The Brighton Festival: The Erpingham Camp

It's a glorious April morning on Brighton Pier. The sun is shining, ice creams are melting and the air is filled with the sounds of seagulls and slot machines. But there's a disturbance over at the dodgems. Two men are engaged in a vicious fight, one knocking the other to the ground with the full force of his fist. A few feet away two women are having a shouting match that turns physical as one yanks the other's hair and then leaps on to her back, screaming all the while.

This is a rehearsal for Hydrocracker's production of Joe Orton's The Erpingham Camp. Commissioned for the Brighton Festival, it's a promenade piece that will be staged entirely on the pier, and will find audiences settling down to fish'n'chips halfway through the show. It is, astonishingly, the first time that the pier has starred in the festival in the event's 43-year history.

Today, the actors and production staff have their work cut out choreographing the fight scenes while convincing passing day-trippers that they are witnessing a theatrical work in progress, not random acts of violence. After a pair of sight-seeing pensioners are left slack-jawed as the Padre takes a punch in the stomach, the director Ellie Jones finally makes the decision to take the action indoors.

Set amid the rigidity and dreariness of post-war Britain, The Erpingham Camp is Orton's take on The Bacchae. It's an exuberant and often savage piece about a holiday camp presided over by the bumptious Erpingham, a man who draws a curtain over a portrait of the Queen whenever he changes his trousers.

Erpingham demands fanatical devotion from both workers and campers, at one stage declaring offhandedly that campers don't have rights, just privileges. When the camp's entertainments officer dies in suspicious circumstances, the chief redcoat Riley gets his long-awaited chance to run the show. Anarchy soon breaks out in a battle between the forces of order and liberation.

Originally written as a one-act play for television in 1966, The Erpingham Camp was reworked by Orton in 1967 for a production at London's Royal Court. Revivals have been rare in recent years, the last one having been staged at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000. So why the lack of love?

"Well, the setting is certainly dated," says Jones, who, when she isn't tutoring Hydrocracker in the art of throwing punches, is artistic director of Southwark Playhouse. "There was a period in the Eighties when we were all watching Hi-De-Hi! on television though its popularity probably stemmed from the fact that it harked back to the childhoods of our parents. Now, it might seem irrelevant to our generation even though it has a lot to say politically."

In fact, its reappearance is rather timely, coming just at a point when the media is trumpeting the rebirth of the holiday camp. The economic downturn has meant that companies such as Pontin's and Butlins are reporting a surge in business as thousands of British families opt for holidays closer to home.

If, 45 years on, some of Orton's gags seem a little tired, The Erpingham Camp remains a subversive melodrama that exposes moral prudery, class prejudice and how the English would rather have a cup of tea than stage a revolution. Dig a little deeper and you might even say that Orton's play offers commentary on our troubled times. "It is about the underclass and our attitudes towards them," agrees Jones. "To my mind, there's also a direct correlation to the present government and the concept of the nanny state. In the play, Orton looks at how people are controlled, and what happens when they try and break free from that."

Brighton Pier was, says Jones, the obvious place to stage The Erpingham Camp. "It's the perfect fit," she says. "There's the rides, the restaurants, the sweet shops, the slot machines. As soon as you step on to the pier you feel like you're on a summer holiday."

The production delights in utilising the rides, restaurants and bars on the pier. One of Erpingham's speeches takes place on the revolving teacup ride while dinner will be served halfway up the pier in the Palm Court fish restaurant. Audiences are encouraged to dress up in Sixties outfits for the show. Upon arrival, they will be issued with red sashes, instantly integrating them into the performance as campers, and will be shepherded around the pier-cum-performance space by stewards in redcoats.

Jones and the members of Hydrocracker are great advocates of the promenade performance. Their enthusiasm is echoed by a handful of other companies such as Punchdrunk, Duckie and the Shunt Collective, all of whom subvert the notion of the audience as passive observers.

"People are used to sitting in the dark and watching a play but when you involve the audience, it feels more real," says Jones. "There is a trend amid younger theatre-goers who grew up video gaming that they don't want to be on the outside looking in. They want to be part of the story. You could say we're giving them the chance to be seven again."

Site-specific performances have also become something of a trademark for the Brighton Festival, which specialises in commissioning pieces that complement the psychology and the geography of the city. Previous events have seen shows in an abandoned art-deco hotel, a disused pizza joint and under the stage of the Theatre Royal. Last year, Hydrocracker and Jones came together for the first time to stage The New World Order, a series of Pinter shorts, in the bowels of the Town Hall.

If there's something that Jones took from the experience, it was that the text must always come first. "When you're choosing the site you have to think about how the themes of the play will fit within the particular space," she explains. "Often I find that the space itself will give you ideas. Because you are doing it in a place that is real, it can enlighten the piece."

Still, there is much to consider when staging a performance on a well-known tourist attraction, not least how to negotiate the weekend revellers who will unexpectedly find themselves in the midst of a promenade show.

"It has to be quite heavily managed but in my experience people are delighted and charmed by work happening out and about," reflects Jones. "People like spontaneity and they like being part of something. In the case of The Erpingham Camp, it's like an extra ride on the pier for the people who aren't part of the show. And even if they don't want to go on the ride, they're likely to be amused by it."

Back at rehearsals and the actors have now repaired to Horatio's Bar, the pier's watering hole, to continue behind closed doors. The Padre is still getting it in the stomach while a distressed camper is attacking Erpingham in a bid to protect his pregnant wife, thus leading the revolt against the redcoats. The pace is fast and the cast are wonderfully exuberant, perfectly capturing the chaotic energy of the text.

"It's going to be crazy," remarks Jones as another bar stool goes flying in the background. "There's always room for disaster putting on a show like this but to my mind the risk makes it that much more fun."

Tonight, 7pm to 24 May, Brighton Pier (www.brightonfestival.org )