The Background

A WORD FROM THE WRITER ABOUT THE PLAY​

Rupert Street Lonely Hearts Club was commissioned by the National Theatre when I was writer on attachment in the Studio there. John Burgess ran the Studio in those days and took so many new writers under his wing and nurtured us and taught us about theatre. It was a proper education for me. I’d written a few feel good plays – Beautiful Thing, Babies – and I wanted to prove that I could do tragic too! And so Rupert Street was born.

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I remember doing a reading of an early draft at the National – a young Andy Serkis played Marti – and John helped me hone it into something more substantial. In the end the National passed on it so English Touring Theatre produced it – opening here in Manchester – and the production, directed by John, did so well we got a London run at the Donmar Warehouse, and then it transferred to the West End for six months. Not bad going for a new play with no stars in it. It got me some of the best reviews of my career and I won a Manchester Evening News Award for Best New Play.

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The play is about two brothers, one gay, one straight, who’ve had a falling out a few years before and are tentatively becoming friends again. The play is populated with lonely, desperate people, all looking for love, all feeling unloved. At the time Care In The Community was a new thing and the Tories were closing all the psychiatric residential units down so the character of Clarine felt very current, an institutionalised woman suddenly fending for herself in the big bad world.​

Last year Qweerdog asked if I’d be interested in updating the play and resetting it in Manchester as Canal Street Lonely Hearts Club. At first I resisted but then thought, oh fuck it, why not? Is it possible to update a play from thirty years ago – where people had no mobile phones or internet , social media – and will the story still resonate today? Especially when one of the central characters has gone walkabout. Stewart from Qweerdog felt that the characters and their journeys would still feel relevant to a new audience today. Does the feeling of loneliness and an inability to love or be loved still feel interesting today? And will the jokes still land?

The Cast