Comedian and music journalist Marc Burrows brings The Britpop Show to Totton - In-Common

Comedian and music journalist Marc Burrows presents The Britpop Show – a sharp, funny and unexpectedly moving multimedia show – part comedy, part cultural deep-dive into 1995.

Thirty years on from the Blur vs Oasis chart battle, the show revisits the rivalries, personalities and chaos that defined Britpop, and explores how a movement rooted in swagger and optimism tipped into excess and identity crisis. He chatted about the show.

What is The Britpop Show, and why did you want to make a show about Britpop now?

The Britpop Show is a multimedia stand-up show that celebrates the Britpop era. I wanted to dive into the rivalries, these larger-than-life outsider personalities that became household names, the relentless hype and, obviously, the music. The incredible, era-defining music. I was 13 in 1994 when Britpop kicked off and 18 when it finally died out. That era is absolutely imprinted on me. It shaped who I am.

I think Britpop gets misunderstood and I wanted to dig into that. There’s a nostalgic element to the period, and obviously there’s a nostalgic element to the show, but I think there’s more going on than that. I wanted to look at why that music and those people caught imaginations in that specific moment, and what we can learn from that.

It’s an idea I’ve had for a while, and as all of my favourite albums started to turn 30, and Blur, then Pulp then Oasis got back together it felt like it was finally time to do it. The Britpop era still defines how we think about music and identity, and people really care about it – over a million people tried to get Oasis tickets last year!

If you had to explain Britpop to someone born after 2005, how would you describe it?
Imagine a time when indie bands were pop bands and pop bands tried to sound like indie bands. Imagine a time when 4% of the population of the country all tried to get tickets to the same gig. Imagine a time when two British guitar bands vying for the number one single in the same week is a lead story on The Six O’Clock News on BBC One. Imagine a time when young people, told for years during the Thatcher era, that they had nothing to look forward to and nothing to be proud of, deciding, en masse, that “no, we have a culture, we have a moment, we’re proud of the music that this stroppy little island can create and we’re going to celebrate it”. Imagine the best school summer holidays of your life and top it off with Pulp at Glastonbury. Then have a Watermelon Bacardi Breezer. Delicious! That was Britpop.

The show isn’t just about the music, it’s about what Britpop represented culturally. Why does that era still resonate?
The ’90s were unique. We were in this strange grace period. That period was roughly 1993 (the first Suede album) to 1998 (Pulp’s This Is Hardcore), after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before 9/11. The Cold War was over. The War on Terror hadn’t begun. The British economy was climbing out of recession. After 20 years the Tories were on their way out. For the first time in ages, it felt like Britain was allowed to celebrate itself.

Into that strange, optimistic gap came a wave of bands who were loud, local, funny, stylish, and utterly convinced they belonged on Top of the Pops.

Britpop was patriotic, but not in the scary, nationalistic way it can feel now, at least not at first. It was celebratory. Suddenly, being British felt cool again. Watching the Union Jack go from something that draped around the shoulders of racists to being emblazoned on Geri Halliwell’s dress and Noel Gallagher’s guitar, and indeed back again, is fascinating. That shift says so much about identity, politics and culture.

You talk in the show about how the music we love as teenagers stays with us forever. Where did that idea come from?
Part of it came from my home life. I recently acquired a teenage step daughter, and seeing her obsess over anime and Doctor Who makes me think a lot about what I was like at that age. I remember going to a family party and before we went in, in the car, my mum turning to me and saying “Marc, remember not everyone wants to talk to you about Jarvis Cocker and Star Wars.”. That’s exactly what my step daughter is like!

It really hit me how the things we fall in love with as teenagers shape us permanently. The music you love between 12 and 18 becomes your base code. You’ll never fall in love with music like that again. The show is really about why that sticks with us and what it says about who we were then, and who we are now.

You’ve said before that Britpop’s real legacy isn’t the songs, but the attitude behind them. What do you mean by that?
The real legacy of Britpop isn’t the music – although the best of it is still glorious. It’s the attitude. The sheer brass neck of it all. That refusal to be told you can’t do something because of where you’re from or what you sound like.

There was this insistence that working-class culture, and that’s very much my background, wasn’t something to be patronised or pitied, but celebrated and elevated. That message feels relevant in 2026 because it’s slipped away since 1996. In an age of algorithms and streaming playlists, when the path to musical success feels more corporate and opaquer than ever, there’s something beautifully punk rock about bands who blagged their way to world domination through sheer force of will.

Britpop seems to be everywhere again. Is that revival part of what The Britpop Show is responding to?
Absolutely. Suddenly everyone’s talking about the mid-90s like it was a golden age rather than the era that also gave us Mr Blobby and the BSE crisis. There are Britpop radio stations, huge reunion tours, number one albums, including Robbie Williams’ which is literally titled ‘Britpop’.

The show isn’t just asking us to remember it fondly, though. It’s about who we were then and who we’ve become now. Why that music still hits us so hard, and what it says about us that we keep coming back to it.

Can you tell us 5 Songs that influenced the show?

Pulp – Common People (my favourite song of all time) Bar none. It’s so unique and angry and witty and it’s an incredible pop tune. If I had to listen to just one song for the rest of my life, this would be it. It’s got a very special place in the show.

Blur – This Is A Low – An absolute masterpiece. Melancholy and yearning and weird and extremely British. It was inspired by a tea towel – it doesn’t get more British than that.

Menswear – Daydreamer. ‘Daydreamer’ has ONE CHORD in it and a bassline filched entirely off a Wire song. It has no right to go this hard.

Sleeper – What Do I Do Now – In 1995 there were 428 men in indie bands in London alone. How many women? I counted them. 11. They punched way above their weight though, “make up like glue, she danced around the room to the sound of her corduroy flares” is rhymed with “he looks at it all, stifles a yawn, she tries not to look like she cares”. No-one else was writing like that. Louise Wener was a storytelling genius.

Oasis – Rock N’Roll Star – a full throttle, barnstorming, face-punching statement of intent, never bettered by Oasis. Possibly never bettered by anyone, in that context. They didn’t play it at Knebworth. Madness.

And finally, what are you most looking forward to about bringing the show to Southampton?

Southampton has a serious place in British guitar music history thanks to venues like The Joiners, which I’ve played myself many times. In the Britpop era Southampton was a key stop, and the Joiners hosted early shows from Oasis, Suede, Radiohead, The Verve and Manic Street Preachers before they were arena bands. That grassroots circuit was exactly where Britpop grew up, in packed rooms with a few hundred people discovering new music together. Bringing The Britpop Hour to Southampton feels connected to that lineage. It’s the same spirit, just thirty years on — celebrating the music, the culture and the arguments about which band was actually best.

Marc Burrows’ The Britpop Show will be at The Attic, Totton, nr Southampton on Thursday 9th April 2026. For tickets and more information, visit: theatticsouthampton.co.uk/products/the-britpop-hour-with-marc-burrows-tour

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