Seaside Special: German film captures British traditions at time of Brexit

Seaside Special ties together a quintessentially English end-of-the-pier show and the ongoing Brexit negotiations of 2019

In 2019, German film director Jens Meurer spent several months in Cromer on the Norfolk coast, following people as they prepared for two seismic events - Brexit and the annual end of pier variety show.

The resulting documentary, Seaside Special, serves as a time capsule into a world pre-lockdown, when everything was on the cusp of changing, but age old traditions were being kept alive on stage.

Four years later the film is slowly being rolled out to cinemas.

But not all of the people who appear in it still live or work in Cromer, and sadly one of the stars, comedian Paul Eastwood, died before he got to see it.

'He is still making people laugh'

Corea Eastwood says footage from the film will help their son, Harry, get to know his father

Corea Eastwood says her husband Paul had worked on Cromer's end of pier show for four years, each time spending months away from their home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

The film shows Paul in the role of compere - warming up the audience, introducing the various acts, and then getting involved with different elements of the show, which is held twice a day for most of the summer.

"Paul was so excited to be part of the film," Corea says. "He loved anything a little niche, a little bit different, because he was a little bit different like that as well.

"He loved Cromer. He loved that little theatre. What's great is if it's rough (the sea), you can hear the theatre physically move."

The Covid outbreak deprived Paul of the chance to appear on stage, and like a lot of comics he had to find other ways to spend his time and earn money during the lockdowns.

"He interviewed and applied for at least 73 jobs over lockdown to become a delivery driver, he sold double glazing, he worked for Amazon - he did everything he could possibly do to keep busy and keep a bit of income coming in," Corea says.

"He was incredible. I used to be an entertainer so I could put myself in his shoes and imagine having all that stripped back and stopped - it would have been so hard. But he kept going - he didn't let it get him down.

"He had regular meetings with his comic mates online, which would go on to the early hours of the morning, they'd all be howling away, keeping each other going."

Corea Eastwood said her husband had been excited about the prospect of getting more TV work

On 29 June 2021, Paul sustained fatal injuries after falling from scaffolding at his home. He died in hospital four weeks later.

Corea described his funeral as "breathtaking", with more than 300 people turning up to pay their respects.

"He was so kind hearted and not a lot of people saw that," she says. "But everyone at that funeral knew he had that side to him."

Once Seaside Special was edited and ready to be shown to audiences, Jens Meurer wanted Corea, their son Harry, who was aged three, and Paul's parents to be the first to watch it.

"We saw it in the flat where we live and Jens came to watch it," Corea says. "It was lovely because it's got so much footage of Paul in it.

"I remember watching it very glassy eyed, but although I knew it was lovely, when you very first watch something like that with somebody in it that you've lost, you just concentrate on them, so I didn't take a lot in.

"But when I watched it again at a screening at Cromer I really registered how great it is, what a lovely film it is.

"I like that he still makes people laugh - it's great. He would have absolutely loved it."

Corea says she has the film on a hard drive, along with some extra footage that Meurer gave to her from when she and Harry visited Paul in Cromer.

"Harry is five now - maybe next year I'll be able to sit down and watch it with him and he'll be able to take it in a little bit more, whereas now it goes over his head," she says.

"I'm looking forward to him being able to see footage of Paul. Every time I watch it I get something different from it, which is lovely."

'It's important to a lot of people'

Show director Dianne Cook worked on the end of pier shows for 17 years

By the time Jens Meurer's cameras arrived in Cromer, show director Dianne Cook was well into her 17th year working on the end of pier summer and Christmas shows.

"I think over the 17 years we were there we built it up to this contemporary variety show, which keeps its traditional roots but also has 21st Century content," she says.

Seaside Special shows that this variety includes magic, impressions, songs from musical theatre, hits such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Daft Punk's Get Lucky, and stand up comedy.

"In a way it's cheeky seaside humour, but over the years it has got more risqué, but not offensive," she says. "It has a huge following and a really warm family feel."

Dianne admits to being a "little bit concerned" about the prospect of cameras following her as she pulled the show together from scratch at the start of the year, but these fears were allayed by Meurer's clear love of the subject and the town.

"I think what made the film so real was that he caught moments that normally people wouldn't see - backstage moments, us rehearsing, it not always going to plan - me going 'argh we're not ready'.

"People don't normally see that, they just see the glitz and the glamour, but he got warts and all.

"When you're trying to put a show on you see people when they're tired, at their worst, when they're grumpy, but then you also see when they're amazing and they're at their best and they're shining.

"You eat with them, get tired with them, look a mess with them, and then you put on your glad rags and it's showtime."

Dianne Cook described Paul Eastwood as a "very funny man" and said his death was "a huge loss to us all"

The summer show featured in the film was the last for Dianne, who is living in south west London and working as a director and choreographer for other productions.

She says when the Cromer show returned post lockdowns it was in a "much smaller way" so did not require the same level of resources.

"A lot of people went their own ways because of lockdown and things changed and then they had to do other work," she says.

"The film is important to a lot of people, due to the time it was... and what happened to Paul.

"How wonderful that there is this memory of Paul, and how there's this memory of the show as it was in 2019."

'A lot of Germans find us Brits funny'

Sophie and Polly Duniam's dream of touring Europe in a motorhome lives on

Radio news bulletins are woven throughout Seaside Special and offer some context as to what was happening with Brexit while the cast of the Cromer Pier Show prepared to entertain visitors to the town.

Nearly 59% of voters in North Norfolk chose to leave the EU, but the film hears how Sophie Duniam and her sister Polly were "too anarchistic" to partake.

The duo, who were childhood stars courtesy of the BBC's Home Farm Twins and now tour as musical act My Bad Sister, state in the film that they're going to take their motorhome across Europe to speak out about Brexit.

All that's stopping them are driving licences and an engine for the van.

"I have passed my driving test," Sophie, 36, says. "We haven't fixed the Winnebago yet, unfortunately, but we do still have it in storage.

"We're struggling to find the funds and the right engine to go in there, but we are still hoping to do a follow-on series for German television, with Jens Meurer as the director, with him following me and my sister on tour."

Sophie Duniam says she was initially "dubious" about the film, but saw that Jens Meurer's heart was "in the right place"

Sophie now lives near Ipswich, teaching dance and yoga, while her sister has moved to Wales.

Their parents, meanwhile, sold their home in Cromer shortly after featuring in the film and now live in Spain.

"I've watched the film 10 to 15 times and enjoy it so much," Sophie says. "Not just because it's my family, my life and hometown, but because it's just a fab documentary film and it's nice how it depicts the fact we can all live in a small place but have diverse political views.

"It's not about politics, but obviously it has that undertone, and it's really accepting of all people's views without being too finger pointery or biased."

The film has so far only been screened in a handful of cinemas in the UK, and is often introduced by Meurer and members of the cast, or Corea Eastwood.

Sophie hopes the film will be seen further afield, with reports suggesting it has gone down well in Meurer's homeland.

"I think a lot of Germans find us Brits quite funny," she says. "Variety entertainment is our British working class culture, and I think they're quite intrigued by that, especially the kind of people who are going to see arty films - a slightly more highbrow audience would find it cute and quirky.

"I've been there a lot and know they definitely don't have anything like it - so they must be like 'wow, this actually still happens? This is so strange'.

"It's just not their thing."