What does the beach mean to you? Is it a place of beauty? Is it somewhere to walk the dog or enjoy family fun building sandcastles? Or is it a liminal place that moves over time as it erodes the coastline and consigns towns to history? FREAK OUT! attempts the not inconsiderable feat of pulling all these strands together in an hour of contrasts between celebrating the beauty and joy of the seaside and mourning the loss of homes and communities.

Documentary footage celebrating the fictional seaside town of Portsford and video vox pops of what the beach means to people are followed by our introductions to the people of the town. Their lives are about to be turned upside down by a derisory compensation offer from the council which announced that it is not going to complete the promised coastal defences.

Coin Toss Collective certainly throw everything at this production. There is some beautifully choreographed movement representing the different ways in which the sea moves. That contrasts with technical detail on ways to protect the town from the sea, and graphics showing coastal retreat over the centuries.

The personal drama of how each member of the community reacts differently to the news, and how the closest of friends and family find their relationships tested as they fall on either side of a fight or flight response, is interspersed with silly seaside sandcastle games with flowery swim hatted Sandy singing ‘I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside’, and an exchange between two characters where the non-speaker puts their head in a bucket of water.

All of these elements are wonderfully entertaining in isolation, but I’m not convinced that it coheres into anything meaningful. Silliness is great, but it’s not clear that it makes an easy bedfellow with coastal erosion and seeing your home fall into the sea. So go and you will have fun, you may even get cake, but don’t expect too many insights.

FREAK OUT! is at Pleasance Dome – Jack Dome until Mon 26 Aug 2024 (except Mon 5, Tue 6, Mon 12, Tue 13 & Thu 22) at 14:30