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A Plymouth poet, actor and writer is set to take the famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival by storm with his hard-hitting one-man play about religion, raving and redemption – much of which is set in his home city.

Alexander Rhodes, a well-known face on the city’s poetry and spoken word circuit, has written, staged, directed and stars in One Foot in the Rave, which has been touring the country to sell-out crowds and five-star reviews.

The show, mainly autobiographical, tells the story of a disillusioned 23-year old Jehovah’s Witness who breaks free from the religion and lands on the dance floors of 1990s clubland.

Shunned by his family and everyone he knows from his early life, the main character finds himself working as a DJ in Plymouth clubs, with many of the famous names from the 90s such as Blondz, featured.

But the character is soon dragged into a whirlpool of drug and alcohol abuse, hitting rock bottom before trying to find a way out.

The play, which has an age guidance for over 16s due to the drug and alcohol reference, had two sell-out performances at the Theatre Royal’s The Lab auditorium before Alexander headed off to Scotland where he will perform the play 19 times in August, before continuing a national tour which brings him back to Plymouth, the Barbican Theatre, on October 4.

The show has already been a major hit with famous punk poet Attila the Stockbroker calling Alexander: “A sharp, confident performer with excellent material”.

And Anna Saunders, director of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, lauded an “incredible performance”.

Since 2015 Alexander (real name Sean Holland) has written and performed spoken word all over the UK. He started Plymouth based Pucker Poets, which went on to curate the Glas-Denbury Music Festival spoken word stage in 2018.

“Pucker Poets was the city’s first event to feature a regular slam for cash competition, with regular performances from some of the UK’s finest headline poets,” Alexander said.

Throughout 2017 and 2018 Alexander was at the helm of the popular Apples & Snakes night Forked at the Barbican Theatre and he competed in a number of national slam poetry events, winning the Hammer and Tongue Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2016 and 2017, and going on to the national final in London, being a triple winner at the Apples and Snakes regional slam in 2018, and coming second in the Cheltenham Literature Festival Slamageddon in 2018.

He said One Foot in the Rave is based on some of his own experiences growing up in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses and then working as a DJ during the rave years.

He described his debut “verse play” as “an energetic mix of agony and total Ecstasy”.

He added: “It is set to a backdrop of club classics, the main character moves effortlessly between the characters and scenes to deliver the chemical highs and pitiful lows. Expect wry observations, chemically induced inspirations and twisted logic.

One Foot in the Rave - review One Foot in the Rave The Lab, Theatre Royal July 26, 2019 Review by William Telford Five stars (out of five) There are those that say if you remember the 1960s you weren’t there. Well, the same could be said of the drug-fuelled dance culture of the 1990s. Only Plymouth performance poet Alexander Rhodes was there and does remember it and has used those memories as the basis for a though-provoking and no-holds-barred one-man play. One Foot in the Rave starts in the 1970s with a young boy going door to door peddling the message of God’s Kingdom. That boy is from a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the first act details his growing up, his adolescence and young adulthood in what is depicted as a restrictive sect. The main character breaks free, in his early 20s, and finds himself hitting the hedonistic highs of Plymouth’s clubland; Jesters, Blondz and Dance Academy and all. Soon he’s a £300-a-night DJ, earning big bucks entertaining big crowds. It seems too good to last – because it is. Darkness falls. There follows a savage descent into drugs, booze, violence and death. But even at its nardir One Foot in the Rave is never depressing, there is an optimistic and uplifting message here. And, boy, is it powerful. Alexander has done something truly remarkable. A one-man tour-de-force of acting, directing and writing. The show is funny, warm, truthful, tough, at times heartbreaking and even horrifying. But it is never less than enthralling. Alexander may be the only performer on stage, but he conjures characters and effortlessly moves through the stages of the central character’s life. You will believe a man can go from wearing a suit and tie to a flavescent shirt and combat strides. The dialogue is witty and sharp, the music unforgettable, the arc perfect. But it is Alexander himself that shines most brightly. A warm, likeable performer has created a warm likeable character. You believe it, you care and you go on caring. Now, rave on.

“This idea is, in fact, the third incarnation of a career as a DJ and producer spanning 18 years. Having moved through three different genres, each with its own stage name and distinctive sound, the Alexander Rhodes music project became a spoken word and performance art project in early 2015.

“If you look hard enough you will find a few house music mixes here, the odd chill out track there, echoing in the digital ether.”

One Foot in the Rave plays at Bar-Bados Room 5, in Edinburgh, throughout August. For details: https://www.alexanderrhodes.me.uk/gigs.php