The Outside Of Everything

Chapter 15
The Drama

I may have mentioned that I fancied myself as something of a writer. So okay I perhaps lacked the true discipline to become a great writer, but that didn’t stop me giving it a good old go. Often this was much to the amusement of the others, particularly when it was suggested my motives were a little on the ulterior side. My erstwhile comrades chose to believe I was more in love with the idea of being a writer than actually knuckling down and coming up with a blockbuster. Oh well. You can fool some of the people some of the time. I suppose they knew me too well.

I guess I can confess that there were times I used the idea of being a writer to my advantage. There were occasions it’s true I used the line about being a writer to impress. And, yes, maybe once or twice perhaps I did embellish a few things just to make my vocation sound a little bit more advanced than it really was, and perhaps I spun those lines to ladies with eyes of black velvet, but my intentions were honourable. They didn’t have to believe me after all. And they kidded me along anyway. But, yes, my best of intentions did land us in some sticky situations, and the guys have never let me forget it.

One time in particular was in more ways than one a bit of a drama. We were impressionable youths. We were led astray by our heroes. We loved the idea of Vic Godard and Subway Sect sitting around reading Moliere plays before they became a real group. Well, one with instruments at least. We were big fans of Sudden Sway too. I don’t know how well they are remembered now. But Sudden Sway were great conceptualists. They did anything other than what proper groups did. Way ahead of their time in playing with formats. And one of the great things they did was record a musical. ’76 Kids Forever. Consciously cheesy, but brilliant nevertheless. We played the record all the time. It was broadcast via a telephone line too, which was very cutting edge. A friend of ours rang the number one night, and must have got a member of the group, a little bit caught unawares, who said something like erm can you hang on a few minutes as we’re not quite ready. Brilliant.

Anyway that was one of the reasons I liked the idea of drama, and maybe musical drama. It was a bit of a joke. A play on the music and movement stuff we did at school. But serious too, in a Theatre Workshop participatory way. And yes, okay, there was a girl involved. She was a drama student. I met her when we were doing one of our Northern Soul for the Masses shows, and she came up and asked for something by Billy Stewart. We got talking, as you do. About Billy Stewart, and Gershwin, and Paul Robeson. I think there was a bit of bluffing going on, certainly on my part, but not to worry. The upshot of it was that she started telling me about the work experience she was doing, teaching drama at one of the comprehensives up Southwark way. Stirring work, it sounded like she was doing. Fair brought out the noble side of me. So much so that when she mentioned wanting to involve some of the kids from one of the area’s estates in Theatre Workshop type activity, I just happened to mention that me and the rest of the guys would be delighted to help, and that it sounded like the project dovetailed nicely with some of our own ideas which we were toying with while waiting for the perfect outlet.

And so I was invited along to a planning meeting in a scruffy community centre on a sinister looking Southwark estate with my drama student and a schoolteacher friend of hers who was, ahem, equally striking and dedicated. I could hardly back out, so like the veritable eternal fool I rushed in. I was daft enough to volunteer one of my scripts for the first workshop. An offer that much to my chagrin was eagerly accepted. Well, I say chagrin but alarm might be more appropriate. While it was true I had lots of ideas, anything less like a fully formed script was hard to imagine. But nevertheless, as I explained to my highly amused comrades back in the Lock Up, we could not let the kids down. So somehow we were going to have to get through it. Or more to the point, they suggested somewhat strongly that I would have to get them through it.

Much burning of the midnight oil went on round my place, and eventually an idea took shape. It came almost out of desperation, while listening to Strange Town by The Jam. Always a source of strength and inspiration. So I was sitting there, Strange Town playing away, when I thought that’s it. That would work. An alien abroad in London. Not an alien as in sci-fi. But an alien as in someone new to these shores. Someone trying to make sense of everything around them. All the strangeness, the buzz, the noise. Some of the kids in the drama group were from immigrant families, naturally. First, second, third generation. It might connect. But what it needed, what I wanted, was to capture the voices on the street, the ahem sounds from the street. Something like the non sequitur voices in The Knack. How people talk. The rubbish we talk. Well, it was the best I could come up with. It was going to be rough and ready, but it would work. It had to work. I got to work.

No, please don’t ask me to share any of the script. It’s, thankfully for all of our sakes, long since been banished to the bin. It was a real mish mash. You know what it’s like when you’re young. Stealing from anywhere. Oh I wanted it to be like Becket, with nothing happening. I wanted it to be funny and irreverent like Joe Orton. Those were my heroes. I wanted some music. Ah yes the music. Let’s just say that the level of sophistication was shown by the way I incorporated an old punk song called Join The Army by The Tickets, which I am sure even the group itself would struggle to recall. I used that song to send up army recruitment ads, which I thought preyed on the young unemployed. Basically the song went something like join the army and get yourself killed. I mean, that was it, over and over again. I thought it was clever using that. Biting satire. Well, it wasn’t exactly Oh! What A Lovely War was it? But funnily enough, the kids had a wonderful time, and got quite into it. My drama student and the school teacher were fantastic at whipping up the enthusiasm, and even better encouraging the kids to improvise and throw in phrases and stuff they heard on the street, round the shops, at home and at school. I have to say what they came up with was far better than my drivel, but then at least I got the ball rolling so perhaps I shouldn’t beat myself up too much.

The endgame of all this was to produce a no expense spared extravaganza, to be held in the community centre, with the parents and other local people invited. The idea, very commendable too, was to get as wide an audience as possible interested and involved in the dramatic arts. An idea as old as the sun, perhaps, but why not? And it felt good to be involved. For all of us the couple of months we were involved were some of the most rewarding of our wasted youth. That is, until the actual night of the performance, when we were absolutely terrified. We’d all put so much into it. We were all so excited about it. And against the odds we’d got ourselves a full house. Then the gremlins struck. First night nerves. A bit of stage fright. A prop that needed propping up and the prop that didn’t do what it should. A prompt that never hit the mark. A parent getting over zealous. A wag calling for something from The Sound of Music. A light bulb giving up the ghost. A siren going off outside. All we needed was the fire alarm to go off, and I think collectively us backstage johnnys would have had a nervous breakdown. But we all got through it, and the applause was thunderous, and there were tears and hugs.

Hopefully at least one kid involved will have been as moved as I was when my estranged parents took me to see a musical based on Billy Liar when I was about knee high. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know. I lost touch with my drama student. She went on to ‘better things’. How much better I’m not sure, though I guess anything’s better than us ne’er-do-wells. I still look out for her name when I flick through magazine articles on English actresses out in LA that have made it good in Hollywood, in the vain hope that we can say The Outside of Everything spurred her on her way. Personally, I think I still have a great play inside of me pleading to be let out. I just may not have the application to make it happen.