If embdy wants it...

Copies of the following script/story are available via PM.

It's done - finally

LIVERPOOL ECHO

______________

A Play in Two Acts

written by

Alan Allan & Immo Greene



c/o Julia Tyrrell
Julia Tyrrell Management
57 Greenham Road
London
N10 1LN

Tel: 0208 374 0575
email: julia@jtmanagement.co.uk


Cast of Characters

John: A man of 41

Paul: A man of 40

Cooper: Mid-thirties

Ray Farnham: Late thirties

Cabbie: Aggrieved party

Studio Engineer: Non-speaking part




On September 4th, 1962 John Lennon and George Martin argued over the choice
of song for the first Beatles single. John wanted Love Me Do. George Martin
preferred the 'sure fire number one' How Do You Do It. In 'Liverpool Echo'
Paul McCartney and John Lennon meet twenty years after Paul sided with
George Martin, a decision which compelled John to leave The Beatles before
their first release...

ACT ONE

SETTING: The evening of July 5th, 1982. A bedsit in the centre of
Liverpool. A front door - stage left - opens directly from the shared
hallway onto the room, but a four-foot long, six foot high partition allows
the owner occupier to maintain the illusion of a hall.

The front door is slightly ajar. A throw and cushions have been placed on
the bed to make it look more like a settee. An easel stands to one side,
sketches, photos, postcard-sized reproductions stuck around it haphazardly.
A half finished cartoon is pinned to the centre of the easel. A small table
holds a box of pens and pencils. There's a battered guitar case on top of
the wardrobe and a kid¹s painting on one of the walls.

A large bookcase, a mirror, some art-deco lamps, a record player, three
yards of LPs, two knackered armchairs, a table - cheese sandwich on a plate
- and a couple of mismatched chairs make up the rest of the furniture. A
door - stage right - leads to the kitchen (effectively off-stage.)

The last rays of the evening sun are streaming through a large bay window.
As the evening progresses the sky will take on an orangey-pink hue and
gradually darken to black. The window is open and we can hear the faint buzz
of traffic, children playing, women's laughter and the occasional roar or
groan of football fans reacting to England playing Spain on the pub TV
downstairs. After five minutes the match will be over and this particular
noise will cease.

AT RISE: A man is pushing a sofa-bed back against the wall. This is JOHN,
fag in mouth, jeans, white t-shirt, waistcoat, Cuban heels, NHS specs. He
looks around, removes a photo from the easel, bins it, changes the magazines
round on the table, riffles through his LPs, selecting which one should be
at the front - the one he's 'just been listening to.' He stops at the
mirror, checks his hair, it'll have to do.

He kills the fag, puts on a record - a burst of Buddy Holly. He changes his
mind, tries the radio, crackling through the stations...

BTW - Crownybhoy - it's the usual e-mail address for the 8x10 glossies of the (co) author naked on a tigerskin rug with an apple between his teeth.

Next one's already in the pipeline

Have you got a performance organised immo?

Yes please, would love to read it, as long as it's in a bigger and serif font.

Yeh go on then, PM it.

Hope there's no sticky crab and prawn grease fingerprints all over it though.

It's getting sent off to a few places apparently once 'Alan' sends it to his agent (Julia).

He let a guy called Paul Murphy (who's a telly/stage director) see it an'all and he sent us this...

...Anyway, I've read LE and in short it's brilliant. The 'what if' factor burns so
intensely throughout and given that we know 'the wonderful life' of the key
players it is an enormously effective journey into the complexities of
friendship. We're constantly questioning this possibility of their reality and
in that sense the play really makes us work. The Beatles of course weren't just
a successful band, they were arguably the most important musical phenomenon the
world has ever seen. Without them it's hard to imagine how different our
perceptions of music, poetry, art might be. Thus the stakes behind the micro
universe you have written could not be bigger and more tragic. But this reality
is so conceivable. Everyone knows that John could be rather tempestuous and
given a hang over on that day, or a wrong word from Martin, why not . It's also
well documented that John harboured resentment for Paul's ambition and that
their worlds were poles apart. LE plays on so many levels. This historical point
is extremely clever and will keep the aficionados busy for weeks. I was amazed
at how well you've managed to capture the spirit, dialogue and wit of Lennon.
There's so much in here that we learn about the Beatles and the possible
consequences of decisions that they made. In this regard the play will be a
hugely original treat.
This fascinating backdrop however superbly supports
what the play is really about - friendship, loyalty, betrayal, ambition,
jealousy and class which are all dealt with with great skill in a beautifully
constructed narrative. At its heart you've got a very moving tale of
'brotherhood' torn apart by temptations, persuasions and talent itself. Taking
away Paul and John's massive success and you expose the vulnerability of these
two men and in doing so present the manipulative world around them in very
stark, terms. We begin to understand John's reliance on Cooper. How else can a
man of such verbal exuberance and downright honesty possibly survive in Bootle
without a Cooper at his side for back up? Without Cooper the story would be very
different again. I loved Paul's unfolding story of desperation, firstly learning
through Cooper that he's bankrupt and his wife and kid have gone and also that
perhaps the main reason for visiting John is because of Rays 'stipulation'. The
play builds our hopes for a world in which the Beatles did exist; we want
this.
Have you got your agent to speak to Gemma Bodanese at the
Everyman?
Speak soon
Paul



Bit wanky in parts but it had me all

Congratulations, Immo. Good luck with it.