From Cool Britannia to Culture Wars: Why Comedian Marc Burrows is Revisiting Britpop in Brand New Edinburgh Fringe Show

Thirty years after the Blur vs Oasis chart battle defined an era, award-winning comedian and music journalist Marc Burrows is back at the Edinburgh Fringe this year with The Britpop Hour – a sharp, silly, and unexpectedly poignant celebration of one of British music’s most iconic and chaotic movements. Equal parts love letter and send-up, the show dives deep into the culture, contradictions and nostalgia of 90s Britpop, from Knebworth to Cool Britannia. In this interview, Marc talks monoculture, music journalism, and why a generation’s obsession with parkas and pop might just hold the key to understanding modern Britain.

What inspired you to create The Britpop Hour now, 30 years after the Blur vs Oasis showdown?

Do you want the romantic answer or the cynical one? The wholesome answer is that, we need this. We’re living in an incredibly fractured era, one of constant division. It’s an absurdly combative culture, and that makes it depressing to live through. Britpop was the last cultural moment I can remember, outside of maybe the 2012 Olympics, that pulled our culture together. It was an era of optimism, confidence and shared moments. Thirty years on from its peak, it felt like something we needed to remember.

There’s a cynical answer as well, obviously. Oasis are touring this year and they’re playing the Edinburgh Fringe. It seemed like something was in the air. A good time to revisit this theme.

You’ve described the show as “equal parts love letter and send-up.” How do you strike that balance?

By describing it accurately! That’s the joy of Britpop. It was, equally, magnificent and absolutely ridiculous. You can talk about a sociological moment that celebrated outsider art and brought a sense of optimism to a pretty miserable era in youth culture, and at the same time you can quote literally anything that Liam Gallagher ever said and highlight the sheer ludicrous nature of the thing.

How did your background as a music journalist shape the structure and storytelling of the show?

What I got from the music journalism most of all was the depth of knowledge. I’ve learned to be forensic about pop records, I’ve learned to do my research, I know a lot, when you get down to the fundamentals. It gave me real context to tell this story. It gives it depth. The structure and the storytelling, though, came more from my experience as a stand up. I learned a lot from my previous show, The Magic of Terry Pratchett, which is a very different subject matter on the surface, but is a story told in a similar style. One thing I learned from Terry himself, actually, is that the best stories are always about something else, below the surface. The previous show was about an author, true, but it was really about the enduring power of storytelling. This one is about music and 90s bands, obviously, but below that it’s about growing up, it’s about how the art we love when we’re 16 shapes who we are. 

Britpop wasn't just music - it was fashion, politics, chaos. How does your show reflect that bigger cultural picture?

That’s the most interesting element to me. Because you can’t understand Britpop without understanding the wider cultural moment; Britpop exists in this weird bubble in British and global culture, between the end of the Cold War and the Millenium, which brings with it online discourse, the war on terror, all of those sources of division. The 90s, in Britain especially, gave young people this bubble of freedom from those existential threats that allowed a more weightless, confident, optimistic culture to thrive. I try and explore that in the show — where “Cool Brittania” came from, and why it could only happen then.

What’s the most surprising thing you uncovered while revisiting this era?

Honestly, how different it feels. How much the world has changed in those 30 years. The way we consume music, the way we engage with celebrity, the pace of change … it was much easier to exist in a form of monoculture then. To have a moment like Knebworth, when it felt the whole country was focussed on two nights in the grounds of a stately home in Hertfordshire. Two and a half million people tried to get tickets. That’s, essentially, every 15-19 year old in the country. The day after the first of Oasis Knebworth show the Sunday Mirror gives the entire cover to the gig. As if there is literally no other news. The Blur/Oasis chart battle was on the Six O’Clock news as a lead item. For singles released by indie bands!

Why do you think Britpop continues to hold such nostalgia and cultural weight today?

There’s an obvious answer about nostalgia here. Nostalgia moves in 30-year-cycles. One of the biggest bands of 1995 wasn’t Blur or Pulp, it was The Beatles. That was the year of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Anthology’. We were looking back to a perceived golden era. There was a 70s rock and punk throwback movement in the 2000s, an 80s feel to the 2010s … it was the 90s turn. Those of us in our teens at the time are in our 40s now. Of course we’re looking back. 

But there’s more to it than that. I’ve touched on this already, but honestly, I think people feel a need to reconnect with that time because of those moments of cultural unity, of solidarity. There was an optimism to the mid 90s … the Thatcher era was finally over, the Tories were finally on their way out, New Labour had yet to become a disappointment. Emerging from the 80s and early 90s, the recessions, unemployment, riots, into this period where it actually felt okay to channel and celebrate the best of what Britain could be, and it didn’t feel parochial or small, it didn’t have the restrictive, tiny-brained feel of Brexit. It was joyous and celebratory and cool. Looking back from the era of culture wars and discourse, from an era of such toxic conversation … that’s always going to appeal. 

What do you hope audience members unfamiliar with the 90s scene take away from the show?

Hopefully that this is more than simply nostalgia. That we can examine and celebrate that era and see it for what it is, including the uncomfortable parts. I hope they come away understanding the how and why of Britpop, not just the when and what. And mostly I want them to come away humming ‘Common People’.

The Britpop Hour will be performed at 6.10pm in Underbelly Bristo Square (Dairy Room) from 30th July – 25th August (not 11th)

For tickets and more information, visit: https://underbellyedinburgh.co.uk/event/the-britpop-hour