Liverpool tribute to The Clash's Strummer

Joe Strummer  

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: UNITY THEATRE

Meeting Joe Strummer is a tribute to The Clash or Strummer, but really it’s a heartfelt play about friendship.

Meeting Joe Strummer charts the friendship of two lads over three extraordinary decades. Meeting as teenagers in the late ‘70s, at the legendary Anti-Nazi League concert in Victoria Park, the play follows their lives as they cope with the Thatcher years and crap 80s music, struggle to stay true to the “Cause” while paying the bills and maintaining relationships, and how they grew up in the real world while trying to stay true to the myth of their hero.

Joe Strummer was a hero to many, including Paul Hodson (writer & director) and Steve North (performer). After Strummer’s tragically early death just before Christmas 2002, Paul and Steve began talking about making a piece of theatre to celebrate his life. A “biopic” type show seemed wrong; but a piece that told of Joe’s spirit, passion, talent and humour through the eyes of some of his fans seemed right.

During two years of research those close to Joe as well as admirers from afar gave their time to talk about their feelings for him. His official biographer Chris Salewicz said not a day went by without people approaching Joe to tell him he changed their lives. Is there another music star, living or dead, who can have had such a profound effect? Joe’s influence clearly went beyond the great music he made.

Meeting Joe Strummer is played in a deliberately rough-and-ready, semi stand-up style. It glows with warmth, humour and self-deprecation - ‘it's required viewing, not just for Strummer's many admirers, but also for anyone who enjoys funny, perceptive and passionately sincere new writing.’ Manchester Evening News

Meeting Joe Strummer at unitytheatre, 1 Hope Place, Liverpool. 5 & 6 March 2010, 8pm. Tickets £9/£7 concessions. Book now on 0844 873 2888 or click here for the unitytheatre website

About The Future is Unwritten Theatre Company:

Paul Hodson has written and directed for theatre for over twenty five years; as well as writing more than a hundred hours of broadcast television drama. He won a Fringe First in Edinburgh for Meeting Joe Strummer in 2006; his play about John Peel, Teenage Kicks, sold out its run at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe.

From 1991 Paul was Artistic Director of Brighton Theatre Events, who produced critically acclaimed work that toured throughout the UK. As well as writing and commissioning new work Paul adapted a number of books for the stage, including Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, which toured for 6 years and Bill Bryson’s books The Lost Continent and Notes From A Small Island.

Other original plays include Brighton ‘Til I Die, to celebrate the centenary of Brighton and Hove Albion, and Pretty Vacant about punk rock survivors. In 2009 Paul formed the future is unwritten. The company’s first production was Thirteen, commissioned by Brighton Festival.

Steve North ’s theatre work includes premieres of Pretend You Have Big Buildings (Manchester Royal Exchange), Not The Love I Cry For (Arcola), Fever Pitch (West End/National tour), The Football Factory (national tour). He created the role of Steve in the original production of Meeting Joe Strummer.

Film and Television work includes E20, Whistleblowers, Sense and Sensibility, Casualty, Midsomer Murders, The Day Britain Stopped, Murphy’s Law, Is Harry on the Boat? Vital Signs, London’s Burning, Easy Hours. He co-wrote and was Associate Producer of the film South West Nine and was also Associate Producer of The Football Factory and Dolphins.

‘I first saw the The Clash when I was 15 in June 1980 at Bristol Colston Hall. I met Joe Strummer and Mick Jones after the gig and asked Joe if he would do an interview for my fanzine What the Rich are Doing. Joe said he would, but the fanzine died after one issue so we never did the interview.

"I met him once again after a Mescaleros gig in Brighton in Nov 2001, the year before he died. Too drunk to explain how he had been my inspiration for most of the last 22 years, I garbled ‘you changed my life’ at him interrupting an interview with a young fanzine writer. Joe looked up, smiled and went back to the interview. I staggered home." Steve North

Jason Pitt ’s TV credits include Dr Who, Doctors, Casualty, River City, Soldier Soldier and Dalziel and Pascoe. Theatre includes Lulu (Almeida), Babycakes (Traverse), Hamlet and The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (Citizens Theatre), The Changing Room (Royal Court) and Border Crossing (Salisbury Playhouse) – he never met Joe Strummer.

For the company website click here.