Canary Read online

  Jonathan Harvey

  Canary

  Methuen Drama

  Published by Methuen Drama 2010

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Methuen Drama

  A & C Black Publishers Limited

  36 Soho Square

  London W1D 3QY

  www.methuendrama.com

  Copyright © Jonathan Harvey 2010

  Jonathan Harvey has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work

  ISBN 978 1 408 13337 8

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Typeset by Mark Heslington Limited, Scarborough, North Yorkshire

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading, Berkshire

  Caution

  All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before rehearsals begin to Independent Talent Group Limited, Oxford House, 76 Oxford Street, London W1D 1BS. No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained.

  No rights in incidental music or songs contained in the work are hereby granted and performance riehts for any performance/presentation whatsoever must be obtained from the respective copyright owners.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means-graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or information storage and retrieval systems-without the written permission ofA & C Black Publishers Limited.

  This book is produced using paper made from wood that is grown in managed, sustainable forests. It is natura1, renewable and recyclable.

  The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Characters

  Prologue – Lecture Hall, 1970

  Act One

  Scene One – Mickey’s house, Billericay, 1979

  Scene Two – Tom’s house, Islington, 2010

  Scene Three – Billy’s bedsit, Liverpool, 1962

  Scene Four – Tom’s back garden, Islington, 2010

  Scene Five – Heaven nightclub, 1981

  Scene Six – a roundabout in Tring, 2010

  Scene Seven – Robin’s house, 1982

  Scene Eight – Police station, 1962

  Scene Nine – Miner’s house, 1984

  Scene Ten – Courtroom, 1962

  Scene Eleven – Hospital room, 1984

  Scene Twelve – Psychiatric hospital, 1962/Hospital, 1984

  Act Two

  Scene One – Tom’s living room, 2010.

  Scene Two – B and B, 1962

  Scene Three – Private room, House of Commons, 1986

  Scene Four – Hospital room, 1986

  Scene Five – Ellie’s house, 1962

  Scene Six – Theatre 1987 / Church 1962

  Scene Seven – Festival of Light offices, 1971

  Scene Eight – Hospital, 1986

  Scene Nine – Down by the railway line, Billericay, 1971

  Scene Ten – Mount Ararat, 2010

  Scene Eleven – Hospital, 1986

  Act Three

  Scene One – Central Hall, 1971

  Scene Two – Hospital, 1986

  Scene Three – Police Station, 1971

  Scene Four – Hospital, 1986

  Scene Five – Hotel room, 2009

  Scene Six – A roundabout in Tring, 2010

  Scene Seven – Billy’s house, 2000

  Scene Eight – Tom’s house, Islington, 2010/Tom’s back garden, Islington, 2010/Tom’s old front garden, Billericay, 1999

  Canary

  Jonathan Harvey is an award-winning playwright whose plays include: The Cherry Blossom Tree (Liverpool Playhouse Studio) Wildfire (Royal Court); Beautiful Thing (Bush Theatre, London and Donmar Warehouse/Duke of York's), John Whiting Award; Babies (National Theatre Studio/Royal Court), George Devine Award and Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award; Boom Bang-A-Bang (Bush Theatre); Hushabye Mountain (ETT/Hampstead) and Out in the Open (Hampstead/Birmingham Rep). Television and film work includes: West End Girls (Carlton); Beautiful Thing (Channel Four); Gimme Gimme Gimme (BBC).

  Canary

  For Richard and Kumari

  Introduction

  ‘Women and gay people are the litmus test of whether a society is democratic and respecting human rights. We are the canaries in the mine.’ Peter Tatchell.

  Five or six years ago I sat having lunch in a posh Japanese restaurant in Soho, pitching television series ideas to the Heads of Drama at ITV with the other members of my production company at the time, my partner Richard and our Head of Development Kumari Salgado. I can’t remember the ideas we were throwing at them and it was hard to see their reactions as – it being a very posh Japanese restaurant – it was so dimly lit you couldn’t even see the menu in front of your face. We were attempting to offer them what they claimed they wanted: fun, female-skewed, high-concept comedy drama ideas about Lottery winners, single mums finding their mojo and cross-dressing gorillas taking over the world. (Okay, I made that one up. Mind you, I’d probably watch it.) There was an awkward pause and one of the Drama bods said ‘Yes Jonathan, but what is it you really want to write about? Forget what our agenda is. If we said to you you had carte blanche to write any television series you could . . . what would it be?’

  Well. That was a no brainer. I’d long been interested in writing something that contextualised where the gay community is today. A story that would attempt to encapsulate what it has been like to be gay in this country over the last, say, fifty years. I just didn’t think a major TV channel would be interested in it. But as we discussed it a waitress came and put a candle on our table (was there a power cut I wondered? no, it was just a pretentious eaterie) and suddenly I could see that the Drama Chiefs’ faces had illuminated too. They thought there was something in this. I went away to start work.

  Eventually they passed on the idea in a rather abrupt volte face as they’d just been offered a follow up to The Naked Civil Servant and John Hurt was attached. As so often happens in my career I was told they couldn’t make it because they were already doing their gay drama for that year. Woe betide there’d be two of the damn things! So we discussed the idea with Channel 4 who offered similar praise but explained that they were making Kevin Elyot’s Clapham Junction, which had loads of gays in it!

  By then Kumari and I had done a lot of research, we were experts in British Gay History. I just wanted someone to let me write about it. Maybe I should have stuck with the cross-dressing gorillas taking over the world. But in these days of ever decreasing television budgets and the homogenising of drama, I guess it would have ended up being a low budget thing about smartly dressed gorillas taking over Manchester. And I’m just not sure it would have worked.

  A few years later I went to talk to Gemma Bodinetz at Liverpool Playhouse to discuss writing a play for her. In a brightly lit office Gemma – who directed my plays Guiding Star and Closer To Heaven – asked if I had anything burning I wanted to write about. I thought of my telly idea. Would it be possible to take the stories I had read during my research and make a piece of theatre from them? It felt like a mammoth task, and so I shied away from it, chosing instead to write a simple three act play about a group of friends in Liverpool and seeing them in the eighties, the nineties and the present day. Gemma organised a workshop of it. On the second day I realised I’d made a big mistake. I’d not delved deep enough. I’d not told the stories I’d wanted to tell, the stories I remembered from my research. Stories about aversion therapy, AIDS, combination therapy, survivor guilt, bug chasers, the Gay Liberation Front. I told Gemma I was throwing that play away and starting again.r />
  Canary was an ambitious piece to write. I knew I wanted to write about an older gay couple, tracing their relationship from the sixties to the present day. I also knew I wanted to write about a younger couple, best mates, tracing them from the eighties to the present day. What would their experiences say about the gay community? Is there a gay community any more? There was so much I wanted to say, felt I had to say, but how could I shape the material to make a coherent story that was bigger than just a Gay History Piece? How would the men be linked? How would their paths cross? As I pieced together their journies I hit upon a bold idea that would link the four men. I’m not going to give it away here in case you’ve not seen or read the play yet, but I was quite proud of it, I have to say!

  Sue Townsend once said she felt playwrights wrote best when they were angry about something. I’m not sure what I’m angry about, possibly never having had the chance to write about those cross-dressing gorillas, but I do know I am passionate about the gay experience. I am passionate that the lesbians and gay men who went before me and fought for the relative liberties I have today should be remembered and thanked. I am passionate that the younger generation should not become complacent.

  As I was finishing the play I worried that perhaps contextualising where we are today wasn’t a strong enough idea for a piece of theatre. Was I just reminding all us ‘lucky bitches’ it wasn’t always so? Have we got it easy? Does it really matter? And then I heard about a gay man being killed on Trafalgar Square, and then a young gay man beaten to within an inch of his life leaving a gay bar in Liverpool. And it made me want to carry on.

  Not all writing is perfect. But I can forgive rough edges if it’s written from the heart. Nothing irritates me more than stuff that’s ‘written from the wrist’. (What was it Gore Vidal said? ‘That’s not writing it’s typing!’) Canary is the piece of theatre I am most proud of writing. I hope you enjoy it. I wrote it from the heart.

  I would just like to thank my partner Richard Foord for being the best encyclopaedia on gay history I have ever known – my own personal Hall-Carpenter archive! I’d like to say a big thank you to Kumari Salgado for all her hours of painstaking research into the themes of the play. And finally I’d like to thank my director, Hettie Macdonald, who at every stage of the development process has asked the right questions and pushed me. I hope I’ve done her proud.

  Jonathan Harvey 2010

  Characters

  Tom, from Liverpool. The Police Commander for a prominent London borough.

  Billy, his lover, from Northern Ireland.

  Russell, openly gay ex-West End musical leading man turned primetime TV host.

  Mickey, Russell’s best friend growing up.

  Ellie, Tom’s long suffering wife.

  Melanie, their neurotic daughter.

  Tom’s Father, also a policeman.

  Mary Whitehouse, guardian of the nation’s morals.

  Robin, Mickey’s older lover.

  Boy, Ellie’s fantasy son.

  Dr Tony McKinnon, a specialist in aversion therapy from Lancashire.

  Frank, a striking miner.

  Sue, his wife.

  Young Ellie

  Toby, a young dancer on Russell’s TV show.

  Judge

  Policeman 1

  Policeman 2

  Mrs Ford, a head waitress.

  Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister.

  Norman Fowler, Secretary of State for Health.

  Vicar, a right-wing homophobe.

  Nurse

  At the Festival of Light:

  Various members of the GLF disguised as:

  Mouse Woman Onlooker

  Porn Woman Nuns

  Porn Woman 2 Security Guards

  Toilet Woman Klu Klux Klan Members

  Setting

  The play is set mostly in London and Liverpool, from 1960 to the present day.

  Prologue – Lecture Hall, 1970

  Lights up on Mary Whitehouse, standing at a lectern, addressing a gathering.

  Mary Ladies and gentlemen there is a scourge in our society and it is wholly unchristian. Right beneath our very noses permissiveness is occurring at every opportunity. Why, even yesterday, walking my neighbour’s shitsu, I came across a page from a magazine. At first I thought is was an avant garde advertisement for sausages. I thought, ‘She’s peckish’. But no. It was a page ripped from a pornographic magazine, ladies and gentlemen. Anybody could have come across it. And it was lying in the gutter on Michaelmas Drive.

  (Beat.)

  If we can save questions for later I’ll be more than happy to answer them thank you, Dylis.

  (Beat.)

  What I wish to share with you today is my vision. Colin?

  The back wall illuminates with a map of Britain. And a symbol saying Festival of Light.

  Mary Lovely Colin Green there. What he does with his Mongoloid daughter brings tears to the eyes, it really does.

  (She clears her throat.)

  Ladies and gentlemen. In twelve months from now. In the year of our Lord 1971. I propose we stage the country’s very first Festival of Light. The Festival will make a stand against moral darkness. In particular, pornography, abortion and, of course, homosexuality. I’m sorry if those words offend anyone in the audience but we have to face these repugnancies head on.

  We need to know what we’re fighting. And we need to be unafraid. And so I will ask you all to join in with me. Say the word. Don’t be frightened of the devil. Say the word. Homosexual. Homosexual. Louder! Homosexual!!

  (And so on. Eventually)

  I think it might be time for a prayer.

  The lights fade on Mary and come up on Act One.

  Act One

  Scene One – Mickey’s house, Billericay, 1979

  Sixteen year old Mickey doing some interpretive dance in his Mum’s front garden in time to Because The Night by Patti Smith, dressed in her wedding dress, for all the world to see. Presently sixteen year old Russell cycles past on his bike. He stops at Mickey’s gate and watches him. Mickey stops, stares him out, and then starts to spin round and round. It’s a dizzying sight which unnerves Russell. Mickey’s Mum calls from indoors.

  Mickey’s Mum Michael? Are you wearing my wedding dress again?!!

  Mickey stops spinning.

  Mickey No!

  Mickey’s Mum Wait til your father gets home!!

  Russell is tickled by this. Mickey smirks at him, then starts spinning again. Russell gets back on his bike and cycles off.

  Blackout.

  Scene Two – Tom’s house, Islington, 2010

  The music stops abruptly. Forty-six year old Russell’s bike is propped up against the sofa. Tom, sixty-five, hands out some drinks. Behind them, tall sash windows look onto other town houses and a black night sky. A drinks cabinet and a buttoned up leather sofa. Tom’s wife Ellie sits on the settee.

  Russell I don’t want a drink.

  Tom Then why are you shaking?

  Ellie Can someone please tell me what is going on?

  Russell I don’t take any pleasure in this.

  Tom This young man has come with . . .

  Russell It’s a while since I’ve been called that.

  Tom Rumours, lies.

  Ellie About what? What?

  Tom I’d rather wait ’til Melanie gets here.

  Ellie Well why are we still entertaining him, if he’s . . .

  Russell Oh, you’re being entertaining are you? I had no idea.

  Tom Can you not be so rude to my wife?

  Ellie Can’t we just kick him out on the street?

  Russell Not many family photos in evidence here are there?

  Tom She’s here.

  Ellie There’s no show without Punch.

  Tom (To Russell.) You keep your mouth shut.

  There is something of a commotion outside. Tom swiftly exits. The front door goes, revealing the flash of a hundred paparazzi bulbs, then he returns with his daughter Melanie. She is about thirty and has a slig
htly manic air. During the scene, Tom takes out a navy blue handkerchief and turns it over and over in his hands, nervously.

  Melanie What’s going on? They nearly tore me to shreds coming in. I couldn’t see a thing, all those lights flashing, hands grabbing. They’ve ripped my dress. Look at my dress. Mother have you got a needle and thread? People like that. Beasts. I don’t think they’ll be happy ’til they’ve drawn blood. (Sees Russell and shrieks.) Oh my God it’s you!!

  Tom Sit down Melanie.

  Melanie What’s he doing here? What’s going on? Do you have any cotton Mother?

  Tom Melanie please.

  Melanie Lilac if possible. I can’t believe you’ve got a celebrity in your . . .

  Russell I’ve . . . known your parents for quite some time.

  Ellie We’re hardly bosom pals.

  Tom (To Russell.) Will you please wipe that smirk off your face!

  Melanie How long will they be there? I’m not going out there again. I can’t. (Dialling a number on her mobile.) I’ll have to stay.

  Tom They might be bugging your phone.

  Melanie What?!! Can they do that? What have you done? (On phone.) Simon, something dreadful’s happened, I don’t know what but basically I’m gonna have to stay here the night.

  Ellie How serious is this?

  Melanie (pause) Well give her some tinned peaches for fuck’s sake! (Hangs up.) Arabella’s at a very troublesome age.

  Tom I’ve . . . obviously . . . got something to tell you.

  Melanie Is the guest room made up? Or is it taken? (She motions towards Russell.)

  Ellie He’s not staying.

  Russell Look, they’re awaiting a response from your Father. To a story.

  Melanie gets a sewing kit out of a drawer, slips her skirt off and sits. She starts mending her skirt.

  Melanie A story? How exciting! Will it be like primary school? Shall we all have a glass of milk and sit cross legged on the floor? I might pick a scab as I listen, just for effect.