00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Really lovely
00:06to speak to On The Nose Productions. Now, On The Nose Productions, formed at the University
00:11of Chichester, now part of the Artist Development Programme at Chichester's Festival Theatre,
00:15you are bringing to the new venue, the Nest, Manifest of Boy Band. So, Holly, tell us how
00:22the whole group started together. You got together in your third year, didn't you?
00:25Yes. So, we got together in our third year at the University of Chichester and we all
00:30met on the acting programme. And in that third year, we were tasked with sort of one of the
00:38modules was making a 60-minute length show. And so, we all came together and we did that
00:45show and it was a musical and we kind of found our niche and I had lots of fun. We took the
00:52show to Brighton Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe and that was very fun as well. And we thought,
00:57oh, we could keep doing this. This is exciting stuff. And so, we graduated and then we had
01:05an idea for a show about boy bands. And we thought, this could be really cool and something
01:12different that hasn't really been sort of seen before on stage. And so, yeah, we came
01:19up with the idea, wanting to explore toxic masculinity through boy bands. And then we
01:24saw the Master's Development programme.
01:27Well, it sounds great. But maybe, Emily, you could tell us a little bit more what you
01:31are saying about boy bands here.
01:33Yeah, well...
01:35Because you see dangers in them, don't you?
01:38Yeah, there's a lot. Yeah, I suppose, you think four girls playing a boy band, that's
01:43very different, like a very niche topic. And I think what is important for us is that it's
01:52about the boy bands because that's what kind of, in a way, brings us together. Like, we
01:57all kind of had an experience of boy band culture through being the girls, watching these boy bands
02:03and kind of putting them on a pedestal, yeah. And being like, wow, these are cool dudes.
02:10But, you know, like, now we want to be the cool dudes. And, yeah, just kind of seeing what
02:16kind of that process allowed us to, how that allowed us to grow as a company as well. I
02:23think it's, like, just an interesting thing in itself. And as, like, as you were saying
02:29about, yeah, the boy band being, like, a kind of, uh, very, yeah, interesting, like,
02:36dangerous, uh, uh, kind of group of people because, in a way, they, they're a manufactured
02:45product. And that's what we're saying with the show.
02:48And Maddie, were you a fangirl?
02:51Yeah, was I a fangirl. Um, so I remember very, very, very clearly when I was a lot of
02:59younger, I think I must have been nine or ten at the time. I wasn't really into boy bands.
03:05Um, prior to that, though, Justin Bieber was quite big. You might have heard of him.
03:10My daughter was obsessed, yes.
03:12Yes, yeah. So my, I remember, because I guess this comes under the whole toxic masculinity vibe
03:18of our show as well. But the first sort of thing I knew about Justin Bieber was what I heard from my
03:24brother and my father or men, my friends at school, my male friends at school, who were very,
03:29very, very adamant, uh, that he was awful and not cool. And he was stupid and lame and
03:34all this kind of, you know, sort of stuff. Um, and then my auntie, I think it was for Christmas
03:39or my birthday or something, got me the Justin Bieber CD. And I remember opening it and being like,
03:44oh, oh, she doesn't know me at all. I don't like him. And I listened to it and I was like,
03:49I really like this guy. It's this great. Um, and so it was kind of a sort of core memory in that way,
03:55in that, um, you know, you're kind of influenced as a young girl by these outside male opinions.
04:01Um, but then when something is made for you, um, and is, you know, sort of, uh, designed to
04:09suit young girls, which a lot of things in the world aren't, um, that is usually destroyed,
04:15unfortunately, or put down by other people in, in society, because it's not made specifically for
04:21them. Um, which is how the whole, I guess, in terms of boy bands, you know, they're very
04:26manufactured to, you know, there's the bad boy for the girls who, you know, want to be a little
04:32bit rebellious, you know, there's the clean cut one for the girls, you know, it's just, there's,
04:37there's something for every girl is the idea. Um, so they're very manufactured to serve as many
04:44young teenage girls as possible. Um, which I just think is really interesting.
04:49Well, it sounds fascinating. Sounds a great show. And Esther, tell me where this is going to go,
04:54this show. What are the hopes for, once you've done it in Chichester, what do you want to see
04:58happen next? Well, I think we've all got big dreams, uh, big goals. That's good. That's good.
05:04Yeah. Yeah. Um, we have, I mean, we'd love to have a run on the West End. That's our big,
05:11I think, final goal, uh, what we're working towards one day. Um, but for now, I think we're looking to
05:17tour it. We're looking to go to, um, uh, sort of venues, sort of maybe around the South in London,
05:23um, doing a little tour. Um, and yeah, I won't, I won't name any of the venues that, um, we're hoping
05:29for, but, um, yeah. Congratulations and good luck. Thank you. Really lovely to speak to you.
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