A review of the final outcome from the 2025 cohort of the University of Derby Arts International Workshop to Nevada.
If someone said to you, ‘I’m an artist and I make work about the hotdog.’ You’d think to yourself, ‘yeah, piss-artist, more like!’ But who could blame that response? The humble hotdog is not what you’d consider high culture or the stuff of searing social commentary. However, in the sweaty self-conscious hands of the University of Derby Arts International Workshop to Nevada 2025 student cohort, with their faithful chaperone and mentor Dr Gemma Marmalade, that is exactly what the hotdog has become.
With their performance, THE show about THAT hotdog, these students have unwittingly tapped into the American psyche, revealing its sense of self-importance, its inflated view of its own eminence and superiority, and the underlying insecurities feeding these perceptions. I say, ‘unwittingly,’ not as a disparagement to the intelligence or the perceptual sensitivities of these students, but because often Americans themselves can hardly recognise these traits about themselves (I know, because I’m American). So how could a group of almost-twenties be expected to read that intricately emotive gauge in a short three weeks? Well, then again, any observation of current events in America…
As a multi-disciplinary performance, THE show about That hotdog, structured itself like a hotdog, which frankly, was genius. The musical performance by Maisy at the beginning and end of the show was the soft warm bun that gathers and holds all the ingredients together as it carries them to the hungry mouth. Her sweet voice, acerbic lyrics, and fluffy stage presence made her ‘bun’ anything but bland.
Madi’s alter ego hotdog monologues in existential crisis were the star of the show. Watching her ‘hotdog’ perform, I felt myself projecting her commentary on the American psyche: “I’m raw, waiting to change…waiting to transform. I’m delicious! Haven’t I been patient? Aren’t I perfect? Haven’t I done everything right? Why am I left here alone scorched, won’t someone eat me? Aren’t we all just sexy little hotdogs?!” How nuanced and intriguing it was to see Rae’s series of photographic imagery of open hungry mouths projected onto Madi’s white dress while she spoke. This interdisciplinary visual performance captured the zeitgeist in America at this moment.
The skit by James and Co written by Em, who we’ll meet in a minute, put grill marks on Madi’s ‘hotdog’ pointing to an inevitable fate of oblivion waiting for the unsuspecting. Penetratingly, it is another way of saying being fearful of being both alive and dead. This condition is a curious one that often seems to haunt the faithful in America and perhaps it is at the heart of so much hatred and anxiety here. Constructing this skit as a campfire ghost story was a profound perception on Em’s part.
David’s ‘ketchup’ burlesque was so irritatingly funny! When I was coming of age in the American Midwest in the 80s, we called people (guys mostly) who were full of themselves and acted like they owned the world and everything in it, ‘you hotdog!’ David’s performance of a performer in between performances was exactly that. How did he know about this!! Grace, who managed the show’s tech brilliantly, was the long suffering ‘Noreen’ to David’s hotdog drag.
Em’s appearance later in the performance delivering a monologue of the cancellation of female enjoyment and access to the American pastime, was a shocking mouthful of ‘mustard’ because it plucked the exposed and raw nerve of the debate on abortion currently in America. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not drawing a parallel between baseball and abortion here, but Em’s decision to explore the denial of personal choice, the revocation of freedom of access in love and pleasure was poignant and hit a bullseye.
The ‘relish’ on top of THAT hotdog show was the staging and visual imagery, provided by Abi, Rae, and Zoe, along with the sound, lighting, and artistic direction of the show overall where the colours red and yellow became characters in their own right. It should be noted that all the musical scores, scripts, and images appearing in the performance were original and created by these talented young people, who so quickly and almost psychically tapped into the precise discords in America. America is in crisis. We invited a pretender into the warmth of our bed, and now, well you know what happens next. These students visiting from the UK could sense this, when we ourselves appear to be blind to it. Can somebody turn on the lights, please!
