Elvis' early days in new Liverpool play

Pretty self-explanatory
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johnfoyle
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Elvis' early days in new Liverpool play

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http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views/li ... -21681743/


Eric’s and questions of life and death

Sep 5 2008 by Joe Riley, Liverpool Echo


Joe Riley talks to Mark Davies Markham, writer of the Everyman’s new show about cult 70s Liverpool punk club Eric’s

THE Cavern was dead. Long live Eric’s. To a new generation of 70s teenagers – among them Mark Davies Markham – The Beatles’ cellar had been superseded by the punks’ paradise, just across the road.

“By the time Eric’s opened in 1976, The Cavern was something most of us wanted to bury. And they (the council) had done just that,” affirms Mark.

Here was the place youngsters went to hear the new music. Super group in reverse Big in Japan were big in Mathew Street. Each to their own.

“One of the best nights was when Talking Heads supported The Ramones,” recalls Mark, who has now combined such halcyon memories with a tough, even angry, biographical play about his own battle with cancer.

His fight for survival came seven years after Eric’s shut up shop in 1980 after fewer than four sweat-drenched, decibel-bashing years.

The premise for the show (with extracts of authentic Eric’s sounds) is: how did I get here?

The present is nothing without the past, although after a decade of transplant surgery, drugs and check-ups, the Bootle-born former tax worker and teacher regards himself cured of the leukaemia which hung over him like the sword of Damocles.

All those elements combine to spill on to the Everyman stage as Eric’s, a piece of narrative-led music theatre following in the footsteps of Mark’s former success with the Boy George show, Taboo, and the televised Liverpool Nativity.

“I don’t think there is an Eric’s story as such. More a lot of stories from within Eric’s,” insists Mark.

It was a place the punters mixed with the bands. They stood next to them in the loo and then cheered them on stage.

“Lots of brilliant nights. Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Tremendous presence. Astonishing.

“The Clash was another mega experience (and not the only legendary band to follow The Beatles into the Grapes pub next door).

“I remember seeing Elvis Costello when we all had to sit down. Very, very early days. The scene is in the show.”

If The Cavern had been beehive hairdos and lunchtime Coca-Cola, Eric’s was early hours boozing and funny hair and clothes. But no drugs.

The fans hung around in cliques: “I was in the spotty Bootle clique,” jokes Mark.

“Back then punk was seen by older people and the media as aggressive and threatening. In 2008, you can be looking like that and working in a bank. It’s become part of the mainstream.”

The young Mark (Joey in the play) did have a set of aspirations: he wanted to be a playwright, and took Alan Bleasdale as a hero figure, from his other social hang-out, the Everyman.

He had already been to the forerunner of Eric’s, the Revolution Club (on the same site) and seen bands like The Runaways.

But, suddenly – the next week, in fact – there was this new place, spurred on by juvenile wanderlust, where, as an antidote to the political upheavals and growing unemployment outside, youngsters entered to create their own world of escapism.

“People say don't look back. But I do it every day. It’s how we know where we are,” says Mark.

“And years later, here’s Joey (now styled as plain Joe) remembering Eric’s as he faces the inevitable questions of life and death.”

It’s not a researched, secondhand thing. Mark Davies Markham lived the nightmare of a bone marrow transplant that failed. He was only brought back from the brink by new, then experimental, drug treatment.

Only the other day, after a regulation blood test, which he chooses to have every six months, one specialist described his recovery as remarkable.

When the bone marrow was rejected, Mark and his wife Sarah, a publisher, decided to put their life on fast forward.

The joy of that is their 10-year-old son, Alfie, who’s obviously inherited the theatrical gene having just appeared in a school production of Oliver.

Today, Mark splits his time between a home near London and a docklands flat in Liverpool: “I could never really leave this city.

“Whereas I think the show may have a life beyond Liverpool, I wrote it for here.”

Yes, agree the cast and its young director, LIPA graduate Jamie Lloyd, just made an associate of the Donmar Warehouse theatre, and responsible for the West End production of Piaf.

Here is the Liverpool show that was just waiting to happen, even if it is happening differently than some people would have imagined.

“Of course I spoke to people like Pete Wylie, Julian Cope and Jayne Casey.

“And Jayne even came and talked to the cast for almost two hours, which was tremendous.

“But there were some (he names no names) who would have preferred me to do their story rather than my own.”

Not that after such a brave and sustained journey Mark Davies Markham needs justification.

There are issues above and beyond music: “The result, I hope, is life-affirming. I don't think of it being tragic. There are some very funny moments.

“It’s about the spirit of the time and what you need to fight cancer.”

But there is a musical coda: “It’s about breaking down barriers and the end of the big pompous bands you could never meet.”

Everyman Theatre, from September 19



http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats- ... asp?id=217


LIVERPOOL EVERYMAN AND PLAYHOUSE PRESENT
Eric's
19 September - 11 October at 19:30 pm

Joe’s in trouble. It’s not his time but the clock is ticking. You’ve got to be ready; ready to battle, ready to clash, ready to fight.

The troops he rallies are from his past, in particular Mathew Street and the passion of his
youth; the rebellious and creative fire of a small Liverpool club. A club which sparked a cultural
revolution and inspired a generation of musicians, artists and writers.

Award-winning Liverpool writer Mark Davies Markham follows up the hit musical Taboo with this new musical specially commissioned for the European Capital of Culture. The story of one man’s fight for survival as he draws on the defiant spirit of Eric’s; do it yourself: and do it your way.
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Re: Elvis' early days in new Liverpool play

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John

Went to this show yesterday on opening night - fantastic!

Mega nostalgia trip for those of us lucky (old) enough to have been to Erics when it was up and running.Recommended for anyone who has any affinity with the music of the day. Sadly there were notices on every seat requesting that we didn't dance, otherwise I'm sure that there woudl have been a massive eruption of pogo-ing.

From an EC perspective the scene mentioned above "I remember seeing Elvis Costello when we all had to sit down. Very, very early days. The scene is in the show.” appears to have failed to make it through to first night. However fear not , one of the actors took the part of Elvis to play "Whats so funny..." and a bit of "Detectives" he aslo had a walk - on to converse with the central character.

Keep up the good work

Colin
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis' early days in new Liverpool play

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Glad you enjoyed it, Colin - looks like I'm going to have to try and organize a little trip to 'pool!

This write up has a interesting turn of phrase in it's last line -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jh ... ics119.xml

Eric's in Liverpool: basement birthplace of a rock revolution


Last Updated: 12:01am BST 19/09/2008

Dominic Cavendish
on a theatrical tribute to Liverpool's other legacy

It's a fair bet that few of the visitors attracted to Liverpool this year by its status as European Capital of Culture will have been able to resist making the pilgrimage to Mathew Street in the city centre.

Stroll along this pedestrianised backstreet and you're assailed on all sides by mementos, plaques and statuettes commemorating the Beatles and their world-famous launch-pad, the Cavern club. What those visiting rock and roll's most hallowed memory lane probably won't notice - because it's not officially pointed out - is the street's other claim to be on any music-lover's itinerary.

There's no plaque marking the location of Eric's, yet between October 1976 and March 1980, this dingy, downstairs dive, opposite the sealed-up entrance to the old Cavern, was a flaming crucible of punk and post-punk talent. Eric's played host to some of most important bands of the era.

The Sex Pistols, the Clash, Generation X and the Ramones were among the visitors who turned the place into an essential hang-out for the city's mutinous youth. But it was what that youth - galvanised by these visits - did in turn that set a seal on Eric's contribution to the British music scene.

Among the local artists and bands that got it together in that stinking, rat-infested basement before going on to greater things were Echo and the Bunnymen, Pete Burns of Dead or Alive, Julian Cope - who made his name fronting the Teardrop Explodes - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Pete Wylie of the Mighty Wah!, and Big in Japan, who would spawn Frankie Goes to Hollywood, as well as the KLF and the Lightning Seeds.

Interest in Eric's has begun to pick up; Radio 2 recently aired a documentary in homage. It's only this month, though, with a new musical at the Everyman called simply Eric's, that this unsung hero of those heady days is getting the recognition it deserves.

Anyone who spiked their hair and snarled away with the worst of them in the Seventies or moped about in a heavy trenchcoat in the early Eighties will rejoice at the good taste of the back-catalogue on offer here. Echo and the Bunnymen's The Cutter, the Mighty Wah's Story of the Blues, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads and Iggy Pop are all referenced.

What the show isn't going to be, though, its creator Mark Davies Markham insists, is just another jukebox musical.

"I'd rather grit the roads than do some lazy nostalgia piece," declares this forthright 48-year-old Scouser, who wrote Taboo, the classy 2002 musical account of Boy George's early days. Too much of his own life - and too much first-hand experience - is invested in the show for him to short-change a generation, he assures me, as we watch a young cast dash about a Liverpool rehearsal room full of energy and aggro.

The opening scene is shocking, not because anyone's getting head-butted (that happens later) but because it's set on a cancer ward where, 20 years on from the summer of punk, the principal character lies dying. Although he's named Joey rather than Mark, this is a thinly veiled theatrical self-portrait. Eleven years ago, Markham was diagnosed with leukaemia. Subjected to chemotherapy and full-body irradiation, he was then given a 30 per cent chance of survival.

Battling his illness, he sought sanctuary in, and drew strength from, memories of his teenage days when "by day, I was working as an assistant tax collector in Bootle and in the evenings, I'd put on my grandad's demob suit, spike my hair up and go to Eric's".

The play, he says, is "about how a period in your life can inspire you when you're in a moment of real darkness". Far from being a fount of nihilism, the punk era became a call to arms, helping Markham re-acquire the fighting spirit necessary to fight his cancer.

It's a fan's-eye view of the past, invested with all the blood, sweat and beers of adolescent experience. Notably flitting around in the background, though, are incarnations of the soon-to-be-famous Burns, Cope, Johnson, McCulloch and Wylie.

How many egos did Markham have to massage to get clearance for that act of mass impersonation? He explains how he approached the flamboyant former front-woman of Big in Japan, Jayne Casey, a living Liverpudlian legend.

"I took her out to dinner, and said: 'This is what I'm doing. Would you have any problem with it?' She said: 'No one would - not with that story.' "She put the word out for me and the theatre let everyone know what I was doing. No one has objected. The lawyers have looked at the script and there's nothing defamatory there. I've got no scores to settle.

"The bands have all been invited but the idea of getting them in one room at the same time seems unimaginable. They used to bicker like mad. There was a lot of competition. I think if they did come, though, they'd all love it." And how could they not? Who doesn't, deep down, want to relive their brutal youth and the time of their uncertain lives - while they still can?
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Re: Elvis' early days in new Liverpool play

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John

Yeah - author must be one of us!

if you do come , let me know and I'll buy you a pint.

Colin
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Re: Elvis' early days in new Liverpool play

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Review from today's Liverpool Echo:

"Eric’s, Everyman Theatre
Sep 25 2008 by Joe Riley, Liverpool Echo

THIS is the story of a dying man and an emerging music club. The club has long gone, the man survives.

Writer Mark Davies Markham’s successful battle against leukaemia is set against the backdrop of a remembered youth at Eric’s in Mathew Street: a venue which, with one notable exception, proved more influential, in far shorter time, than the Cavern.

But the winning move is in combining a compelling human tale with a homage to a way of life which ripped up the rule book, and created an inner comfort zone for a generation on the cusp of the excesses of Thatcherism.

In Davies Markham’s case, the bureaucracy of early employment in the Bootle tax office was destroyed by tearing along the dotted line.

The musical format follows the selection and editing process used in the same writer’s televised Liverpool Nativity: songs of the day (1976-80) used to illustrate specific incidents.

For Jayne Casey and Bill Drummond (the man who famously burned a million quid), and both survivors of all five Big In Japan line-ups, sitting in the first night audience must have proved an out-of-body experience.

Seeing their past lives paraded in a wider cavalcade of clashing egos and outlandish costumery – including a woman who carried a kettle as a fashion accessory – defied any time-warp.

Graham Bickley and Stephen Fletcher are ideally complementary, providing the pivotal shadowing figures of Joe/Joey, Mark Davies Markham’s alter ego.

But there were other delights, and none more so than Oliver Jackson’s hammy Wildian incomer, Julian Cope, and Sam Donovan’s Pete Wylie, the last Liverpool act to play Eric’s on a mission for universal (and possibly inter-galactic?) recognition.

But Eric’s was more than a bolt- hole. As shown by director Jamie Lloyd (ex-Lipa, now Donmar Warehouse), it was an inspiration.

The constant animation and pacy dialogue – with lots of humour, despite the dark mortal undertones – combine to create an entertainment which reaches way beyond its seemingly parochial boundaries.

And before anyone stops me in the street, or emails, I’ll tell you why the production beats its companion 2008-commissioned Adelphi Opus off the ball park ...

This is more than posturing sentimentWe have a show with a big heart, strong lungs and a pulse beating so strongly that it compels a visit."

.
Marks out of 10 = 10
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis' early days in new Liverpool play

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http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 47306.html


Eric's, Everyman, Liverpool

Reviewed by Lynne Walker
Wednesday, 1 October 2008


It could have been a mawkish evening: a "rockumentary" set in the late 1970s around a dingy Liverpool dive, Eric's, interwoven with an account of one man's fight against cancer. In fact Eric's, the musical, turns out to be a highly effective piece of narrative theatre, laced with sounds from the influential catalyst of punk and post-punk, skilfully created by Mark Davies Markham. The man who wrote the Boy George musical, Taboo, now turns to his own story, beginning 20 years ago when he was diagnosed with leukaemia. The usual treatments failed but fatherhood, a new drug and a fighting spirit – drawing on life-affirming memories of his teenage days when Eric's was a cultural lifeline – saw Davies Markham through to what doctors still regard as a remarkable cure.

The setting switches between the insalubrious basement interior of Eric's in Mathew Street, opposite the Cavern Club made famous by the Beatles, and an anonymous street or room. Occupying the back of the stage a versatile four-piece band accompanies the story of Joe (the Davies Markham character) from hospital bed through flashbacks to his younger days as Joey, a spotty youth immersing himself on the fringes of Eric's live line-up. It allows Davies Markham to draw on a back catalogue that includes Mighty Wah!'s "Story of the Blues", a rousing "Heart as Big as Liverpool", Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Cutter", and numbers by Big in Japan, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop, The Clash and Elvis Costello.

Much of the charm in Davies Markham's ebullient book – and Eric's is more than a juke-box musical – lies in the incarnations of such later legends as Pete Burns, Julian Cope (wittily portrayed by Oliver Jackson), Jayne Casey, Pete Wylie, Ian McCullough and Holly Johnson. It's also helped by excellent performances from Graham Bickley as the feisty Joe, fighting the demons of cancer, and Stephen Fletcher as young Joey. Director Jamie Lloyd draws first-rate performances all round (especially from Lesley Nicol as Joe's mum). The dialogue is both droll and pointed but what makes the show fly is the passionate and energetic delivery of the musical and dance numbers. Like Joe's life, the period feels transient and the venue vulnerable to the tide of musical and social upheaval but, in Eric's, both the club and Joe, aka Davies Markham, have surely found a kind of immortality.

To 11 October (0151-709 4776)
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