URBAN LEGEND
Laurence Wilson
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ISBN 1840024909 | £7.99 | PaperBack | In Print |
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A grandfather, a father, a son. Three broken men in one stagnant household. The memory of a wife and mother and the beautiful songs she used to sing. What will it take to get some money coming in, to get some life back into this place? Selling family treasures? Or singing songs to strangers? None of the family really knows what's wrong, but they're all about to find out....
Openend at the Liverpool Everyman in October 2004.
Published by Oberon Books.
Below is a review of the theatre production -
News & Reviews
Urban Legend, Liverpool Everyman
by Gail Campbell-Thomson, icNorthWest
ONE of the lead characters in Laurence Wilson's Urban Legend is convinced that the lizards are coming. He's right. The whole play is a chameleon. What initially appears to be a chirpy comedy changes without missing a beat into a wrenching and powerful family drama.
Set during a scorching summer in a high-rise tower block in Bootle, three generations of males from the same dysfunctional family are eking out a squalid existence in a flat which - thanks to Soutra Gilmour's super scruffy set - makes the home of Ricky Tomlinson and the rest of the Royale Family look like a palace.
Horse, (John Campbell), spends his days in his grubby underwear inventing conspiracy theories on how the lizards are taking over the world. Most amusingly at one point using the new Star Wars films to prove his point "Lizards got to Lucas in the end; sucked 'is brains out through his nostrils".
Robbie (Nick Moss), his belligerent son is rapidly approaching 40 and has been on the dole so long he feels he is in retirement and explodes when anyone suggests otherwise.
And Wayne (Mark Arends), Robbie's 17-year-old son is wasting his life away in a cannabis-resin-fuelled slothful haze.
The audience may well be forgiven for thinking that they had stumbled into a drug taking hybrid of Bread meets Only Fools and Horses, but they would be wrong.
Almost imperceptibly events begin to darken and even amongst the humour, the invisible tensions that permeate the stage thicken like the heatwave outside and threaten to suffocate everyone in the room.
Just beneath the shallow surface, everybody is hiding a secret.
Wayne is in mourning for his dead mother, a talented local singing sensation who left him a love for her art and an impressively comprehensive signed collection of original Beatles albums.
Robbie is hiding behind false bravado. Struggling to come to terms with the loss of a wife he didn't fully understand and the fact that he will soon be struggling to provide for his family.
And Horse hasn't been the same since his wife went into the care home he still inexplicably refuses to visit.
A chance meeting with Robbie's old friend Bobbo (Paul Duckworth), a gregarious former drug addict turned professional parasite, adds more fuel to the fire and the family tensions explode in an inferno of rage, regret and self-recriminations.
Wilson's script deftly handles the emotional and dramatic elements of the story with verve and passion without falling into mawkish sentiment. While director Dawn Wilton gives the actors every chance to shine, and the four man cast do her justice by giving uniformly strong performances.
Nick Moss and Mark Arends are particularly excellent and are so believable that they seem to inhabit their roles like a second skin.
John Campbell gives a remarkable performance as the emotionally broken grandfather, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that he only had a week to prepare for the role.
TV -
DRUG RUNNERS AIR ON BRAVO
Thursday December 18 2003
DRUG RUNNERS is the latest work by Conker Media - part of Mersey Television - and is an original commission for men's entertainment channel Bravo.
The 30-min docu-drama follows a day in the life of fictional drug runner Steve, through his testimonies and personal accounts. DRUG RUNNERS is designed to give a unique insight into the drug culture and drug misuse and abuse in the North.
Lee Hardman, Producer, said: "DRUG RUNNERS blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction. The viewer is invited to question if what they are seeing is real, and to react to these situations. The programmes is based heavily in fact, and uses statistics to support the events. The technique permits a very realistic glimpse of a life and culture rarely seen on British television."
The drama is the first television work by new Liverpool writer Laurence Wilson, who was approached by Conker Media in recognition of his perceptive vision on drug culture and his exceptional writing talent. Phil Redmond formed Conker Media as a development unit based at Mersey Television to look at new and innovative approaches in television production. This ethos is reflected in DRUG RUNNERS by the investment in new Liverpool writing and production talent as well as original and experimental film techniques.
DRUG RUNNERS is a Conker Media Production for Bravo and can be seen on Friday 19 December, 11pm and then at 2am (Saturday)
For more information contact: Helen Platt, Mersey Television
Press Office
0151 737 4023
GBowker@merseytv.com
Pictures available on request
I have had other plays produced. I'm wtiting a radio play for BBC RADIO 3, Called Jessica and the Tin Man, Airs next year.
So there you go.
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