Junkyard E-Book

Jack Thorne

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: NHB Modern Plays
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 115

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

It's 1979, rubbish is on the streets of Bristol, and it's tricky being Fiz. She's thirteen, she's got no money, her sister's pregnant and her mum thinks she's a waste of space... Rick remembers what it's like to be a teenager. So he thinks it won't take much to get a bunch of kids to help him build a playground out of junk. He's wrong. It takes everything he's got. But when it's finished, it's going to be something. It's going to be everything... Jack Thorne's honest and witty Junkyard, with music by Stephen Warbeck, premiered in 2017 in a co-production between Headlong, Bristol Old Vic, Rose Theatre Kingston and Theatr Clwyd, and directed by Jeremy Herrin.

Leseprobe

Jack Thorne

JUNKYARD

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Dedication

Introduction

Characters

Junkyard

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Junkyard was first performed at Bristol Old Vic Theatre on 2 March 2017 (previews from 24 February), in a co-production between Headlong, Bristol Old Vic, Rose Theatre Kingston and Theatr Clwyd. The cast was as follows:

DEBBIE

Scarlett Brookes

RICK

Calum Callaghan

GINGER

Josef Davies

FIZ

Erin Doherty

MALCOLM

Kevin McMonagle

TALC

Enyi Okoronkwo

TILLY

Seyi Omooba

MUM

Lisa Palfrey

HIGGY

Jack Riddiford

LOPPY

Ciaran Alexander Stewart

MUSICIANS

Show MD and Bass

Akintayo Akinbode

Drums

Nadine Lee

Guitar

Dario Rossetti-Bonell

Director

Jeremy Herrin

Composer

Stephen Warbeck

Designer

Chiara Stephenson

Lighting Designer

Jack Knowles

Sound Designer

Ian Dickinson for Autograph

Musical Director

Akintayo Akinbode

Movement Director

Polly Bennett

Casting Director

Lotte Hines CDG

Assistant Director

Michal Keyamo

Costume Supervisor

Ed Parry

Associate Costume Supervisor

Annelies Henny

Music Preparation

Andrew Green

Production Manager

Simon Evans

Company Stage Manager

Linsey Hall

Deputy Stage Manager

Jen Llewellyn

Assistant Stage Manager

Katie Barrett

For Mick (Mike), a boy from Walthamstow, a playground attendant, a planner, and my Dad.

Introduction

Jack Thorne

My dad recently retired after fifty years of public service. In that time, he wore many hats: treasurer of this, secretary of that, chairman of this, agitator of that. He was a town planner, teacher, playgroup leader and union organiser. He worked in council offices, community centres, Citizens Advice Bureaus and, most recently, on a roundabout renovation.

One thing was a constant: he always worked for the public good. We grew up without much money but were never short when it came to having things of importance thrust into our heads. We went on marches, protests and holidays to union conferences in Blackpool and Bournemouth. He always expected big things of us and was never shy of saying so.

Having recently become a father, I’ve found myself thinking about my dad, and about how the choices I’ve made don’t measure up to his contributions to the world. But I’ve also found myself thinking about the weird bits, chief among them the junk playground he built with some kids at Lockleaze School in Bristol. We used visit it regularly, particularly on Fireworks Night, when we’d sit on flimsy flammable structures while playing with fire, or go off eating hot dogs. I didn’t really see the point of it. I always saw him as serious man and a playground just seemed so silly. But the more I investigated, the more appealing the slightly pirate world of these adventure playgrounds seemed.

They were set up by a woman called Lady Allen. ‘There is no asphalt,’ she once said, explaining their difference, ‘no seesaws, swings or slides, except those created by the children themselves out of waste material freely available on the site – or by the terrain of the playground itself.’ These outreach schemes were meant to encourage creativity and inventiveness, and to give children a taste of manual labour.

There are still quite a few dotted about. A mass of broken wood, disused car tyres and concrete tubes, they usually involve sheer drops, death-defying rope swings, and look like they’ve been set on fire a couple of times (they generally have). They’re always built and designed by the kids themselves, and they change every year or so, to reflect the current intake. In a world of health and safety, they are a haven of anarchy.

In Junkyard, the kids are led by a man called Rick from Walthamstow. Back then, my dad was Mick from Walthamstow (although he now goes by Mike). But Junkyard is not about my dad. Despite him thinking he features punishingly in everything I write, I lack both the tools and the inclination to write a theatrical biography.

Rather, it’s an attempt to walk the high wire he walked – and to tell the truth about the type of kids who built these playgrounds, the places they come from, the lives they lead. These are the kids no one else wants – who’ll attack you, abuse you, accuse you and make you feel like shit, because no one in authority has ever reached them. It’s those kids and that relationship I wanted to capture.

Because of that, right from the start, the director Jeremy Herrin and I were adamant than it shouldn’t be a Mr Chips-style story, where a knight comes in and makes everyone’s lives better. That’s not how these things work: with kids like these, there’s a constant threat of darkness just around the corner. I have worked in outreach as well (far less successfully than my dad) and know that it’s about failure as much as it’s about success.

It was for that reason we decided to write it as a musical, my first. They’re odd beasts, musicals, but what I like about them is the way they allow windows into people. When people sing, you get an opportunity to see a vulnerability, a glimpse of a life in a messed-up head.

But Junkyard isn’t Andrew Lloyd Webber. The music Stephen Warbeck has written is all about the kids and the playground. He’s built instruments out of junk that our musicians and kids play. They frequently play the set too. Actually, by the time the show opens, I’m pretty sure they’ll be banging each other’s heads together for a tune – because every day the cast seems to get just a little bit wilder. Yesterday, they were kicking balls at each other’s heads through The Death Hole (don’t ask).

My dad once took a bunch of kids he’d been working with on a camping trip. While driving them home in the minibus, they were making a racket and he said if they didn’t shut up he’d throw them out and they could walk. A pretty standard threat. But then they didn’t shut up – and he was good to his word and left them on an A-road thirty miles north of Bristol. He thought he could circle back pretty quickly, but there wasn’t a roundabout for miles. By the time he returned, they’d hitched. On Monday, aside from a bollocking from the headmistress, the kids all went back to work on the playground.

These junkyard playgrounds are now under the threat. The wilful destruction of local government services by George Osborne and co has left a skeleton of youth/outreach schemes. And this is the other reason I wanted to write the musical. Because, when it comes to cuts, who’d keep open a playground over a Sure Start Centre? The playgrounds, which have been burnt down so many times, are probably now under their greatest threat. But these places do capture kids that can’t be captured elsewhere.

A young lad was recently killed near where I lived and I talked to his uncle about what had happened. He said quite simply there’s nowhere else for these kids to go – nothing else for them to do. And if we don’t reach them as kids, when else do we reach them?

It does make me proud that the playground my dad built still stands. The school it was attached to was demolished in 2009 but ‘The Vench’ playground lives on. One of my dad’s big worries about Junkyard is that I’ll give him too much credit: he was part of a team full of passionate people, who worked incredibly hard to make it happen. But I still consider it his playground and, when I go back there and see kids playing on it forty years on, it gives me great joy. When he’s old enough to hold a hammer, I want my kid to play at The Vench, to help rebuild it and renew it. I hope the musical captures some of its indomitable spirit.

This piece was originally written for the Guardian in 2017 and reproduced with permission.

JUNKYARD

A Play about Junk.Featuring Junk Music played by a Junk Orchestra.

The following is based on a true story.

Ish.

Characters

KIDS

FIZ, female

TALC, male

GINGER, male

HIGGY, male

LOPPY, male

TILLY, female

DEBBIE, female

ADULTS

MUM

RICK

MALCOLM

Location

A junk playground in Lockleaze. Bristol. 1979.

In the first half the playground goes up.

In the second half the playground comes down.

Ish.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

ACT ONE

Scene One

The stage is in total darkness.

Suddenly a torch runs on to the stage. Or a person holding a torch.

Then the torch goes out.

GINGERShit.

 The torch is hit once, twice, three times, it briefly glows into light and then dies again.

 Shit.Fucking.This is the sort of shit that…

 A lighter is lit. A cigarette is lit. The cigarette is smoked.

 The torch is hit again. It works suddenly.

 It’s pointed in four directions.

 Wherever you are. Wherever you are.

 Then it alights on something.

TALCGinger…

GINGEROh shit. Oh shit.

 The torch dies again.

TALCI… I…

GINGERGuys! Guys! Oh shit. Oh shit.

 He runs, he trips, he falls, he hits at the torch. It’s not giving off anything now.

 Guys. Guys! GUYS!

 The lighter is relit, to pick out a prone body, a tearful TALC beside it.

TALCShit.

GINGEROh shit. Oh shit.

 The lighter goes out.

 Then a lighter is lit elsewhere in the theatre.

 Then another one.

 Then another.

 Suddenly there are eight lighters lit.

 And then a hum starts.

TILLY(Singing.) There is a blackbirdSittingOn a black postIn the dark.You may not see it.But it’s there.

 Night.It’s the best time of the day.It’s black. It’s dark. It’s secret.

 Courage sits waitingIn a cave.It’s got no friends.And it’s starvingIt just waitsAnd wants –

Scene Two

The lighters go out and the lights come up. Bang. In an instant. It’s magic.

RICK is standing alone on stage. He’s hammering two large pieces of wood together. He has a cigarette poking out of his lip in a direction he thinks is rakish.

FIZ and TALC walk on to the stage. They’re carrying a plank of wood on each shoulder. FIZ is dressed carefully in a unisex outfit. She looks well washed and cared for. TALC looks like he hasn’t seen a bath. Ever. And his clothes have never been washed. He has quite a prominent milk moustache. His shoelaces are untied. And broken.

FIZ…and she said in that case I’ll keep it in a cage. And Mum says you’re not keeping a rat in a cage. And she says but I like them, they’re furry and cuddly and Mum says rats are dirty and dangerous. And she says dirty, dangerous, furry and cuddly. And Mum says dirty and dangerous are worse than –

TALCI love your mum.

FIZYou love anyone will give you a feed… Anyway, weren’t three days that my sister comes to me, ‘think it might be dead’. I said, ‘what’s dead?’ And she said ‘my rat’.

TALCShe kept the rat? I knew she would.

 They put down the wood. RICK looks up at them.They turn and walk away again.

FIZIn Tupperware. She’d picked out a rat. Put it in her airtight box. To keep it safe. She were quite shock-ed when the fuckee expi-red.

TALCThat is nasty.

FIZThat’s not the nasty thing – the nasty thing is that she kept the corpse. Turned green now. She don’t get it and stroke it no more but… I bet it’s still in the box. Under her bed.

TALCYour sister is…

 They’ve gone. RICK looks after them. Then continues hammering.

 A girl – DEBBIE – walks on to the stage.

DEBBIE(Singing.) Don’t even start.Don’t even start.Don’t even start to start.What you’re starting.

 She looks at RICK. Who concentrates on hammering. She exits.

 A guy – HIGGY – runs onstage behind her.

HIGGYNo… No… No…

RICKYou here to help?

 HIGGY looks up at RICK. Who is now looking at him.

HIGGYNo.

RICKWe’ve got a lot to do.

HIGGYYeah. I can see.

RICKBut you don’t want to help?

HIGGYFuck no. You seen Debbie?

RICKWhich one is Debbie?

HIGGYDebbie. You know her.(Singing.) Dirty Debbie.She’s always ready.

RICKNo. I haven’t seen Debbie. And you probably shouldn’t call her Dirty.

 HIGGY looks at him, slightly disbelievingly.

HIGGYDebbie? Debbie?

 RICK looks after him, smiles, pulls off his top and then, bare-backed, continues to hammer.

 FIZ and TALC re-enter carrying wood. This time they’ve got GINGER following TALC. He walks just behind him, with ominous power. He doesn’t say anything.

FIZAnd I said to her, yeah, well, you’ve got a vagina no one would want, and she said, yeah, I know.

TALCYeah?

FIZAnd so I said – thinking I’ll enjoy this as a bit of an experiment – science experiment – you know – mating habits of the dumb – why not make a bit of an effort.

 FIZ, without acknowledging or even seemingly noticing him (she doesn’t turn around) hits GINGER hard in the balls with the back of her swinging hand. He crumples. TALC and FIZ keep walking.

 You’ve got some tits on you. Use them. Cover up the spots. I introduced her to mascara. Mainly for the science experiment, you know? She’s only pregnant now.

 GINGER stumbles off.

TALCIs she?

FIZSeven weeks.

 LOPPY walks past them in the opposite direction, he’s wearing large 1970s hearing aids.