Liverpool in Edinburgh
Liverpool Everyman Playhouse has a production on at the . Unprotected' (a 'Made In Liverpool' production) played to full houses in Liverpool during March and created a bit of a stir with it's hard-hitting verbatim authentic depiction of the people hiding in the shadows of our city. With the 'Nationals' giving the production rave 4 & 5 star reviews a transfer somewhere was hopefully on the cards.
'Unprotected' was created in response to Liverpool City Council's proposed 'Managed Zone' for street sex workers using hundred of transcripted interviews with the people directly involved in every aspect of the debate as it's text.
It's not easy viewing. The managed zone feasibility study came about as a direct result of the horrific murder of two prostitutes in the city in 2003 - the mothers of the victims are represented in the play -the production does not shy away from all that that entails but...would such a hard hitting, piece of gritty realism marry itself to the atmosphere of excitement & frivolity which surrounds the city during festival time?
I was one of the four writers who worked on 'Unprotected' so I'll get that out the way first - not as a means of shying away from a shameless plug, on the contrary -it's the most important piece of theatre I've ever worked on so I'm not ashamed to plug away till the cows come home - but after just coming back from a three day trip up there know this...I DRAW THE LINE AT THROWIING MYSELF ON TOP OF PEOPLE NAKED WHILE SPEAKING JAPANESE (I'm talking literal here) in order to get them to see . In Edinburgh, at this time of year, I seem to be in the minority though. Such is the - we'll call it enthusiasm but I call it overbearing three sheet to the windness - annoyance factor of the people pressing fliers & leaflets into your hands every two seconds it's really hard keeping a look of contempt off your face. Which is very difficult when you're walking around in an inner state of excitement and happiness. I kept thinking about Karma and all that but if you're sat in the sun eating a sandwhich trying to tell your mates that you've got a chicken bone lodged in your throat (Queen Mother style) and there's a pretty good chance it might result in death....I think even the most religious among us would want to give that 'student' a slap around the chops. I'm not advocating violence here just a bit of that old fashioned sort of battering that people used to be on the receiving end of on a regular basis but were never actually harmed by. I'm joking, really. I know they have to advertise the shows - that's why they are there but I just wish they would offer me the flier and let me take it or leave it. DO NOT...UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES...ASSUME THAT INTERRUPTING MY CONVERSATION AND ASKING ME PATRONISING QUESTIONS AS A GIMMICK IS GONNA MAKE ME WANT TO SEE WHATEVER SHOW YOU ARE PROMOTING. ('Hi....wanna see a brilliant show, a mediocre show or a crap show? (talking over my failed smart arse reply) Good answer! Here -thrusts homemade flyer of musical version of 'My Name Is Joe Egg' on ice, by the Thickwardown Drama College Players into my hand. The one my butty WAS in btw) IT WILL MAKE ME ADVERSE TO THE EXPERIENCE BECAUSE YOU INTERRUPT MY PRIVATE CONVERSATION, INVADE MY PERSONAL SPACE AND YOUR DESPERATION ANNOYS AND EMBARRASSES ME. Don't get me wrong (backpeddling now, I sound like a right miserable...) it's just that it doesn't work. Being so overtly pushy puts people off, in general. There's something about it that instigates the rebel in us. It gets our back up. 'Unprotected' is a piece about people who have to be overtly pushy in order to survive. But the play delves beneath the surface of who we appear to be and shows us who we really are. Its honesty shocks. It shocked me when I first interviewed those people who are represented in the play and it shocked me when I read the other writers' transcripts. And it has a 'quiet way' of telling us about ourselves without sentimentality or pity. As I walked around Edinburgh trying hard NOT to engage with the zillions of 'sales people' peddling their wares I kept thinking that I was glad that 'Unprotected' was inviting people to engage with the story of Liverpool's sex trade workers, quietly. For a city known as loud and brash it's getting a lot of people whispering in reference. A gentleman spoke to me after the show and said 'Everyone should see this show. It reminds us what it's like to be human.' It's not without humour...naturally...so I was able to plug a couple of other Liverpool shows to those who were 'gegging' in on the jokes. 'Terry Titter' that lovable naughty rogue that usually sells out at the Unity every year is back in Edinburgh with at the Assembly Rooms, a mad, hilarious take on the old 'entertainers in the biz' but he's clearly got some degenerate brain malfunction going on so....be warned. Or there's a great physical theatre company who are based in Liverpool and usually sell out for their exhausting character/comedy peices The Big Wow in 'Insomnobabble' - they're on at if you're heading up to the festival check the shows out....you're in for a treat.
The stories told in 'Unprotected' are about Liverpool people. But they are not particular to any one city. People sell sex all over the world. Some people are tortured and killed for it. Until we are prepared to do something about that then our cities will eventually, fester. No matter how exciting and vibrant they appear on the surface. It's great that the festival invites us to revel with all the comedy, music, dance and street theatre at the same time as reminding us that we have to take the time to listen to some harsh stories too.
But remember a Fringe Fly Posterer is just for a month not for life....so chill out and do what I did....lie and tell them you've already bought tickets.
does it really have to be so verbose and long?
Wasn't "Unprotected" a Friday night play on Radio 4 not long ago?
UNPROTECTED
A mixture of voices
reaches
what conclusion?
On-and-on the debate rages.
People love to talk.
So how d'you make a decision?
Democracy: government by voices.
Do you see the world our way, or theirs -
or no way at all, let it enthrall.
Government by vices.
Seduced into our comforts.
The playwright must jog you out,
give you the knout, the lash, of
her tongue.
Bung you one-and-twenty ideas
you DO NOT LIKE.
Make you skrike.
Anguish for something.
the playwright asks us to see the world a different way - but it is still just another illusion after all - we just replace one with another and are really no wiser!
Oh, we are wiser. Learn to read between the lines, Fitz.
I wish I had a conclusion to the ongoing debates raised in 'Unprotected'- it's such a complex issue-not as simple as saying a managed zone is the answer -not all women in the sex trade industry have lives that can be easily structured to suit that option nor would some punters use them....some people find the secretive 'pick-up' procedure part of the excitement -but what is simple, in my opinion, is that as human beings and citizens they are entitled to protection from harm. As a playwright I don't see it as my job to instruct people to see the world in a different way - rather I try to offer the truth of the way the world is - which is often unpalatable. I think the only way forward in any debate is to encourage people to talk. I am under no illusions - I didn't think our play would change the world or legislation but we could show a truth that had been previously unkown to us (Us being everyone involved in making the project happen)and then, if people want to ignore the fact that there is a whole other world going on in the shadows of this city while it's 'respected' citizens sleep easy, lets live with that.
There was indeed a R4 version of 'Unprotected' broadcast to co-incide with the stage version.
Yes, I recall hearing a play with many, many, differing views.
Cities draw many of us. Whether it's Euston or Lime Street I've felt an excitement on putting my foot on the platform. When I was 21 (over thirty years ago) I had a little money in my pocket and headed south.
I hadn't a clue what I wanted (except in life where I felt I wanted to write). So I booked in this cheap hotel and headed straight for a walk round Soho.
Of course before long I end up in conversation with somebody on a dark street. She has an Irish accent and needs money to pay this and that bill. The conversation gets rather tedious after a while and there's somebody else hanging around, seemingly wanting to take my place - and she feels I'm in the way. She's not there to talk: not young girl to young man, anyway. He's quite a bit older than me, I see, as I say goodbye.
The strange thing is, compared to the girls I met later, I would have quite liked to have taken her for a drink, or something. There was less of the act, with her.
Lastly, in response to what you've just written, I very often feel, in such places as parish council meetings or letters to the local paper, it's impossible to express even a glimmer of sympathy for any liberal approach which might begin to provide a solution. Liverpool is lucky in that I don't think hypocrisy has ever been on the ascendant.
I heard "Unprotected" on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 shortly after seeing the production at the Liverpool Everyman & was convinced not just by its "message" (to use a loaded term), but also its force as a piece of theatre.
To be candid, there will always be prostitution. Whenever I read in the Liverpool Echo about a new "drive" against prostitution it makes me laugh. Any one who believes there is no alternative to free market capitalism should realise that the rule of supply & demand applies to this issue.
The only viable approach to the problem is for the authorities to regularise & fully legalise this industry. Let the working girls ply their trade in designated zones, with full access to medical services for check ups on a regular basis, as well as a low key, but readily available police presence; let sex workers, male & female, be fully registered & liable for tax deductions on their earnings.
I realise this isn't a "perfect" answer, but since when was the world perfect?
Esther you say ""it's the most important piece of theatre I've ever worked on""....
I for one would certainly be interested to know why - unless you can explain it we can only at this moment guess.
you also say "I try to offer the truth of the way the world is - which is often unpalatable"
glad you slipped 'try' in there. Yes we are all trying in some way - either trying ourselves are trying to others!
You may not be surprised to hear that of people who people this globe the vast majority do not have one iota about what they are doing here. it just a mystery - sometimes with joy at other times with pain.
What I believe the playwright does is either provide further illusion by using fictious material or as in your case provide illusion by providing factual information as YOU see it and indeed as others may see it also. The views are still I would suggest are still fictional and sometimes make us laugh, smile or cry for a moment - that is all.
But this is a process of simple saying "heh - look what I can see - now how do you feel about it"
And this process entertaining as it may be only provides the viewer with a simple mirror of life - a first rung if you will of what this life and universe is all about.
I guess it is one way to make a living - and if it makes you feel good as well great.
But I would suggest that there is much more to life, its mysteries, wonders and futures than what goes on in the seedy side of a town called Liverpool.
NB - however providing any sort of protection for the misunderstood and downtrodden would seem a noble thing!
There's a convention, which it's to most writers' advantage to subscribe to: you either write out-and-out fiction, or some close approximation to "what really happened" - a "true story" as it's called.
You can't properly call something that draws in real participants' statements as fictional as something totally made up.
surely it depends on whether you consider the world a true representation of what life is really all about or not?
If a true representation - I would tend to agree with you -
however quite legitimately many don't and therefore the writer - albeit a craftsman/woman at his/her trade is only reflecting illusion -
and that's OK of course as long as you recognize it as so!
THE SWAGMAN AND THE PLAYWRIGHT
'Twas '06 in Liverpopl and my friend Fitz, not believing very much in reality, was stirring the pot.
"Hey, Fitz," I'd said, "discussion going on Radio 3, fancy a bite?"
He's a slow starter. But anything "free" gets his vote. He'll have some.
Of course, it's free THINKING. Not cheap thinking. It might in fact be quite expensive, or painful, for those involved. I like it. Right masochist. (Isn't Marianne F. descended from him?)
But we're thinking about cities. Now I'm not far away, but haven't been for years. F's stuck in the Bush (he likes it there). Esther, though, is there in more ways than one.
I believe in plays. What about cities? Even more: what about freethinking. Tinkering. Rule breaking? Free because it's outside the normal conventions, or can go there if need be.
Well, it worries me. I might say things I shouldn't. There might be people who read this who've lost kids to drugs, and if I said scaring people off them -- informing children -- along with just making it difficult, rather than illegal... would have worked better---
But that's another story that Fitz in particular [with his medical hat] might say something on. Drugs aren't my thing, motive is.
You speak, Esther (a name my grandmother had too) of protecting the vulnerable. ---And of there being excitement in the pick-up. Perhaps, also, with the forbidden drug. Because when people will ingest almost anything, even horse anaesthetic, something nutty -- nuttily rebellious, is going on.
Why are there so many who want to get out of their skins, change their consciousness? Why can't society provide for such long-evident needs? Books worked for me, mountaineering might do it for others -- some career around the Bush in 4WDs (and I'd like to run rings around the Bush in other ways).
Of course, it's free THINKING. Not cheap thinking. It might in fact be quite expensive, or painful, for those involved. I like it. (Right masochist. Isn't Marianne F. descended from them?)
But we're thinking about cities. Now I'm not far away, but haven't been for years. Fitz's stuck in the Bush (he likes it there). Esther, though, is there in more ways than one.
I believe in plays. What about cities? Even more: what about freethinking. Tinkering. Rule breaking? Free because it's outside the normal conventions, or can go there if need be.
You speak of protecting the vulnerable, and of there being excitement in the picking up of the forbidden. Perhaps the same with many other forbidden things. Because when people will ingest almost anything, even horse anaesthetic, something nutty -- nuttily rebellious, is going on.
Why are there so many who want to get out of their skins, change their consciousness? Why can't society provide for such long-evident needs? Books worked for me, mountaineering might do it for others -- some career around the Bush in 4WDs (and I'd like to run rings around the Bush in other ways).
You misunderstand me dear Peter as usual - I believe it's been ever since you fell off of the Panda swing!
Of course I believe in reality - what I am questioning is which reality do you and the playwright believe in?
And the second point dear P is that surely ALL thinking is free - we just imprison it a lot in self-made prisons of doubt and fear and all those other negatives. And being free it is priceless - now is that the same as cheap?
And about saying things that scare people off? There is a dictum that has been around for a while now which says that " I cannot hurt you with my words - you only hurt yourself with your thoughts about my words"
""Why are there so many who want to get out of their skins, change their consciousness? Why can't society provide for such long-evident needs?"" you say!
Ah - now you are getting closer to the truth P - closer to real reality - this is one of the most profound questions us humans are always asking - what are people looking for?
ever thought of the word GOD?
I like your metaphor of running rings around the bush - ever heard of those mystery rings in the cornfields - now I wonder who is running rings around who?
Lately, things have broken down. A couple of video recorders I've had for fifteen years, my back, etc. etc.. That's why I try again.
Funnily, although I've not been to Liverpool for over a decade, I had this time of going to Manchester, London, L'p -- usually with my camera. I've a recollection of there still being sawdust on the floor of a pub only a few minutes walk from Lime Street, twenty-thirty years ago.
LOOSE END
I get on the train
half brain dead with my valium,
step off at the deep end, the platform.
Come out on the street facing St George's Hall.
Take some pictures through fountains,
where I can't remember water.
What oughta I to do?
I live in a shoe.
Go to Manchester, then soon after,
the IRA blow it away.
Some of us just can't get out.
It's easier with your Amstrad penning green words
into the night.
No flash, no bang and safer from being walloped.
But developing was fun.
Forever I'm undeveloped now.
Life as an illusion? Sounds like an acid trip to me!
I've thought about God on several occasions in relation to the meaning of life- It's a wonderful concept - rather spoiled, methinks, by various religious spin-doctoring - MY God says....blah blah. Well, watch the news. (I've decided not to for a bit actually, but that's another story)
Sex is life....literally.... but in some parts of the world it's a hanging offence, if you're a fifteen year old girl like, while in other parts of the world it's totally accepted to be at it as soon as your body is ready. Whether you're a catholic priest, an athiest or a wiccan, sex IS because that's what we are programmed to do. Hence the terrible self-loathing painful lives some people endure. Because they struggle to supress urges which go against the beliefs of their particular family/religion/society and yet...'somewhere down the line someone's been doing it because...well, we're here aren't we?' -to quote the comedian Bill Hicks- 'if Christians are offended by my blaspheming ways, then forgive me.'
To clarify - I consider 'Unprotected' to be the most important project I've worked on to date because the women in this city who are regularly raped, battered, buggered, tortured and on occasion murdered were, for once, allowed a voice. To tell their truths. The stories they told were stories I had never read in any newspaper or seen in any film. Truth? What's that then? In this 'free thinking' blog moment, I'm not writing exactly what I want to write as the thoughts come into my head because my ego is present-so I'm drafting and re-drafting- and I also happen to have a foul mouth on me so I'm checking myself constantly because it wouldn't be palatable to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and various members of the public if I vomited my eff & jeff bile over you - so I'm giving you a particular version of me, in this moment. But there are fundamental
truths. The sun rises the sun sets. That's not how I see it, it's how it is. I could explain it a 'certain' way if I was so inclined - 'it rises to ward off my enemies so I've got to kill fifteen sheep and a couple of goats so it'll set, in order to rise again and keep me safe' - you could explain it your way but either way it just sits up there in the sky shining in all it's glory. The people we met when researching Unprotected had had their daughters murdered. Truth. Women are selling sex to men. Truth. Often men hurt the women. Truth. Men from all walks of life buy sex -often deviant sex - even men of the clergy, the judiciary, the political system and various other respected organisations responsible for the social & spiritual well being of our society. Truth.The women who are selling sex to the men don't have the same civil rights as I do. Truth. Sex is bought and sold. Truth. People need sex. Fundemental truth. So yeah....those issues sort of seemed the biggest and the most important 'version' of my truths to focus on in the play. No wiser? I am. I wont walk past these women with any judgemental preconceptions anymore. But I had to get my heart involved in order to engage with the situation intellectually-and that happened through the process of helping to make the play=the process of forging relationships with the women themselves.
I don't think anyone involved in the project felt noble...rather it was more of a humbling experience. We can talk about existentialism till the cows come home but if you're just existing - life or death survival every single day...it sort of puts things into perspective. But yeah. We also saw it as a cracking story.
Playwrights, in my experience, are usually like leeches. They sit in pubs, railway stations, airports etc; eavesdroping on conversations which they can filch and shape and twist into stories - well I do anyway! But don't myths/stories connect us? And doesn't human connection validate us? Doesn't every human being deserve to have their existance recognised? Yep being a playwright is one way to earn a living. But, thankfully, unlike the women who work the streets of Liverpool, all my bogeymen are imaginary.
On the drugs issue - sorry but I for one am most pleased that particular people in history have wanted to 'change their consciousness' with the aid of various ingested liquids and substances. (what was Euripedes getting at in the Bacchae?) Shelley, Sartre,
Dylan, Huxley, Larkin, Mingus, Lenny Bruce, Lennon (he of the airport fame) Lang, Hendrix, Altman, Coppolla, Brando, Native Americans, Aborigines, Innuits, African tribes and various religions - we've had a few goodies left to us as a result of those shenannigans eh?
Ah - that's much better - the face behind the mask!
Sometimes because your audience is largely unknown and sometimes come just to be entertained you need to explain or describe the pain of it all.
When I talked about 'illusions' it was at the deeper sprititual level of life's perceptions try "conversations with god" sometime by Donald Neil Walsch - he sheds some light on the matter.
I guess for me what you have just described is a process of caring and sharing. You went out to discover and "research" the topic as you described. I don't like the word research too much, rather cold and clinical - "sharing and caring" would still be better.
Well if your objective was to give these ladies of the night a voice - I am not sure if you ever achieved it - you gave yourself a voice, we can hear it now, and the actors who portrayed the drama, but if the ladies still continue with their lives and through your "voice letting" have not changed their lives one iota - what has really been achieved but some form of entertainment?
Your initial quest perhaps was never to care and share - it was research and to find a "cracking story" but sometimes even the writer and players do get caught up in the moment with some new emotion or inspiration. I wonder what really will come about in the lives of these ladies - some new utopia brought on by 'unprotected'
The TV blasts us each day with disasters around the world, debasements, evils practices - and guess what we often become immune to it all - why - because our limited minds live in our own illusions and cannot take all the pain - not of reality - but just more illusion -
it has never been in my book of reality to inflict pain or death or any sort of negative act on another person - but by displaying this for all to see does not guarantee any change or improvement save perhaps in yourselves sometimes.
Acid trips are just another form of illusion - we sometimes get bored with the main story and try acid or 'unprotected' but they are still illusions.
When you can show me a kinder world, a more caring world, people less debased and social justice increasing and greed decreasing because of what you have done, then I will call your play 'unprotected' something more than just entertainment!
Cities are like town squares - there's an I'll-meet-you-there subscript. Ill met by moonlight? - streetlight.
It often isn't a who, more like a what: what are you taking away from town tonight? Whose inspiration?
The colour on the actress's cheeks is to stay with you through the week. Is that divine enough for you, Fitz?
Esther, you don't have to establish your credentials with me. Maybe I have to with you. Plays are great, playing is a problem.
I've suspicions on what's made me the way I am, he's 83 and has a temper - let it rest there. The year after I got back from my conversation in Meard Street, Soho, I attempted suicide. This doesn't close things down - I had my stomach pumped out. Maybe that was my entry to the city.
I was alone because of a relationship, and I ended up with people around me, in our local hospital, in Crewe. But I had wanted to die, or, rather, I certainly wasn't going to live on dishonest terms. This is all 1974.
You succeed, I only try to understand. I want to know why there's this violence in the world. (You can tell Fitz is a psychiatric nurse, can't you?)
Dear Fitz, you do so like provoking people in order to get things off their chest, often without thinking.
I doth protest most loudly - I have no intention to be provocative - indeed I was of the belief that this was the playwrights modus operandi.
I am responding with my unashamed views and opinions and beliefs. I tell it as I see it - remember P if you are others feel provoked it is the mind of the reciever that does the provoking - you are provoking yourself - I can no more provoke you or any others on the board than God him/herself unless you permit yourself to feel and then respond.
As soon as you identify that you have been provoked you have identified your own provocative nature!
all I have said thus far is my firm believe right now - it may change in a month or year who knows but for now it is!
Playwrights often believe and yearn to stir the imaginations and moods and behaviours of their audience - there is usually very little proof that they do. Entertain maybe!
Many people I believe do get inspired for the moment but in the morning it has all dissapated
Fair enough, some art does lay claim to great intentions, while just copying the extremes others have pioneered. Throw in a few dead animals and a clock and it can be a meditation on mortality. I suppose that's entertainment.
"Entertainer" means someone like Bruce Forsyth to me. I imagine listening to Plato lecture would have entertained, but I would have called it something else.
I don't recall "Unprotected" being as other radio plays I've heard. Its format was disturbing, in that sense, for a start. I suppose, being old-fashioned, something in me would have preferred a guiding mind behind it, some overall opinion to select a viewpoint to prevail over dissenting voices. Perhaps that was there: the sympathy for the women we're now hearing.
We haven't mentioned Klute yet. Where did I have my mind? About level with John Klute's gun.
No, I got interested in films like Cul de Sac (Polanski) at the school film society, then I used to trot off to Manchester and watch anything that wasn't on locally. I used to get Sight & Sound magazine, so I've read all that stuff about Jane Fonda's researches.
The garment factory scene, where she does the chaste striptease for the old proprietor, is breathtaking. There is far more to prostitution than obtaining some relief. And, of course, the film is about what one sick individual brings about.
I wonder whether the film could be made now? There used to be that funny rule that people had to have one foot on the floor in bedroom scenes - but that's not exactly the form of censorship I'm thinking of.
THE BAD INFLUENCE OF FILMS AND CITIES
"She's doing it again."
"What?" my mother asked, facing the wrong way.
I could see everything, perched in the cafe of the Lyceum in Crewe, overlooking the market. And when we later went to buy our vegetables I told her I'd seen her, juggling her oranges.
"You should see my melons."
I fell in love very quickly. She was a tragic figure. In her words she used to walk the children around the shops to keep warm. Hubby had chased her out of the bedroom window and onto an outhouse with a knife. He'd come out now and sometimes came to the stall for a chat. She'd just turned fifty. I wasn't quite there yet.
Her friend, Jackie, wife of the owner, had had the benefit of more hot dinners than Sandra. After several months she took me off up the road into this dingy place where there were all these clothes. Were there any I fancied? No thanks. Kiss of death. I wouldn't join in the games.
Sandra, meanwhile, pretended to be innocent. Her son had just been arrested when his getaway car wouldn't start. I started to get really upset for her. "They've fitted him up," she said. In the end he pleaded guilty.
Then while he was away some "debt collectors" called for the four-wheel-drive. "They want me to take some drugs in."
I got in really deep and wrote to the Home Office for advice. The debt collectors didn't push again.
After this she wouldn't meet me anywhere in Crewe. Then suddenly she turned up on the doorstep, all in white. It turned out her son's girlfriend had died from a nosebleed. She said this in front of my parents. I took her out and kissed her.
There is a desperation about passion. We met in country places, anywhere two cars could park, innocuously. She told me about her overdose, and Jackie finding her behind the door. It wasn't that anything fell into place, we just understood each other.
Believe it or not she's remarried the fellow. I suppose she'd loved him all along. The daughter looks like a model, and they're all ready to look after the son when he comes out.
There's this moment in Klute when Fonda steals from a fruitstall: it's not about the stealing, but the evening moment, the colour, the fact that he's a policeman and she's a tom.
I think you need to define 'divine' P
Sometimes it feels just hopeless and then things change. The City can help you.
They can sing Jerusalem, those young people, at the Last Night of The Proms - but it can be lesser cities where the mysteries, and the warmth, are.
I career around their streets, into shops, cafes, through underpasses. I don't know what I'm looking for.
They walk away in cafes, on two pins, young and in a dream. Waitresses, checkout girls, cinema usherettes. But these latter are dreams I don't want to enter: violent films. Apocalypse Now.
My suicidal thoughts have long gone, on the surface. I strayed into Walton one day, walking from Lime Street, in sight of the prison, just to talk to a psychologist I'd once known. "I don't like buns," she'd once said, when I offered her one, in my twenties.
The past is another country though, they do things differently there, the saying goes.
There's this moment in Mona Lisa where Bob Hoskins is almost crying, when he's talking to the Cathy Tyson character, after realising he's never going to be able to marry her, because she likes girls, really likes girls.
Because she's been a "tom", that old, English, criminal word for it. He's ferried her around to her assignations, her appointments, in his old jag. And he hopes that he'll be able to effect a miracle. Then he realises it's all gone too far. She's in love with a heroin addict. "She likes me," this one says over her ice cream. "I like you," he says. "No, she REALLY likes me."
Maybe this world can be redeveloped, so that Bob would come out and things could be different for him. You can't rewrite real characters though. I'm frozen in that belief, like the young addict.
I think gypsy would call that tangental or something P - looking at life a bit sideway perhaps - taking the horizontal view - lateral thinking perhaps.
It's lovely being in an illusion sometimes because you can just keep inventing new ones all the time!
Good thinking usually hurts a little. And I heard somewhere, recently, that the time you SHOULD go on writing is when you don't want to face what you're dragging up.
RATMAN RETURNS
Something had put me off. My desire had flitted away. Wild butterflies couldn't drag me back. Yet, there she was, fluttering her eyelashes at me.
"You're one of those---"
"Aye. An' I'll have the money first. I've too many hard nights wi' soft philosophers under mah belt."
Her accent was taking off, anyway.
"Do you come here often?" I asked, trying to strike up a decent conversation (or was it 'conversion'?).
"Aye. I cool mah heels half naked all night every night standing here just to talk to ratmen."
"Rat-men?"
"Want to talk and mess around like you."
"You shouldn't be standing here outside the theatre."
"What? Is there a byelaw or somethin'?"
"It's Unprotected. It's the play. We men..."
"Very wee, very Scottish men!"
"WE men are totally defused. All the words knock me out, put me out of action."
She exhaled, sadly. "I've no sense, me. My pal says this'd be a good spot as it's a sexy play and the guys'll come alone -- leave their wives at home. I don't know---"
"Some friend?"
"Aye."
"Come for a coffee and warm yourself up. Short skirt like that you'll catch your death."
"I could do without that."
"Okay, sorry."
I wanted to take her hand. "Which way do we go?"
"Don't you know the area? There's a cafe down here."
"Chips with everything, is it?"
"If you're buying."
"Buying chips anyway."
"Okay."
At the end of the meal she kissed me, outside. Lads catcalled. I didn't care. I just kept remembering: "If you put 'Tragedy' on again on that jukebox I'll walk away. Put 'I'm not in love' on, there's a good boy." And she smiled. I'd got her to smile.
"Be careful," I said.
"Are you coming to the play again?" she asked.
"See you, then?"
All day those wild butterflies fluttered around me, dragging my thoughts. Divine.
It's a sad but true story - boy meets hooker - boy feels sorry for hooker - boy falls in love with hooker - boy tries to rescue (save) hooker
hooker sees money - hooker goes along - hooker enjoys the moment - hooker realizes the futility - hooker says farewell - hooker goes for more money!
Great discussion but it's going way off topic isnt it?
Cities are places of light, drawing people in.
Cities have a culture which WANTS to attract and have the city itself as a stage. You get characters like Hattons and Livingstones appearing.
And it seems quite appropriate to illustrate how less-known individuals are brought in by the prospect of new experiences.
Really pleased to see that the Unprotected production is getting the recognition it deserves. I have been most fortunate to follow its progress right from the first public reading at the Everyman.
The power of the piece is truly astonishing and never fails to move me.
I think it should be required viewing for every 15 year old shoolkid as part of their drug and social studies education.
Great work so far- best of luck for the future
CR
Congratulations on The Amnesty Award Esther.
Its great to see that the work on this production is slowly turning a negative into a positive.
Getting people to listen is an achievement in itself .
Lets hope this recognition gets more of the decision makers to sit up and take notice and fingers crossed ,with a bit of momentum ,the issues raised will get sorted out.
Best wishes for the future
Colin R
Thank you Colin. Everyone involved was over the moon.
Not least the families of the girls who were killed.
I hope the play has a longer shelf life. It's not a subject matter particular to Liverpool, unfortunately
Your play "Writing of Harlots", broadcast 8th November:
I think it's so much more difficult to write about isolated people - ones using "internet porn" or not - if you aren't one. Isn't your real target a very retiring creature?
I remember when discussing "Unprotected" you mentioned the thrill some feel about pick-ups. The problem I had with "Harlots" was that I felt the central character, the man, was trying to react like an ordinary boy. I think he would know the rules of the game.
I know that you can say, in reply, that you're only trying to emphasise this "isolating" property of porn - but isn't it the isolating property of any addiction?
Whereas I felt you knew the women (of "Unprotected") I don't get the same feeling about this male character. I also felt that, perhaps, you were going too far... almost into the territory of "The Collector" or "Peeping Tom". I don't think it's true that a lack of normal moral sense makes people homicidal - it just sells stuff to go in that direction (whether penny dreadfuls or newspapers).
Perhaps the difference is the amount of real research one does for ones writings - after all anyone can just sit down and write a story
" normal moral sense"
what a fascinating phrase - how easily it falls from the lips without any real meaning or understanding
It begs so many questions:
What is normal and is there any such creature?
Moral perhaps is more easily understand
But what of sense - the senses - from whence do they come?
the more you ponder on it the more absurd it becomes. Imagine asking our father or mother - "Heh pater mater do you have normal moral sense?"
A quick jab to the ear might be the answer!
Or asking your local parish priest or local parliamentarian?
the mind boggles - or is that the normal moral senses boggle?
Playwrights love playing with words and so do we!
What is it that pornography damages? There are views, held in innocence, still soldiering on, that find the juxtapositions difficult to cope with. You have to decide whether a piece damages the innocent or damages naive views held by adults, before you condemn.
We're in this society of condemnation, criticism, litigation. To someone who wants to think, this is sickening. It's democracy indulging the second-rate.
When you actually get there, in a committee, on a jury or in a factory making something - people want to know HOW. How to achieve what we need to do, what we're there to do. Get past the initial, Yes, you can have your way and condemn like Caesar - if you want; and you come to the point where you might need someone who's been there before: who has a clue.
Surely, one of the greatest truths in life is that we're not equal when it comes to almost any task you can have. Some have a steady hand and wield a scalpel, some can sing, others design buildings, mothers know their own children. Yet we're saddled with this Law, still rooted in ways of thinking from hundreds (even thousands) of years ago (Judaeo-Christian). Aren't we allowed to question?
Claude Chabrol made a film called Le Boucher (The Butcher). Unfortunately the central character doesn't just kill for meat, he kills women. Even after this is revealed, the "heroine" (if that's the right word) still kisses him, after he's stabbed himself and lies dying on a hospital trolley. Chabrol said he made the film just to achieve that kiss.
What's at issue is far larger than artistic licence. This society has to start realising that ideas matter. People like me have to start putting down political correctness (it's akin to being asleep anyway, being put-down's hardly a further stage, just a necessary one).
"Surely, one of the greatest truths in life is that we're not equal when it comes to almost any task you can have."
sorry Peter dear but I disagree - surely ' we are all equal in the eye of God' - we are undoubtedly.
That we have different skills is not disputed here - but this does not make us unequal - we are equal in our differences!
this is the great falicy in life - the illusion that divides nations and districts and people and families - that we are different and unequal.
NO again I say and NO again - we are NOT unequal - we are equal in the sight of God - but we can be different - because being different is part of the mirage images of GOD - is part of the KALIDEASCOPE of being GOD.
When we all start believing that we are equal - regardless of intelligent quotients, manual skills and general knowledge then the world will become a better place and of course an equal place.
This thinking takes a quantum leap - I am no less equal or more equal than my fellow man/women - what a very exilirating and exhaulting feeling!
How should we use language? To bring out meaning or to avoid offence? It's a real problem.
To say "all men are equal", means before the law, or in the eyes of God -- as you say.
When I say "unequal" I mean in a particular task -- I'm not refuting the above.
But Orwell's "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" is perhaps the ultimate political consequence of your cosmetic statement. I contend IT helps people's feelings, it expresses something we should all accept, but it doesn't help us deal with the world.
Yes, prostitution, we don't want to think about THAT; but it's better that Unprotected was written rather than not -- it's better not to sweep things under the carpet.
"But Orwell's "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others"
Orwell was just another human who somtimes got it wrong.
the statement more correctly should read "all animals are equal, but some of them incorrectly believe they are more equal than others, and by so doing live a life of absurb and ridiculous illusions, often leaving them shattered, lonely, poverty stricken and forgotten"!
there that feels better already!
It's inevitable that one's own experience mixes with an attempt to understand others. Grave events with grave conclusions.... Leap into a lift on a visit to a dying friend: later it's so trivial how you earn money. Maybe there are many scarred like this.
THE LAST GIRL
Following the muse one rainy morning our heroine
winks at the guard, flies to the lift and shoots out at her floor.
Her heart's been grabbed.
Too, too, late now.
She's no name. Logging on as Heartless the feel of
her bracelet reassures. Its gold warms her art.
"Here I am," she writes -- "what will you have me do?
"Am I petrified in sin? Will you enter into
my web?"
She looks across the office, at the manager, who's
watching her typing on his monitor. Will she do something
for him? Or keep trim, sails trimmed to the point.
The day can be magical, if she keeps her distance.
A distance from clients so enraptured they
hardly notice: notice she's building something
beyond them. A fantasy twisted and laced by
a past they're forgetting, and she's the sense to
remember.
She takes a tablet -- it's only indigestion -- but
no-one will see. Lara Croft can be their vision,
neatly waisted, sharp as a wasp. Her personality
will ebb and flow, drinking them up through the
airwaves, the waves in the machine.
She comes home too tired to think. Not a wink
on the way out. The glass panels slide effortlessly
away. The underground train ferrets her home.
Home is where the heart is.
Peter will you stop messing about with these bizarre stories - and stick to the point - you are going all tangential as gypsy would say - back to the main theme - what was it by the way?
How else can we bring the alien before our very eyes, render it almost tangible, without the tale?
We started by a talking about a "tale" of the soft, unrevealed, underbelly of Liverpool -- or maybe of any-city, anywhere, where people are pushed into corners, have advantage taken, exploitation made.... (My personal experience is out of date, I'm out of that city, now.)
Yet in words I can feel an affinity (here) for things that are still happening (to me). I feel the changes in this world as the playwright does. Perhaps it's a different alienation I'm feeling at the moment, but nonetheless there are relevant things I can say.
Well all cities from ancient Roman ones to our modern ones have always catered for all tastes and they do say that 'prostitution' is the oldest profession in the world.
The word seems to be reserved for anyone who offers their body for sexual use in return for monetary gains.
And yet haven't we all at some time done the same thing just for pleasure and not money.
It would seem that we can do it for pleasure and be forgiven but not for gain.
But what of the girl or women that we have all heard about or even knew who gave her body away freely to many suitors, but still for pleasure. What would she be called I wonder?
And do we really know if the women or men for that matter who do it for money, don't also enjoy the experience at some times?
Some say that giving love, including sexual love is the greatest gift we can bestow on another. So if my wife provides that to me and then I buy her a new jaguar to show my real appreciation, has she become a prostitute?
And if I sell my counselling skills to those I do not intimately know and do it for money not for the love of it, am I then a counstitute?
I am confused with all this!
I think you get areas where "the kept woman" and the prostitute overlap. Watching a film on TV a few weeks ago about Cynthia Payne, one can see how a situation can develop where people just want to get together and give...
yes maybe giving is the clue, whether we are giving gifts, our bodies, our money, our love our disdain, our hatred our all. Maybe the greatest gift we have is 'giving'
For God so loved the world that he gave..................
A newspaper paragraph from yesterday:
'Scientists also expect major advances in the understanding of sexual pleasure and sexual health problems, according to Beverly Whipple, secretary general of the World Association for Sexual Health. She told New Scientist of her hopes to see sexual health recognised as a universal human right. "Sexual violence and abuse will be eliminated, universal access to sexual health education will be promoted, and the spread of sexually transmitted infections will be halted," she added.'
Hope lives eternally in the heart!
NETSCAPE
Out of the limited head I see across the valley
to the narrow alley where we meet and argue --
your play.
The limits are set (right from the start).
It's a JG Ballard future, awesome.
The people are hidden behind their electrics.
He wants their faces but he's using tapes.
They give out hints of wanting to be people, not zombies --
cracking, momentarily, around the suicide-note.
Is it porn that causes all this?
The internet facilitates, does not originate.
People wanting shortcuts to pleasure...
that's the new name of the same old game.
Society wants that we should go by the long route,
of work and marriage.
It doesn't matter, it's neither here nor there, that
Maggie T. said there's no such thing as society.
She was serving a political end.
I just don't believe the credentials of the anti-porn people.
There's too much falsity in the world,
and it's not all on chat-lines, porn sites, lips of harlots etc..
What we're writing doesn't seem to have much changed how things happen out there in the "unprotected" world. Those very bad things that started your project off are still happening.
A lot of my concern is that although we get muddled up, accuse each other of going off-topic etc., there are still those who, for one reason or another, aren't able to begin to put where-they-are-in-life into words. Sadly, your project now has a renewed relevance.