Sid Tour Pack

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Sid Tour Pack

Sid is a one-man show which combines in-your-face direct address, storytelling and multi- character dialogue to discuss perceived class boundaries, parenting, hero worship and punk in a mix of humour, anger and bemusement at the world.

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Sid Tour Pack

Contents

History of Sid The Play Reviews Testimonials The Tour Production Shots Creatives Technical Requirements Contact Script Sample Poster Example

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Sid Tour Pack History of Sid

In January 2015 actor Dario Coates, director Scott Le Crass and writer Leon Fleming presented a fifteen-minute monologue titled Ode to Sid at Arts Centre’s festival of solo performances; The One Festival. The monologue put before the audience a young man feeling alienated by the world due to his love of punk music and punk attitude, and more telling; his obsession with long-dead Sex Pistols’ bass guitarist Sid Vicious.

After the final performance of Ode to Sid a discussion was had which resulted in the fifty-minute one-man play Sid being written. A few months later the same creative team reunited to premiere Sid at the Rabbit Hole Theatre, Hampstead as part of the Camden Fringe Festival.

As a result of the interest Sid received at the Camden Fringe Festival and the offers that came of it, 5Pound5 Theatre (a partnership of director Scott Le Crass and writer Leon Fleming) have decided to tour this funny, raucous, thought-provoking and self-contained show to venues around the British Isles.

The Play

“He’s not having a good day. People don’t understand him, his musical tastes are derided, his best mate is a punk-rocker who died in the seventies. And his girlfriend thinks he’s lost the plot! Life shouldn’t be this hard, but for Craig nothing seems easy. He’s a loose cannon. A man alone. Almost alone. He’s got a mate. He’s got Sid Vicious.

In this new 50 minute one-man play by Leon Fleming we explore the true nature of hero worship and what it means to be punk.”

We are currently adapting the trailer we produced for last summer’s production to work for the tour, but the original trailer can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhVUgrqwY5A Trailer made by Adam Scales.

Photographs: Ashley Jackson.

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Sid Tour Pack Reviews

Although the summer production of Sid took place at the same time as the Edinburgh Festival we were still able to get some reviews; and the links to them are here:

Heather Jeffery for LondonPubTheatres: “Funny & poignant with just a hint of anarchy” ★★★★ http://pubtheatres1.tumblr.com/post/127075088232/pubtheatres1-review-by-heather-jeffery- 19815

David James for LondonCityNights: “Quick, energetic and focussed. Recommended” ★★★★ http://www.londoncitynights.com/2015/08/sid-at-rabbit-hole-19th-august-2015.html

Stuart Forward for EQView: “be prepared to wrestle with the question ‘Is punk dead?’ for the rest of the week.” http://eqview.com/2015/08/20/sid-camden-fringe-review/

Testimonials

"Leon Fleming's Sid starts off as a hilarious, punchy punk-rock performance about identity, but soon Craig, his central character, is slowly and skilfully deconstructed to reveal a hidden and surprisingly tender longing for love." Tess Berry-Hart, author and playwright. http://www.convilleandwalsh.com/index.php/authors/author/tess-berry-hart/

"I’m delighted to recommend Leon Fleming’s play SID, which I saw at the Rabbit Hole theatre in Hampstead during its weeklong run. I found it a deft and soulful piece of writing, at times full of the gobby passion you’d expect of a punk-themed play, at other points strikingly bruised and tender. I was totally engaged by its protagonist, an angry – and vulnerable – young man obsessed with Sid Vicious. In a searing performance, well-staged and well-paced, I found myself hanging on every word and feeling every anxiety and hurt. One of the play’s many achievements is how well it realises not just its main character but also the people he (gloriously) conjures / impersonates – his girlfriend, her posh student pals, and above all the silent offstage ghost of his mother. It’s a play about punk, sure, but it’s also a play about class, aspiration and parenting. This show is entertaining, moving, accessible and sellable; it deserves a wider audience." Adam Barnard, writer and director. www.adambarnard.com

The Tour

Originally the tour of Sid came about because after seeing the show, Rachel O’Riordan, AD of Sherman Cymru invited us to take Sid to her theatre in Cardiff. Our tour will begin there in late April of this year. We have also been invited to take the play to the Jersey Opera House in the summer, and have received notices of interest from several regional theatres for their autumn seasons. In addition we are excited to have been invited to run the show for a week at a prominent Camden- based theatre in early May, where we will be performing right at the heart of the Punk 40 anniversary celebrations.

We are looking to work with theatres, performance spaces and festivals all over the country in order to bring Sid to as large and as wide an audience as possible.

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Sid Tour Pack Production Shots

Prior to the opening of Sid at the Rabbit Hole Theatre in August 2015, we took some production photographs; a selection of which are included here:

Photographs: Ashley Jackson.

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Sid Tour Pack Creatives

Leon Fleming (writer)

Leon is originally from Castleford in West Yorkshire

He has worked with director Scott Le Crass several times before, most recently Sid (Rabbit Hole Theatre/Camden fringe festival), Ode to Sid (One Festival/The Space) and 125: The Man on the Clapham Omnibus (Omnibus). He is looking forward to working with Scott and 5Pound5 Theatre on his new play Kicked in the Shitter which will premier late 2016.

His other work includes: Jungle Heat (Actorshop, ), the Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor (Rage Arts, UK schools tour), Boris Got Buggered (STAGEPUNK/Brown Kettle, The Black Cap), Come to Where I’m From (Paines Plough, Jersey Opera House), Dinner at Pharaoh’s Table, Birdsong (Jersey Arts Trust, Jersey Arts Centre), The Boy Next Door (Jersey Arts Trust, BBC Radio Jersey), Monkeys in Toy Town (New Mercury Theatre, Crescent Theatre).

He is three-time winner of the Jersey Arts Trust New Plays Project (2010 -2012) and the Channels Islands radio Drama Competition (2010).

Leon is also co-creator of Plays Rough; a monthly platform for new theatre writing which has been running at the Jersey Opera House for the last four years.

Dario Coates (performer)

Dario was born in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. He graduated from the Acting (BA Hons) course at Italia Conti in 2013.

Theatre credits: Posh (Nottingham and Salisbury), Single Spies (), Another Country (Chichester Festival Theatre/Trafalgar Studios), Ode to Sid (One Festival), Sid (Rabbit Hole Theatre).

TV credits: Doctors (BBC), Drifters (C4), Coronation Street (ITV).

Film credits: Cue, Buried at Sea.

Scott Le Crass (director)

Scott comes from Birmingham and trained as an actor at Arts Ed.

He was a director on the Birmingham Rep’s first Foundry Programme.

Credits include: Director- Every Seven Years (Theatre Bench/Illuminate Festival/New Wimbledon Studio), Sid (Sherman, Cardiff and Jersey Opera House), Star Spangled Girl (Axon Theatre/Volcano Theatre), Cancel The Sunshine (Hope Theatre), See Bob Run (Bread and Roses), Cousins Grimm and Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime (Page to Stage/Tristan Bates), The Killing of Sister George (London Theatre Workshop) Sid (Camden Fringe), Open House (Birmingham Rep and tour), In A Better Place (Hotel Pelirocco/Brighton Fringe), The Bad Mood (Rich Mix/Omnibus/TROUPE Collective), The New Adventures of The Wind in the Willows and The Following (Doughnut Productions), Ode to Sid (One Festival/The Space), Diary of a Madman (Omnibus/Jack Studio), Bookends (Etcetera), The Real Inspector Hound (Upstairs at the Gatehouse/Camden Fringe), Boris Godonov, Marriage, Flight, Mandrake (Jack Studio), At War (The Equilibrium/), My Number 1 Favourite Lesbian by Tom Wells (Arcola/Outbox), La Mastication des Morts (Camden Peoples Theatre), 35 Black Suits (Hidden Histories/Rep 100, Old Rep, Birmingham), Macbeth ( Playhouse), Work and Vision of Pride (Golden Delilah/Theatre 503).

Assistant Director- Coming Up (Watford Palace), The King’s Speech (Chichester/Birmingham Rep/UK Tour), A Christmas Carol (Birmingham Rep), Von Ribbentrop's Watch (Oxford Playhouse/Watford Palace), Kurt and Sid (Trafalgar Studios), Henry VI, Part I (The Rose, Bankside).

Scott is an Associate Director at Omnibus, Clapham.

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Sid Tour Pack Technical Requirements

Because Sid is a self-contained one-man show consisting of Performer, Stage Manager and its own small touring set; its technical requirements are minimal.

Requirements:

 A performance space of at least 4m wide x 3m deep x 3m high.  A tech rehearsal.  Thirty minutes to set up, and thirty minutes to strike.  An unseen space very close to the performance area for use between scenes and for performer preparation.  Basic Sound/PA system.  Basic stage lighting.  One technician.  One member of FOH staff.

Contacts

If you would be interested in having Sid at your venue or festival, or would like more information; please contact Scott Le Crass at [email protected] 07957 739071, or Leon Fleming at [email protected] 07484 807870.

Follow Sid and 5Pound5 Theatre on twitter at @sidtheplay and @5pound5

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Sid Tour Pack Script Sample

Craig These are her clever, intellectual, brainiac, posh-boy mates. Slumming it in this artificial shanti-town of mdf smackheads and cardboard dog shit. All in it together, in the Disney World idea of living like real people; living away from mummy and daddy for the first time. Wearing un-ironed t- shirts. In public. What a bunch of fucking rebels! These people; they’re not my people. I’m used to people taking the piss. I’m used to being the butt of the joke. Not used being outclassed though. Not used to being a stranger in a strange land. With her, who has become something else; just another stranger. I’m a man alone. Alone, but for Sid.

What would Sid do? He’d fucking shake it up, that’s what he’d do. He wouldn’t put up with this gentle witter witter, chuckle chuckle, yah yah. No fucking way. There’s the dead way, and there’s the punk way.

I’ve got these boys in my sights. I’m staring right into their soulless carcasses. Born the tenth of May nineteen-fifty-seven. In Lewisham. To John and Anne Richie. Named John Simon Richie. On the second of February nineteen-seventy-nine he left this world and he was gone. Dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a dormouse. Dead as a fucking dodo. The likes of which will never be seen again. Sid Vicious becomes a legend.

(Tom/Dan) “Bit of a degenerate though really. Thinking about it. All of them really.”

What?

(Tom/Dan) “Couldn’t last. Had to grow up. Unsustainable that kind of energy.”

You what?

Her eyes are flitting from him to me to the other one and back to me.

(Tom/Dan) “Punk; it could only ever be a kind of blip in the evolution of music yeah. It came out of nowhere, and then had to disappear back into the void.”

(Girlfriend) “Craig, shall we go outside; have a fag?”

Just a minute.

(Girlfriend) “Don’t you fancy a ciggie though Craig; and a bit of air?”

Yeah, yeah; in a minute.

What is it you’re saying mate? Just what is it exactly, that you’re saying?

(Tom/Dan) “Just that it was like this phenomenon. And it was needed. At the time. And so it happened yeah. Like a tornado. Out of the blue. All that energy. Like a flame. A giant flame.”

Yeah, yeah.

(Tom/Dan) “While it was needed. It was short lived. Freakishly short lived really. But then it was gone. Like it burnt itself out. Like the storm just blew itself away. So like, we can reminisce by listening to it, we can recreate it in a homage to what we loved about it, and we can mourn it. But essentially, it’s dead and gone.”

I’m breathing. I haven’t flipped. I’m still breathing.

Boys, boys. No, no. You’ve got it wrong. That’s not how it is. Let me tell you what it’s really about. Let me educate you on the situation.

There’s a table next to me. There’s nearly a full pint in my hand. Table. Glass. Table. Glass. Broken glass!

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Sid Tour Pack Poster Example (Sherman Theatre)

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