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- Jan 3, 2007
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Excellent Play by Frank McCabe. Showing at Open House until Saturday.Tickets a fiver tonight online from TwoBins - Theatre Music Film
A one man show starring Matt Houghton as John Bindon, the alleged gangster, film star (Get Carter, Quadraphenia etc) and shagger of Princess Margaret.
Getting 5 star reviews and it really is excellent. I know the Director and can guarantee you will enjoy.
Get on it folks.
Ten men – The Lives Of John Bindon, Open House, Springfield Road, Brighton, Sep 15-25
10:27am Friday 10th September 2010
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* By Dominic Smith »
When David Peace combined fact and fiction for his novel The Damned United, based on Brian Clough’s 44 days at Leeds United, the football club’s former midfielder Johnny Giles filed a lawsuit against the writer, forcing him to re-write both the book and subsequent film script.
Clough was such a controversial figure, Peace probably should have expected the project to ruffle a few feathers.
Undaunted by the innate risks of weaving the tightrope between truth and fantasy, Brighton playwright Franklyn McCabe has attempted a similar task – albeit with a slightly less well-known but perhaps more dangerous subject.
“I was in London and met a bloke who knew John Bindon,” says McCabe. “I mentioned we were starting this play in Brighton and were going to take it to London.
“He said, ‘If you’re going to do a play about John Bindon in South London, you better make sure you don’t f*** it up. There are still people around, if you know what I mean, who are going to come and see it.’”
Born in Fulham in 1943, Bindon was known as Biffo at school for his fighting habits. He was locked up in Borstal young offenders’ prison and, feared for his uncompromising violence, was hired as muscle for the Kray twins.
In 1966 his big break came. Film director Ken Loach spotted him drinking in a London pub and considered him the perfect fit to play a conniving and violent husband in his production, Poor Cow, about a young girl’s horrific journey to prostitution.
His acting led him to land roles in Quadrophenia and Get Carter.
But Bindon is best remembered for reputedly bedding Princess Margaret on the Caribbean island resort of Mustique and the Darke murder trial.
“One of the interesting things about his life was the way he was treated by the upper classes, and how that changed according to the things he did in his life,” McCabe says.
“He made a decision he would do whatever it took to get away from where he came from. But a mixture of the cycle pressures and his own fallibility meant he ended back where he started.”
McCabe says there are interesting issues around society and class which influenced that fall from grace.
“You have to say the main reason he died penniless and alone was he couldn’t quite escape his own preparedness to do violence.
“I’m not suggesting for a minute society crushed him, that’s b******* really. In his day he was a nasty piece of work.”
McCabe wrote the hour-long one-man monologue, spanning 25 years and charting Bindon’s extraordinary life in ten scenes, for Matthew Houghton, a fellow associate member of Two Bins company, which was behind The Argus Angel-winning Brighton Festival Fringe show After Party.
Houghton had been cast to play John Bindon in the video for Oasis’s 2009 single Falling Down (the yes-no siblings eventually changed the theme) and it got the two friends thinking.
The story, with its socio-political backdrop, fitted their and Two Bins’ desire to produce new writing and modern British classics.
“I believe a lot of people, particularly young people, think of theatres as rather stuffy places. They can find it intimidating and think they are going to have to sit in silence for three hours in a darkened room, which can be a bit of a deal.
“We want to create more relaxed and open theatre for people who normally might feel excluded.
“With After Party we had the original score by the Audio Bullys and we got a lot of people who came down just because of that.
“We don’t care for what reason they come, as long as they come.”
Starts 8pm (4pm Saturdays), £7, visit TwoBins - Theatre Music Film or call 01273 880102.
A one man show starring Matt Houghton as John Bindon, the alleged gangster, film star (Get Carter, Quadraphenia etc) and shagger of Princess Margaret.
Getting 5 star reviews and it really is excellent. I know the Director and can guarantee you will enjoy.
Get on it folks.
Ten men – The Lives Of John Bindon, Open House, Springfield Road, Brighton, Sep 15-25
10:27am Friday 10th September 2010
* Share
* Comments(0)
* By Dominic Smith »
When David Peace combined fact and fiction for his novel The Damned United, based on Brian Clough’s 44 days at Leeds United, the football club’s former midfielder Johnny Giles filed a lawsuit against the writer, forcing him to re-write both the book and subsequent film script.
Clough was such a controversial figure, Peace probably should have expected the project to ruffle a few feathers.
Undaunted by the innate risks of weaving the tightrope between truth and fantasy, Brighton playwright Franklyn McCabe has attempted a similar task – albeit with a slightly less well-known but perhaps more dangerous subject.
“I was in London and met a bloke who knew John Bindon,” says McCabe. “I mentioned we were starting this play in Brighton and were going to take it to London.
“He said, ‘If you’re going to do a play about John Bindon in South London, you better make sure you don’t f*** it up. There are still people around, if you know what I mean, who are going to come and see it.’”
Born in Fulham in 1943, Bindon was known as Biffo at school for his fighting habits. He was locked up in Borstal young offenders’ prison and, feared for his uncompromising violence, was hired as muscle for the Kray twins.
In 1966 his big break came. Film director Ken Loach spotted him drinking in a London pub and considered him the perfect fit to play a conniving and violent husband in his production, Poor Cow, about a young girl’s horrific journey to prostitution.
His acting led him to land roles in Quadrophenia and Get Carter.
But Bindon is best remembered for reputedly bedding Princess Margaret on the Caribbean island resort of Mustique and the Darke murder trial.
“One of the interesting things about his life was the way he was treated by the upper classes, and how that changed according to the things he did in his life,” McCabe says.
“He made a decision he would do whatever it took to get away from where he came from. But a mixture of the cycle pressures and his own fallibility meant he ended back where he started.”
McCabe says there are interesting issues around society and class which influenced that fall from grace.
“You have to say the main reason he died penniless and alone was he couldn’t quite escape his own preparedness to do violence.
“I’m not suggesting for a minute society crushed him, that’s b******* really. In his day he was a nasty piece of work.”
McCabe wrote the hour-long one-man monologue, spanning 25 years and charting Bindon’s extraordinary life in ten scenes, for Matthew Houghton, a fellow associate member of Two Bins company, which was behind The Argus Angel-winning Brighton Festival Fringe show After Party.
Houghton had been cast to play John Bindon in the video for Oasis’s 2009 single Falling Down (the yes-no siblings eventually changed the theme) and it got the two friends thinking.
The story, with its socio-political backdrop, fitted their and Two Bins’ desire to produce new writing and modern British classics.
“I believe a lot of people, particularly young people, think of theatres as rather stuffy places. They can find it intimidating and think they are going to have to sit in silence for three hours in a darkened room, which can be a bit of a deal.
“We want to create more relaxed and open theatre for people who normally might feel excluded.
“With After Party we had the original score by the Audio Bullys and we got a lot of people who came down just because of that.
“We don’t care for what reason they come, as long as they come.”
Starts 8pm (4pm Saturdays), £7, visit TwoBins - Theatre Music Film or call 01273 880102.
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