Bad Magazine

Monday June 21st sees our return to the Green Man with Bad Magazine, a sitcom by James Gill.
By day, James ( Or rather Gill, because that's what he calls himself - a bit like Sting, Madonna, and Stalin ) works for Metal Hammer Magazine. It's the usual sordid stuff - trading licks with Slash and sniffing cocaine off groupie's breasts - but at night Gill gets to work on his sensitive side and pens tv sitcoms.

Bad Magazine is his first shot. Also, being a believer in "Write About What You Know", Gill has settled for the perennial theme of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.

Let me quote the man himself:

"What do you do for fun when your hobby becomes your job? What happens to a teenage dream when you cram a cynical thirty-something into it? Bad Magazine is a brutally honest skit-com that pulls back the velvet façade to reveal the hilarious nature of life in the media.

What’s working at rock ‘n’ roll magazine magazine Bad like? It depends who you ask: it’s a school, a prison and a play pen. While the magazine’s motley staff tries desperately to create stories out of nothing the biggest controversies are going on in the office itself: plagiarism, celebrity-stalking, extortion, bullying, fraud, sexism and violence.
Once they had dreams of peer recognition, accolades and meeting their heroes: now they’d settle for a cup of tea, a steady paycheck and the occasional wriggle with a real, live woman. It’s a dream they could achieve… if they weren’t always on deadline.
We’ve all been there: out of our depth while doing something that’s beneath us, passing ourselves off as cool, keen and knowledgeable and when actually we’re bored, tired and underpaid. It’s not the insider joke that counts; it’s the outsider joke.There have been sitcoms about offices, about newspapers and about music: but there’s never been one about all three – and none as honest as this. Almost all of Bad Magazine is based on real people and real life events. Especially the stuff that paints the media as a bunch of clueless, cynical mercenaries. And the stuff that makes no sense".

I'm afraid I had to edit out some swearing. Still, it will all be there on Monday, two episodes unexpurgated and in full. Be there.

Return to the Green Man

After our fortnight's experiment at the Phoenix, we return to our regular base at the Green Man in Great Portland Street for the final month of the summer schedule.

Remember: 7.45 p.m. at the Green Man.

Napoleon

You are hereby ordered to watch this video. It's part of a competition, and the winner is the most watched, irrespective of quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdHQG-jJ03I

Nonetheless it's not bad. And it's less than a minute, so even if it was...

Where Are You, Lillie?

Monday 14th is again at the Phoenix Art Club in Charing Cross Road, and is again at 7.45.

It's Where Are You, Lillie? It's a five hander, is written by Mary Conway, whose "For The Love of Michael" proved such a success in April 2009, and is equally as powerful. I know. I read it. I don't want to give too much away, but it's a family drama with a contemporary theme of Islamophobia lurking underneath, set among the type of people who eat salads out of wooden bowls.

We've all met them.

So, 7.45 at the Phoenix.

A Request

Tony Killaspy, who had a reading in October with his one act play, End Days, has sent this, slightly edited, email:

"I've just taken early retirement and am thinking of becoming an agent representing actors and comedy writers. I would like to place a piece on the P-P website asking any members who might have information regarding starting up as an agent if they could contact me. As a number of our members are actors and no doubt have agents they may be able to help. I'm particularly interested in things like contracts and taxation.

Best wishes,

Tony Killaspy"

Consider it done, Tony. Anyone willing to help, here's his email:

antony.killaspy@googlemail.com

Competition UPDATE

Last night, at our, thus far, pretty popular Phoenix Arts Club experiment, more than one person asked me about the competition. Don't ask me, I know nothing. But I have since asked Lynne, who tells that there have been six entries, and there are four left. So, if you are interested, get writing. The night in question is July 12, and the deadline is June 28. Like I say, they may well all have gone by then.

And the theme, in case you'd forgotten, is BEHIND THE MASK.

Meadowlands

Monday 7th June - at our shiny, temporary new home of the Phoenix, brings us Meadowlands. Anyone with an early copy of the programme will note that this slot was given over to the perhaps more eye-catchingly titled piece I Was A Teenage Lesbian.

That however, was the early days, and now that the play has actually been written, it transpires that our heroine after all wasn't a lesbian when young. Or if she was, it hasn't been deemed of sufficient interest that that remains the title.

So, Meadowlands it is. What's it about? Search me. It only flew into my inbox less than a week ago. Maybe it's got something to do with this. Or maybe it's a heartfelt drama about the creation of an American sporting arena.

But its writer is David Carr, whose debut with us, Tango in the Dark, is still talked of in glowing terms by those with memories deeper than a goldfish's. Indeed, it's going to be in next month's showcase.

So come along to the Phoenix on Monday. 7.45 - though the start may be a little delayed. It's a new home, so who knows how these things work out!