Anthem for Dissatisfaction at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre • Round & About Magazine

Featuring the music of Oasis, The Jam and Bruce Springsteen, the funny and heartfelt play follows Belfast siblings Sarah and Jamie as they navigate growing up, family troubles and an uncertain future.

What happens when you soundtrack growing up with Oasis, The Jam, Thin Lizzy, Bruce Springsteen and Sam Fender? Quite a lot, as Sarah and Jamie discover in Anthem for Dissatisfaction, a funny, feisty and deeply heartfelt new play coming to Guildford this month.

Set between 2007 and 2023, against the backdrop of the credit crunch, austerity and the cost-of-living crisis, the story follows Belfast siblings Sarah and Jamie from boisterous 11-year-olds into adulthood. They share a love of music, a complicated family life and a growing awareness that the world around them isn’t necessarily designed to help them succeed.

As their circumstances change, so does their relationship – but the music remains. From the freedom of Oasis to the poetry of the Manic Street Preachers, the songs become the soundtrack to teenage angst, sibling rivalry, grief, hope and the sheer determination to keep going.

In 2023 everything’s going wrong again, the bills keep going up and the opportunities keep going down. Sarah and Jamie aren’t two kids in one bedroom anymore, the future is uncertain and there’s only so long you can hang on to the past.

The 65-minute production starring Emily Lamey and Simon Sweeney, has been praised as a “rip-roaring tour de force”, combining working-class wit and honesty with an energetic live soundtrack.

Tickets £18, concessions from £12.

Book at yvonne-arnaud.co.uk.

Anthem for Dissatisfaction brings music, family and working-class life to Guildford stage

Featuring the music of Oasis, The Jam and Bruce Springsteen, the funny and heartfelt play follows Belfast siblings Sarah and Jamie as they navigate growing up, family troubles and an uncertain future.

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