters. But these are the real words and thoughts of real people, sensitively replicated and represented with an integrity and affection that is genuine and heart-felt. And as an audience we respect that, and totally buy into it.
During the course of the performance we become privy to the development of Jaywick's Got Talent, a community talent show championed by an enthusiastic individual whose 'Shine On!' mantra eventually becomes a clarion call to the entire village.
And it is with the realisation of Jaywick's Got Talent that Carry On Jaywick bows out, the strains of Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond seeming to at once acknowledge Jaywick's past, present, and potential future. The performance opened to Summer Holiday (Cliff Richard's first ever professional appearance was at Butlin's in Clacton-on-Sea), and later featured John Holt's version of the Gladys Knight song Help Me Make It Through The Night. Perhaps Jaywick's period of darkness is now coming to an end, and its future can be bright after all.
