RAVE NEW WORLD: ACID HOUSE CABARET Comes To Edinburgh Fringe This Week

The UK's premier rave raconteur Kirk Field takes his acclaimed ARIA Award winning memoir “Rave New World: Confessions of a raving reporter” to the stage to celebrate acid house culture in a totally unique, ground-breaking show.

Following performances at various festivals, including Glastonbury, and a 13-night run at the Edinburgh Fringe, he will perform 12-dates across UK theatres this autumn. Rave New World has been the UK's best-selling dance music hardback and audiobook since its release, receiving industry-wide endorsements from a mighty mix of top DJs and celebrities including Fatboy Slim, Carl Cox, Robbie Williams and Gok Wan MBE. 

This Autumn sees acid house culture celebrated in the theatre in a totally unique, ground-breaking show. Rave New World: Acid House Cabaret offers a strobe down memory lane to a simpler time, with tales of revolution, acid-house storytelling, socio-cultural commentary laced with humour, musical mischief, big screen shenanigans, a different nightly guest ‘Agent of Unity' who helped shape the scene, and an exhibition of the rarest flyers in the foyer from the leading flyer artists of the era to mark the 35th anniversary of the 1989 acid house hysteria. Discover the true identity of DJ Roofrack, play ‘Rave Family Fortunes' and, ‘Have I Got Acid House News for You?', discover the real words to your favourite 90's dance anthems, and spin the song wheel of steel to choose the last choon of the night.

Kirk's self-narrated audiobook won Silver at the 2024 ARIA Awards - beating Stephen Fry and Alan Partridge - and he has recently released ‘Rave New World: Confessions of a raving reporter - EXTENDED MIX' which includes new content set in Goa, Ibiza and Germany and an updated epilogue which covers the drugs debate. The hardback and audiobook have been the UK's best selling dance music / club culture titles since release, spreading through word of mouth.

Rave has gone from a shadowy demonised cult to celebrated epoch-defining mainstream culture. 35 years on from the 1989 Second Summer of Love, the “greyvers” (the original ‘90s rave generation), find vindication of their laser-lit stay-awake youth in books, exhibitions and orchestras which recall a more innocent era before cell phones, Wi-Fi and endless social media pressure, when their concern was finding the venue, rather than the money for the next energy bill or mortgage payment.

As a humble barman at the headline-making orbital raves in 1989, Kirk Field witnessed the moment acid house exploded. Inspired by media lies to start writing the truth about what he saw unfolding, he became the ‘raving' reporter for the clubber's “bible” Mixmag (‘89-‘94), covering the historic parties from the inside, before sending sweat-soaked dispatches from distant dancefloors as the scene exploded across Europe and beyond. From dancing in an airfield in Suffolk to staring down the barrel of a gangster's gun in Soviet-era Moscow. From selling cartons of Ribena for £1 to losing £150,000 on a rave in a Spanish bullring. From playing with The Prodigy in a Sports Hall in Cambridge, to waiting for a chauffeur to ‘Top of The Pops'. Rave New World is the story of adventure and discovery as rushed the gurn of the millennium.

Kirk is donating a percentage of his income from the book to The Loop, the UK's first dedicated drug-checking charity, with years of experience delivering drug testing, training, and harm reduction services. The Loop will be delivering its pioneering ‘back of house' drug testing during the festival period this year following the successful application and receipt of Home Office licences to proceed.

So far Kirk has performed at Glastonbury, Camp Bestival, Wilderness, Fatboy Slim's ‘All Back to Minehead', Snowbombing, ‘Louder Than Words' and has toured to paid audiences. He will be performing at more festivals this summer before embarking on a 12-date Theatre Tour (Phil Mcintyre) this autumn - details below. 

FESTIVAL DATES 

13th-26th Aug The Other Yin, Patter House, Gilded Balloon  Edinburgh Fringe @ 7.30pm

19th Oct Fear on the Pier Weston Super Nightmare

18th Nov Shiiine On Minehead

Phil Mcintyre THEATRE TOUR 

16th Oct Frog & Bucket Manchester

18th Oct Old Market Brighton

21st Oct Palace Theatre Southend

22nd Oct Glee Club Cardiff

23rd Oct City Varieties Leeds

24th Oct Memorial Hall Sheffield

29th Oct Playhouse Norwich

30th Oct Leicester Square Theatre London 

3rd Nov Glee Club Glasgow 

5th Nov Glee Club Birmingham

11th Nov Komedia Bath

12th Nov Northcott Theatre Exeter

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