Fizzy: A brand-new play from Raw Theatre Arts at Ventnor Fringe, written by Si Lynch
A love letter to friendship, music, and the last summer before everything changed.
“Remember that summer we all thought we’d change the world?”
Before smartphones and streaming (every song ever recorded lives in your pocket), there were CD wallets scattered across bedroom floors, the biro you kept to respool your tapes, painstakingly recorded mixtapes, gig tickets tucked safely into purses and conversations that lasted long after the last bus home. You found your people through the music you loved. You quoted films until your friends could finish the sentence. It felt like the future was waiting just around the corner.
Fizzy invites audiences at Ventnor Fringe to step back into those final days of 1999. Jamie, Lolly, Matt and Siobhan are four friends standing on the edge of a brand-new millennium. Armed with little more than dreams, sarcasm, cheap fizzy drinks, a CD player and an unshakable belief that they’ll face whatever comes next together, they think they have all the time in the world. Then something changes.
The play was inspired by one of the playwright’s favourite songs, and created with the blessing of its original songwriter. Fizzy grew from a single lyric into something unexpectedly personal. What began as imagining the story hidden inside a song became a heartfelt reflection on adolescence itself: the people who shape us, the moments that define us, and the strange realisation that sometimes we only understand our youth when we look back.
Fizzy at its core focuses on the late 90s alternative scene with echoes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Radiohead, Ash, Symposium, Manic Street Preachers, Suede and The Verve. But the music is only part of the story. It’s also packed with the sights, sounds and milestones of teenage life in the late 1990s: quoting Trainspotting and Spaced with your friends, portable CD players that skipped whenever you walked too fast, cassette Walkmans that devoured batteries, pull-out posters covering bedroom walls, Tamagotchis demanding constant attention, butterfly hair clips, Woolworths Pick ‘n’ Mix, battered copies of 1984 from English lessons, dog-eared issues of NME, Saturday mornings watching Live & Kicking, and long afternoons spent browsing HMV or Virgin Megastore in search of your next favourite album.
Yet Fizzy is about far more than nostalgia. Whether you remember recording the Top 40 onto cassette tapes, arguing over the greatest Britpop album ever made, renting a video on a Friday night, spending your last few coins on 10p crisps and a Panda Pop, or whether your own coming-of-age soundtrack belonged to another generation entirely, this is a story about something universal. It’s about friendship, belonging and that brief moment when the future feels limitless and your friends seem to hold the whole world together.
It’s about friendship. It’s about belonging. It’s about searching for something to hold onto. Above all, it’s about remembering the people who made you who you are.
Si reflects, “Fizzy is a love letter to the younger me. To the friends who shaped me, the future we imagined, the losses we never expected, and the person I became because of who I was. It’s about that feeling when you think no one understands you except your friends. They become your whole world.”
Raw Theatre Arts is an Isle of Wight-based theatre company creating ambitious, imaginative and socially engaged theatre with young people from across the Island.
Its debut production, Burying Your Brother in the Pavement, premiered at Department to critical acclaim, winning Best Play and Best Direction at the IW Theatre Awards. The production also earned several individual acting accolades, including a Gold Award for Harrison Hartup.
Raw Theatre Arts believes theatre should entertain, challenge, inspire and start conversations, providing young performers with opportunities to create bold, emotionally truthful work.
Director Mish Whitmore brings Fizzy to life with warmth, honesty and a deep belief in theatre’s power to connect people which is a vision shared with the playwright.
With a degree in Drama and Performance and a Master’s in Socially Engaged Theatre, Mish has created work with schools, university students, people living with dementia and those receiving palliative care. Her productions consistently explore meaningful themes through inventive storytelling and collaboration.
Mish is also Artistic Director of the award-winning Apollo Youth Theatre, from which the talented cast of Fizzy is drawn.
Meet the Cast
Harrison Hartup (Jamie) has spent eight years with Apollo Youth Theatre. An IW Theatre Awards Gold Award winner, Harrison has led productions including Peter Pan Returns, Private Peaceful and Burying Your Brother in the Pavement. He has also appeared as Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dale in His Name is Zak. Fizzy marks his final performance on the Isle of Wight before studying Film at Bournemouth University.
Jess Rockhill (Lolly) has been part of Apollo Youth Theatre for seven years, becoming an invaluable member both on stage and behind the scenes as Stage Manager. Her memorable performances include The Devil’s Mirror, Peter Pan Returns, Rudy’s Christmas Cracker, Rudy’s Christmas Quest, and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Dominic Craggs (Matt) has spent four years developing into one of Apollo’s most exciting young performers. Audiences loved his comic turn as the Big Bad Wolf in Billy the Brave, while his moving performance in Burying Your Brother in the Pavement demonstrated remarkable maturity. He most recently appeared as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Holly Hedge (Siobhan) joined Apollo Youth Theatre three years ago, making her debut in Cow to Space. Since then, she has delighted audiences as Buttons in Rudy’s Christmas Quest. Having previously appeared in the chorus of Burying Your Brother in the Pavement, Fizzy marks her second production with Raw Theatre Arts.
This play is not just about remembering the 90s, it’s about remembering being seventeen. Fizzy is for anyone who’s ever made a mixtape for someone they cared about, spoken almost entirely in film quotes, or laughed until it hurt with the people who understood them better than anyone else. This isn’t simply a play about 1999. It’s about that fleeting moment when your friends are your family, the future feels limitless, and the whole world seems to fizz with possibility.
Join Raw Theatre Arts at Ventnor Fringe for a funny, moving and deeply nostalgic new play that will leave you smiling, reminiscing… and perhaps reaching for your old CDs and tapes or calling a friend you haven’t spoken to in far too long.
Performance Information
Fizzy: Presented by Raw Theatre Arts as part of Ventnor Fringe 2026.
Venue: Pier Street Playhouse, Ventnor
Performances: Thursday 23 July and Friday 24 July 2026, 6:30pm
Tickets: https://purchase.vfringe.co.uk/EventAvailability?EventId=50001
