Meeting Joe Strummer, the award winning play, is on in Brighton for one night only at the Komedia tomorrow night (Weds). Excellent play about growing up in the 70's and 80's Link here and yes I'm in it so it's a shameless plug. And Pat (Passion Is a Fashion) Gilbert's Clash tribute band playing after.
http://www.komedia.co.uk/event.php?id=1001
Link to a recent review here
http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1647522007
Tale of friendship more than a Clash tribute
DARREN SCOTT
Meeting Joe Strummer ****
Brunton Theatre
IMAGINE 30 years from now. It's hard to think which particular genre of music, or ground-breaking artist, today's youth will be reminiscing about as having "defined their generation".
Click here to find out more!
Thankfully this wasn't a problem for writer and director Paul Hodson, whose comedy centring around the legendary lead singer of The Clash returned on Saturday, following a successful run at the Gilded Balloon during last year's Fringe.
And it hit the spot with the audience at the Brunton theatre from the opening moments when a man in a spotlight said: "1977. All music is s**t," and the Brotherhood of Man's Save All Your Kisses For Me blared through the speakers.
The tale of two forty-something men from South London sees EastEnders' Steve North (as Steve) and The Bill's Huw Higginson (as Nick) recount their friendship in a series of flashbacks when they bump into each other at a benefit gig where Clash front man Joe Strummer is performing.
It's revealed that they initially met at the Rock Against Racism protest march in the late 70s where Steve - more into disco than punk due to increased chances of pulling and only on the march for a laugh - discovers Nick's reasons and politics were derived from an obsession with punk and chiefly The Clash.
With the band performing at the march, Steve gapes up at Strummer for the first time and this defines the next thirty years of his life, and his turbulent friendship with Nick.
The duo asked the audience to suspend their disbelief when portraying their 16 and 20-year-old selves and the quality of the script easily allowed this, despite the lack of props or set, which basically consisted of large prints of Strummer and some well executed lighting and sound.
Revealed at an early stage, and presenting major problems for the pair in later years, is Nick's desperate need to reinvent himself from posh public schoolboy to working class hero.
Steve fails his exams and goes to work in a record shop, while Nick seems to veer ever further from who they originally set out to be.
Reminiscent of High Fidelity in places, this tale of friendship is far more than just a homage to Strummer's work. The scenes where the pair express their sadness for Strummer's death at Christmas 2002 are especially poignant.
The actors (oddly enough, North played a fireman in London's Burning - also the name of a Clash record - for four years) were fun and extremely believable to watch, with all the air guitar you'd expect from two men in their forties.
At one point, following a heavy argument with his best friend, North delivered a large monologue about the sun rising, and someone left the auditorium. "It's just coming up mate, don't worry," he quipped, resulting in an impromptu round of applause from the audience.
While this show was essential viewing for any fans of Strummer or The Clash, no knowledge of either would have been required.
This was not a tribute to the band, or indeed the man, but a particularly heartfelt play about friendship which at times rather cleverly mirrors the relationship between Strummer and Clash guitarist Mick Jones.
A journey that took a seemingly very understanding audience through Thatcher's government (as seen through the eyes of punks, of course), this was also a touching tale about adulation and the one thing we can't change - time.
http://www.komedia.co.uk/event.php?id=1001
Link to a recent review here
http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1647522007
Tale of friendship more than a Clash tribute
DARREN SCOTT
Meeting Joe Strummer ****
Brunton Theatre
IMAGINE 30 years from now. It's hard to think which particular genre of music, or ground-breaking artist, today's youth will be reminiscing about as having "defined their generation".
Click here to find out more!
Thankfully this wasn't a problem for writer and director Paul Hodson, whose comedy centring around the legendary lead singer of The Clash returned on Saturday, following a successful run at the Gilded Balloon during last year's Fringe.
And it hit the spot with the audience at the Brunton theatre from the opening moments when a man in a spotlight said: "1977. All music is s**t," and the Brotherhood of Man's Save All Your Kisses For Me blared through the speakers.
The tale of two forty-something men from South London sees EastEnders' Steve North (as Steve) and The Bill's Huw Higginson (as Nick) recount their friendship in a series of flashbacks when they bump into each other at a benefit gig where Clash front man Joe Strummer is performing.
It's revealed that they initially met at the Rock Against Racism protest march in the late 70s where Steve - more into disco than punk due to increased chances of pulling and only on the march for a laugh - discovers Nick's reasons and politics were derived from an obsession with punk and chiefly The Clash.
With the band performing at the march, Steve gapes up at Strummer for the first time and this defines the next thirty years of his life, and his turbulent friendship with Nick.
The duo asked the audience to suspend their disbelief when portraying their 16 and 20-year-old selves and the quality of the script easily allowed this, despite the lack of props or set, which basically consisted of large prints of Strummer and some well executed lighting and sound.
Revealed at an early stage, and presenting major problems for the pair in later years, is Nick's desperate need to reinvent himself from posh public schoolboy to working class hero.
Steve fails his exams and goes to work in a record shop, while Nick seems to veer ever further from who they originally set out to be.
Reminiscent of High Fidelity in places, this tale of friendship is far more than just a homage to Strummer's work. The scenes where the pair express their sadness for Strummer's death at Christmas 2002 are especially poignant.
The actors (oddly enough, North played a fireman in London's Burning - also the name of a Clash record - for four years) were fun and extremely believable to watch, with all the air guitar you'd expect from two men in their forties.
At one point, following a heavy argument with his best friend, North delivered a large monologue about the sun rising, and someone left the auditorium. "It's just coming up mate, don't worry," he quipped, resulting in an impromptu round of applause from the audience.
While this show was essential viewing for any fans of Strummer or The Clash, no knowledge of either would have been required.
This was not a tribute to the band, or indeed the man, but a particularly heartfelt play about friendship which at times rather cleverly mirrors the relationship between Strummer and Clash guitarist Mick Jones.
A journey that took a seemingly very understanding audience through Thatcher's government (as seen through the eyes of punks, of course), this was also a touching tale about adulation and the one thing we can't change - time.
