7120/19640
Oooh, less than a year until I am 20,000 days old. Something to look forward to.
Paul Putner (aka The Curious Orange) posted these two pictures on his Twitter feed today and suggested that the cast of the 1996 play Punk’s Not Dead made a better fist of looking like the Sex Pistols than the cast of Pistol. We were not really trying to look like the Pistols exactly - the play was about a group of friends who’d been a bit too young for punk at the time, going to see the band when they reformed in the heady summer of 96. However, from these photos at least, there does seem to be more punk spirit. Jason Freeman who played Sid certainly has more attitude in his little finger than the Sid from the TV show (at least from this picture) who looks much too pretty and probably not vacant enough.
Paul Reynolds does look remarkably like Glen Matlock. I am not sure that’s something we even alluded to in the play - his character was the Johnny Rotten of the group, whilst mine, whilst wanting to be Johnny, was much more like Glen. I always thought Paul should play Davey Jones in a Monkees biopic too.
It was nice to be reminded of Punk’s Not Dead, which was written in the weeks before the Fringe and thus has right on the money topical references (some of which are a bit obscure nearly 30 years later). It was a lot of fun putting it together and I have great memories of rehearsing at the Battersea Arts Centre (where that photo was taken) and of somehow pulling the thing together. It was a really good play and it’s a shame that it didn’t get wider recognition at the time (though it was once revived by
an amateur company in Tring - on a weekend so bizarre that it was the inspiration for two episodes of Relativity- so it’s not all bad)
I am still excited to see the Pistol series, in spite of this weak-ass publicity still. I almost auditioned for it - I was asked to do so for the part of Bill Grundy and did quite a lot of prep despite not even having the script (guessing the script would just be the interview), feeling I was on the edge of nailing it (even looking a bit like Grundy I thought) and then finding out they’d cast it. It would have been weird to be Grundy rather than one of the young punks (as that’s what I feel I still am) but I’d still loved to have done that part. From a forensic viewing of one of the trailers it seems that part went to the actor Kevin Eldon. And fair enough - he would be hard to beat. And it’s a scene
he has memorably visited before, though he was Rotten that time.
I think that Eldon should only be allowed to play characters from that one event, with those exact lines, for the rest of his life. He can be any of them, but he’s not allowed out of that acting prison.
Snooker tonight with a new referee. Watch til the end. It’s spooky. It’s up in the usual places on Wednesday.
I also recorded a fun RHLSTP Book Club with the creative genius Richard Ayoade (but it won’t be up til the autumn).
Some changes coming to the badger system next month. It’s all explained in your latest secret email, badgers, or if you didn’t get that (check your junk) it’s in the news section of your secret area at rhlstp.co.uk. Non-badge scum will find out what’s going on next month. And how you can join in with the fun. And not be scum any more.
