As the 97th Academy Awards - and the chance of a Gateshead writer doing the Golden Globe-BAFTA-Oscar treble - approach, the former artistic director of Live Theatre shares some memories
*Please note: Contains script extracts featuring some (a lot of) explicit and offensive language*
Gateshead writer, Peter Straughan talking at the recent Screenwriting Weekender at Live Theatre. Credit Rob Irish
It was great to see Peter Straughan back at Live Theatre recently where he was a special guest and keynote speaker at the New Writing North Screenwriting Weekender, supported by North East Screen.
Standing on the stage where his early plays were first produced, Peter spoke fondly of his time at Live where he was ‘Writer in Residence’ throughout 1999/2000 and very much involved in the creative life of the company and the region.
He wrote two outstanding new plays that were to catapult his writing into the kind of profile and award-winning reputation he now enjoys having recently won a Golden Globe, two BAFTAs and (fingers crossed) an Oscar this weekend for his superb, adapted screen play for the smash hit movie Conclave.
I was fortunate enough to be the director who commissioned and directed those fledgling plays and also got to know him as a friend and collaborative colleague.
Watching and listening to him speak at the event brought back so many fond memories. His speech was humble, funny and warm, offering the audience fascinating insights into the world he now inhabits as a renowned screen writer and Hollywood ‘player’.
He told a story of how, as a slightly fey young boy who didn’t like football, he dreamt of getting out of Gateshead as he lay on the floor in his bedroom, head between the speakers of his 1970’s sound system.
I think in the first instance, Peter dreamed of being a rock star and went on to play bass in a local band called The Honest Johns - but he also possessed a passion for the movies.
Listening to him talk of his youth brought to mind an experience I had as a young student at The Edinburgh Festival in the early 1970s.
I managed to get tickets for An Audience with Martin Scorsese who was attending a screening of his recently released movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore - part of the International Film Festival - at the old Cameo Cinema opposite the Kings Theatre on Lothian Road.
Scorsese was not yet a household name but he’d made a film I’d liked a lot called Mean Streets in 1973 and Alice was his follow up.
The great man was late but eventually turned up in a crumpled white tuxedo jacket. He told us he was jet lagged and only liked the opening few minutes of the movie and then he was gone.
Here is a clip of those first three-and-a-half minutes of the movie":
Ellen Bernstein won an Oscar in the title role.
I sent the clip to Peter and of course he completely got it as the sequence ends with Alice’s teenage son lying on the floor between two speakers listening to a very loud version of Mot The Hoople’s All The Way From Memphis. He texted back:
‘That’s me! The kid’s even wearing the same sort of glasses’.
These memories flagged up a theme that I remember was central to Peter’s early work as a young playwright. He was interested in exploring the notion of ‘illusion and reality.’
Attending that Scorsese event and feeling let down by his brief appearance stymied my expectation and excitement of seeing a real, live Hollywood director.
The fact he’d so off handedly dismissed his movie was deflating. But reality can be underwhelming and the glitz and glamour of film and theatre is often a tatty and tacky facade as it’s all made up and make believe.
Meeting and working with Peter at Live over 15 years later, we quickly identified a shared love of the movies and particular genres including the gangster movie, the western, Chandleresque private eye narratives and the whole cannon of ‘film noir’ - from Jimmy Cagney to The Third Man, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to The Godfather and Goodfellas.
Our first show was BONES. Set in a seedy cinema (obviously) in 1960’s Gateshead; it summoned up the apocryphal story of The Krays’ visit to Tyneside. The plot involves the owners of the cinema - two Jewish brothers, Abel and Benny and their hapless ‘Goy’ projectionist and front of house manager deciding to kidnap Reg Kray and hold his brother Ronnie to ransom.
It all goes hilariously and terribly wrong but concludes with a cunning narrative twist - a kind of Man Who Wasn’t There trope straight out of The Coen Brothers handbook.
The play explored issues relating to antisemitism, which was particularly relevant to Gateshead at that time as it had (and still has) one of the largest Jewish communities in the UK outside London.
Here’s a sample of dialogue that lampoons the ignorance of the 1960’s Geordie characters whilst also allowing Peter to reference his love of the movies’.
L to R: Deka Walmsley as Benny, Michael Hodgson as Moon, and Trevor Fox Beck. David Cardy - Reg Kray - is lurking n the background. This was the London production of BONES, which followed the Live Theatre premiere run
The Projection Room. MOON and BECK are watching KEY LARGO. We hear Bogart speaking in the background.
MOON : I like Benny.
BECK : I like him – but what I’m saying is, he’s a four by two – and you can’t get away from that.
Pause
MOON: I like him.
MOON I fuckin like him but it’s obvious….. he’s probably hiding the fuckin money – so no wonder they want to do him in……. that’sfuckin Jews for yer.
pause
MOON: Tony Curtis is a Jew.
BECK: What?
MOON; Tony Curtis is a Jew.
BECK : Fuck off.
MOON : He is.
BECK : You don’t get Italian Jews.
MOON: I read it.
BECK : Excuse me? Tony Curtis isn’t Italian? Curtis is a Jew name.
MOON : Curtis isn’t his real name
BECK : Oh fuck off. He doesn’t even look like a Jew. Look what I’m saying is the thing about Jews right, they can’t handle pressure, and you can’t argue with that.
David Cardy and Trevor Fox in the London production of BONES, which followed its premiere run at Live Theatre
Pause
MOON : What about The Vikings?
BECK: What?
MOON : Kirk Douglas in The Vikings
BECK: What?
MOON : Well, he gets his eye pecked out and it doesn’t even bother him. He’s jumping over oars and all sorts.
BECK: What the fuck has Kirk Douglas got to do with it?
MOON: Well he’s a Jew.
BECK : What?
MOON : And this bird pecks his eye out and he just gets this patch thing and…
BECK: Kirk Douglas is fuckin American you wanker,
MOON: He’s a Jew. I read it.
BECK : Right. Just shut the fuck up Moon, I don’t even want to talk to you anymore.
Long pause
MOON : And Tony Curtis is in The Vikings and he’s a Jew and….
BECK : Shut up.
Pause
MOON : He gets his hand cut off and that and he…..
BECK : Moon, I’m gonna belt you. (Beat.) If you had a fuckin brain,you’d understand what I’m trying to tell you.
Pause
MOON: What are you trying to tell me ?
BECK : I’m trying to tell you that the thing about Jews is that….
BENNY enters and turns off the projector
BENNY : The thing about Jews is that they pay the fuckin wages of Goys like you. Now where’s that bottle of whiskey?
BONES received fantastic reviews in Newcastle and London when it transferred to The Hampstead Theatre and announced Peter as the sort of writer of drama, dialogue, character and jokes that actors dream of playing.
Jonathan Slinger as Ruben and Trevor Fox (on the table) as Beck in the London production of BONES
It also got him an agent that quickly saw him move away from Newcastle and theatre (sadly in some ways) to the screen trade - but the reality was film was always Peter’s first love and the medium where he wanted to further develop his supremely gifted talent.
Before that transition, which saw him jointly win a BAFTA with his late wife Bridget O’Connor for his adaptation of Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy; become a close associate of George Clooney (Peter adapted The Men Who Stare At Goats); and go on to write multi award winning adaptations of the Hilary Mantel novels Wolf Hall and most recently Mirror and the Light, Peter wrote one final play for Live which we produced at the Newcastle Playhouse (now known as Northern Stage).
NOIR was an ambitious stage play with a cast of 10 actors.
Again, referencing Hollywood, the play was a contemporary ‘Tyneside Noir’. A dark comedy of desire, dreams and coincidental disappearances.
It featured a would-be private eye called Ray whose day job was as a security guard at Fenwick’s. Also, a classic ‘Femme Fetale’ – in this case a Geordie chat line hostess who tells her shrink she dreams of being shot by her father in the woods (played by Jill Halfpenny).
There is also a hopelessly flawed preacher trapped in a web of debt and hypocritical deceit, the pathetic, miserable, cuckolded husband of film lecturer Ruth Hollis who teaches film studies at the university where she encounters a duplicitous student called Morris - a character who transforms the drama as it turns darkly sinister and murderous.
It was played out on a fabulous set designed by Imogen Cloët with a vivid Edward Hopper aesthetic.
A scene from NOIR featuring Tracy Gillman and Joe Caffrey, which premiered at Newcastle Playhouse (now Northern Stage)
In a scene strikingly influenced by The Coen’s film The Big Lebowski, our erstwhile private eye, practicing his day job as a security guard confronts Morris in the department store toilets on a hunch he has been shop lifting.
RAY: Can I see inside your bag sir?
MOORIS: What ?
RAY: What’s in your bag sir?
MORRIS : In the….it’s nothing. It’s just me sports kit
RAY : Can I look inside your bag sir?
MORRIS : No you bloody can’t
RAY : Watch the language sir. Now….. give me your bag
MORRIS: No. Fuck off and leave me alone
RAY : Whatever….. Now I’m asking politely. And WATCH THE LANGUAGE. Now give me the bag
MORRIS : No.
Ray reaches for the bag. Morris goes to shove him, but RAY spins him around, grabs his hair and plunges him head first down into the toilet bowl, he flushes the toilet drenching Morris
RAY: NOW I WAS NICE WASN’T I? I WAS FUCKING POLITE WITH YOU, WASN’T I?
He drags Morris’s head, minus his glasses, out of the toilet, dripping wet and throws him to the floor. Morris gasps for air.
RAY: WASN’T I FUCKIN POLITE TO YOU?
MORRIS: You…
RAY: LITTLE BIT OF FUCKING BASIC DECENCY.!
RAY drags him up and towards the toilet and bangs his head on the seat several times. Finally he lets him go and stands over him. Morris lies gasping for breath and moans in pain. RAY picks up his bag and unzips it.
MORRIS : It’s just me sports kit……
RAY pulls out a long black silk dress.
RAY: I see you’re a keen golfer.
MORRIS: desperately pleading. Look I’m sorry….I’m a student and I’m skint and ……it’s a friend of mine….a girlfriend……it’s her birthday…
RAY: Wish her Happy fuckin Birthday from me. Now drift
He throws the bag at him
beat
MORRIS: Could I have me glasses back?
RAY fishes out the glasses from the toilet and tosses them to MORRIS
RAY: Now go on. Scram.
MORRIS grabs his bag and glasses and hurries away. RAY shouts after him.
RAY: And tell your friends : DO NOT FUCK WITH FENWICKS.
Ray examines the dress, then bundles it into his inside jacket. Lights rise on RUTH.
Peter also wrote a play for the Live Youth Theatre called When We Were Queens about a troupe of Shakespearean actors and a one man show for Michael Hodgson called Fettish, which audiences found a bit weird and to be honest, so did I.
We also made a short film for Tyne Tees Television called Waiters, Peter’s first TV script, which we shot on location in and around Tynemouth on a minuscule budget. It featured some of the actors who had appeared in the stage plays: Trevor Fox, Joe Caffrey, Michael Hodgson and Deka Walmsley with a guest appearance from Alun Armstrong as the restaurant’s lugubrious proprietor.
Of course all the waiters wanted to be actors but the reality of working in a not too hot on hygiene restaurant on North Shields fish quay thwarted their dreams of stardom and glamour – and they all wore shabby, white, slightly stained, tuxedo jackets.
Peter Straughan at the Tyneside Cinema during his recent trip back to the North East. Credit: Richard Lister Photographer, Newcastle
Peter added his name to a wonderful array of writers who created a fantastic legacy of dramatic writing out of the North East. He followed in the footsteps of CP Taylor, Ian La Frenais, Tom Hadaway, Peter Flannery and Alan Plater: also, Julia Darling, Karin Young, Shelagh Stephenson, Paddy Campbell and of course Lee Hall who was Live’s Writer in Residence directly prior to Peter.
When answering questions during his recent visit to Live Theatre, Peter mentioned a couple of future projects that he is looking forward to seeing come to fruition in the not too distant future - Berlin Noir’ - based on a series of detective crime thrillers set in post war Berlin sounds like an exciting concept and there’s an original film script on the blocks called Folio - a kind of Jacobean road movie featuring a couple of actors who, following Shakespeare’s death, go to great lengths to gather and reassemble the bards plays and publish them in the famous First Folio.
I found it fascinating and nostalgically ironic that both projects have similar themes and contexts to those Tyneside plays we made 25 years ago.
When asked at the end of his interview if he would ever write for the stage again, it was encouraging to hear him say that it might now be something that would interest him.
A scene from Conclave, featuring Ralph Fiennes
Producing North East theatres should take heed - a new play or an interesting adaptation for the stage by Peter Straughan would be an exciting and potentially sell out proposition.
Significantly, the most important thing I gleaned from our recent, re-encounter was that despite his tremendous success, the multiple awards and critical acclaim - his warmth, his self-deprecating humour, his gentle and humble demeanour are still evident in spades as much as they were when I first got to know him – and I smiled as he said that crossing the bridge on the train after such a long time had almost brought a tear to his eye.
All of us up here in the North East should keep our fingers crossed for the 97th Oscar ceremony on March 2, when Gateshead’s very own Peter Straughan who dreamt of escape as a young lad will be sitting in the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood, Los Angeles to see if he can land the third and final big one for Conclave.
So best of luck Peter - and to all those aspiring writers, actors and artists from the North East - your story is evidence that dreams and aspirations can come true.
Now please excuse me as I must get down to William Hill’s and see if I can get odds on the treble!
