River's Up Touring Again

River’s Up touring again…

The very first play to tackle the serious subject of climate change is touring again to retell the epic romance of Tom and Sally Millington.  Laugh and cry with two extraordinary everyday people, as they bravely battle cataclysmic odds and rediscover a deep-seated love and affection to help carry them through events which are truly global.   

The play…

Tom and Sally Millington’s house is about to be flooded yet again!  Sally blames the icebergs, but Tom is more concerned about losing custom from the drunken Brummie revellers he has to sail up the River Severn every weekend on his disco-boat.  But this time the water level shows no sign of retreating, and before long they’re drifting around a flooded landscape desperately searching for land – perhaps the floods haven’t yet reached France?  The irrepressible Millington's slowly begin to realise they are witnessing the results of a global cock-up.  Join them on their poignant journey in a dilemma that pits them against cataclysmic odds in a comic-tragedy of epic proportions...  Originally produced by Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, it has already proved to be an amazingly popular show both in this country and abroad, including major theatres in Rome, plus an acclaimed production for BBC drama too.  You can listen to a sound clip here: http://www.alex-jones.org/News.html

                     

Programme notes and press info for theatres…

It is now widely accepted by scientists and governments that global warming is with us, and that the consequences are far-reaching and probably irreversible.  One of the most profoundly unsettling events that points to this happened a few years ago when the Larsen B ice shelf, an area the size of Wales, thought to weigh almost 500 million billion tonnes, broke away form the Antarctic continent and shattered into thousands of icebergs.  Antarctica has warmed 2.5 degrees centigrade in just 50 years, and more similar events are predicted. 

As an environmental campaigner, I knew I had to bring this subject to the stage, and consequently wrote this play for Alan Ayckbourn's Theatre In Scarborough; it has since been produced by the Swan Theatre, Worcester and Oxford Theatre company, had a critically acclaimed BBC Radio production and two sell-out productions in Rome, where it is called Effetto Serra.  It is sobering to think I wrote this play back in 2000, before the recent dreadful flooding in Worcester, when I found myself stuck in my home town of Malvern completely surrounded by water and cut off from the outside world.

We can no longer ignore the consequences of our way of life - carbon dioxide emissions have caused weather patterns to become more extreme; from tornadoes to droughts and from floods to heat waves.  In addition sea levels have also risen by a foot in the last century.  For countries like Bangladesh that spells disaster.  But low-lying countries in Europe are also feeling the brunt of this phenomenon, as witnessed when Dresden and Prague were completely flooded and mass evacuations took place. 

River's Up is about how deforestation, pollution and the stripping of the earth's resources could affect every one of us, and I particularly wanted to tell this story through the eyes of ordinary people.  So welcome to the epic romance of Sally and Tom Millington, as they bravely battle cataclysmic odds and rediscover a deep-seated love and affection that carries them through events that are truly global.

Reviews

The Observer – This superbly realised play is also a memorable love story. 

Financial Times - A gently riveting story, its ecology worn lightly, beautifully acted. 

Sunday Telegraph - What starts as comedy promises an Old Testament denouement.

Radio Times – A small masterpiece; it could justifiably be described as a working man's Titanic.

Yorkshire Post - Few productions could be more timely and topical than this, and the tight dialogue remains superbly realistic.

Worcester Evening News - River's Up is a powerful, top quality play with a strong idea at its core

The Birmingham Post - In one poignant scene after another the tension builds in Alex Jones' highly watchable play.

The Stage - A finely wrought tragicomedy that provides laughs, tears and food for thought in equal measure – highly recommendable. 

The Oxford Times – A powerful evening of theatre which kept the audience on the edge of their seats throughout – a must see show.

Daily info, Oxford – Funny, poignant and heart-wrenching.

Acting role

I haven’t done any acting for literally ages and have really missed performing.  And then suddenly out of the blue I get a casting call for Doctors – a daytime soap on BBC TV.  I got the part, which was a character very similar to the one I play in another BBC soap – The Archers; ‘a drunken trouble-maker’.  So I spent a couple of days filming and loved every second of it.  Great feedback from the production team and then back to earth and back to work at the care homes!  Dunno why my acting career suddenly stalled; I used to get regular work on BBC Radio Drama and theatres all over the country, and that little taste of what I love doing has made me hope that there may be other roles out there…  Guess I should be a little more proactive, but I’m not great at networking or being dynamic.  By the way, my episode is on the telly 4^th June 2015 on BBC1 at 1.45 if you wanna check it.

Je suis Charlie

I think it is a pity that some newspapers and TV channels have decided not to portray the cartoon from the Charlie Hebdo cover when so many other news organisations have stood together in solidarity and featured it in their news outlets and publications.  Free speech is a vitally important function in our Western democracies, and we should stand up for it at all costs.  I understand that faith is of great consequence too for various communities, not only in France, but all over the world and of course here too in Briton, and I appreciate that certain people are going to be offended by such images; but when those people decide to elect themselves judge and jury and commit murder then a line has been crossed which threatens our very freedom.  The magazine, Charlie Hebdo celebrates satire, and so anyone and everyone are a potential target; including Judaism, Christianity and any other religious group.  If they were to make an exception for any one of them, then to my mind they are bowing to the pressure of psychopathic bullies who as we know threaten to make them pay with their very lives.  I have Muslim friends, I have Christian friends, I have Jewish friends and Sikh and Hindu friends; they all believe in something deeply spiritual and personal to their lives, but they should not be afraid of satire, because if we say that we cannot poke fun or scrutinise any belief system we want to, be it religious or political then we have lost a treasured freedom and we will all be the worse for it.  The people who were murdered in France were from many different faith groups; some of course had no belief at all, but one – a policeman was Muslim.  Perhaps he himself would have found depictions of the prophet Muhammad distasteful, who is to say?   But he bravely gave his life for the protection of democracy and the citizens of France, whatever their ethnic origin and whatever God they chose to worship.        

I know that sometimes my own work has caused offence, but I try to write honestly and from the heart, but sometimes as with my play Mr And Mrs Schultz, various people have tried to ban my work.  More recently my play A White Man In England has made the shortlist for a few literary awards, but theatres are reluctant to produce it in case it offends their audiences.  Mr And Mrs Schultz was well received by audiences and had some great reviews, but the campaign did mean that a few theatres cancelled the show.  I do believe in telling truth about important issues (as with my controversial play Noise), but I feel that theatre in this country is becoming more and more conservative in its choice of plays, and my kind of risky drama therefore takes a back seat.  Below for the record is synopses of the plays I mentioned…

Mr And Mrs Schultz - Following the defeat of Germany in 1945, South America furtively provides a safe haven for escaping Nazis and their loot.  High in the remote and beautiful Argentinean mountains, Hanna a German ex-patriot plays host to Mr Schultz a new houseguest and his attractive new companion Lotte Shultz, a dizzy self-absorbed blonde woman.  As the days pass, their disturbing story begins to unfold and the past tightens its grip on the fugitive present.  Oscar Shultz is seemingly a former SS officer and Hanna, the widow of a German soldier who has herself taken part in infamous medical experiments on concentration camp victims.  But all is not quite as it seems, and as time moves on it becomes clear that the charismatic Mr Schultz harbours a much darker secret that results in him meeting his nemesis and the revenge of 6 million people.

A White Man In England - Ray Cartwright is a disillusioned ex soldier suffering from 'gulf war syndrome', feeling betrayed and let down by the country he fought for, he has also recently separated from his wife and lives a sedentary life in a council flat, visited regularly by his doting daughter, Maria who has a mixed-race child from a partner who is now no longer around.  Maria concerned for her father, instigates a scheme where he mentors a couple of young men fresh from prison on a 'community payback' scheme.  At first it looks as if Ray has found a purpose in life, but before long a clash of cultures expose fault lines in all of them, stirring up a cocktail of confrontation and ultimate tragedy.   A challenging state-of-the-nation play about identity and belonging that seriously gets under the skin.

All we really need is love

Did an early, late, sleep shift at a home I’ve been working at for some time, and was warned ahead that they had a new placement there; a vulnerable CSE girl (one whom has suffered from child sexual exploitation).  She was sixteen, but was tiny and looked all of thirteen really, and was so damaged by her experiences: raped by members of her family and even prostituted out for a while against her will, you could clearly see it etched on her pinched little face.  She was an engaging, likeable kid, but had already attempted suicide by running into busy traffic, so we had to keep an eye on her at all times.  She talked openly about her life history; abandoned by her mother as a toddler, she was for a time brought up by various family members, and the abuse both sexual and physical was constant; and even when she found herself a boyfriend in Birmingham, he pimped her out to the Asian gang network there.  One of the carers took her to the doctors to register her there and to talk over her problems, and when she came back she was in floods of tears – she had requested a female doctor, but it was a man, and that was just not what she needed just then.  She said through choked sobs, “He’s doing nothing to help my depression, just told me to talk to people.”   I assured her we were all there for her, and would do everything we could to help her through this painful episode in her life.  And we will; but she still carried on weeping into her hands for what seemed ages, wondering what the point of her life was.  Later, together with another girl in that home and another member of staff we went out to a supermarket and got a DVD, chocolate and face packs for a ‘pampering night’ to try and cheer her up; she saw some luminous loom-bands in the store, and even though she was sixteen and sort of past the age for that kind of thing, she was delighted when I bought them for her; a small act of kindness that allowed her the space to just be a kid.  And slowly back at the home she began to relax and even asked if I’d make her some supper, as she had refused to eat all day.  She eventually made her way to bed with a sad little smile on her face and had a hug from the female carer on the landing before settling down.  The manager and team there I know will do everything they can to help her, but all this poor soul needs is to be loved by someone…  I try not to take this stuff home with me, and managed not to cry while sitting with her, watching her dissolve into the misery of her life’s horrors, but on the way home the next morning I had to pull off the road for a while and just let the tears come.

Armistice day - history

As today is a very special Armistice day – the centenary of the first world war, I thought I might include the short essay I wrote for the programme of the production of my play, Mr And Mrs Schultz for the Watermill Theatre in Newbury.  The play was set at the end of the conflict of the second world war and concerned major figures in that conflict, including Mengele – the so called ‘angel of death’ whose evil experiments on Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz are beyond human comprehension.  But the son of a bitch bastard escaped capture and lived out his days in freedom in Argentina.  The play as you might expect from me proved somewhat controversial, and some people even tried to get it banned.  But the reviews were great and the audiences (although sometimes reduced to tears) seemed to love it.  Below is my programme notes from the time about why I feel it is important that we should never forget these conflicts.

HISTORY

What dark stuff stirs within the human heart that will urge a man to evil?

Throughout history, dictators and despots have emerged to lead entire nations on the barbarous journey to genocide, and ordinary people too will sometimes join the slaughter; seemingly oblivious of the cruelty they inflict on their victims: the industrious clerk, the schoolteacher, the factory-worker, the next-door neighbor; the common crowd of everyday citizens will somehow commit horrendous crimes when called upon to do so.

To kill a whole race of people takes determination; but one man can't do it alone.  It's a task that requires the approval and capitulation of a great number of accomplices.  It's happened before, it's happening now and will probably happen again.

Over 60 years have passed since Nazi Germany plunged the world into a war that devastated the planet and ended with the creation of the very first weapon of mass destruction - the atom bomb.  One of the most brutal dictator's that has ever been known, somehow inspired a nation to follow his mad dream of world domination.  Along the way six million Jews were systematically murdered in the most horrific ways imaginable.  At the end of it all many Nazi war criminals escaped retribution and fled to Argentina, assisted by a network of people in Scandinavia, Switzerland and Italy; they even had tacit support from the Vatican, and Argentina's president Juan Perón welcomed them with open arms.

Some crimes are so great; they demand swift and immediate justice.  The horrors that were perpetrated in Belsen, Auschwitz and the rest of the Nazi extermination camps should not have gone unpunished.  Yet an astonishingly large number of Hitler's henchmen have lived out their lives in relative comfort and prosperity.  It seemed the world was all too ready to abandon the past and call it history.

But history is our teacher, our example; and to ignore its lesson will only lead us further into chaos and calumny.  War is still with us; and as a consequence it now to some extent seems to affect our daily life.  We constantly invent new terms to coin our dilemma: acts of terrorism, pre-emptive strikes, ethnic-cleansing - it's still murder as far as I can see, and since the second world war, genocide has occurred with fearsome regularity all over the globe: Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Croatia, Iraq - the list goes on.  And behind it all there always appears to be one charismatic leader; someone who inspires a country to wage war against their neighbors, stir up enough hatred for the clerks, the schoolteachers, the factory-workers to rape, maim and kill...  History is important.

Alex Jones - February 2004.

Another First World War Play - 'Dead Wood'

Dead Wood was produced by the Watermill Theatre September 1997...

Summer 1918 - a battle scarred soldier returns from the horrors of the trenches to his family, and a hero's welcome.

But who is the stranger he has in tow and what is the terrible secret that the two of them share?

This superb new play belies the myth of war as a gallant adventure and reveals a raw emotion that seeks both reconciliation and revenge.

Click here for reviews

Don't be anal - get arsey!

While I was at the gym last week one of the TV’s that morning was screening the breakfast news programme, ‘Lorraine’, and one of the presenter’s guests was the actress and ‘Loose Women’ panellist, Lynda Bellingham, who was talking about her battle with colon cancer, commenting that she had decided not to brave any more chemotherapy treatment as it was so debilitating; she had accepted that the end of her life was approaching and was I guess preparing herself for it.  She talked very openly and honestly about her disease and about dying, hoping that she would survive long enough to spend one last Christmas with her family.  So I was shocked to hear yesterday that she had sadly passed away so soon.  She was a familiar face on our TV screens, and I will always remember seeing her in those oxo adverts when I was a kid, playing ‘everybody’s mum’.  Later on that day, a few commentators on other news programmes when paying tribute to Lynda discussed bowel cancer, and how if it is spotted and diagnosed early there is a good chance of surviving it; but as it is associated with an area of the body that we are somewhat squeamish of discussing, its symptoms are still sadly left too late for some people to be able to survive.  It’s because it’s our anus, our arse, and it’s associated with going to the toilet and with shitting and as a society we are still too (pardon the pun) ‘anal’ to discuss it and to go to the doctor with our worries before the physical implications of those worries becomes something too substantial to ignore any longer.  Well I had to really battle to get my treatment, and for the medical services to take my case seriously, but if I hadn’t, well I just wouldn’t be here.  So when symptoms of bowel cancer present, however unsure you are, my advice is – ‘don’t be anal, get arsey!’  Might be a useful phrase for the campaign?