Inside The Wire: DeadHead

Imagine this, it’s a warm sunny day in September. You’re gonna enjoy these last few days of summer before the rain comes and you’re forced to become a shell of yourself for the next four months. You decide to take a walk, maybe get an iced coffee, perhaps you’ll sit on a bench and read; you would really like to finish your book before the seasonal depression sets in. You head to the park and as you’re walking along, smiling at dogs and dodging wayward seagulls, you spot a group of people sitting on the grass.

None of them are making eye contact with each other, in fact, they’re all glued to their phones, you sigh to yourself, what has become of our generation? But as you get closer, they all look up at each other and laugh, how peculiar... You pass them, and realise one of them is reading aloud, another chimes in, and then another, and then it dawns on you.... They’re reading a play, how quaint! You park yourself on a nearby bench and smile; this suits you perfectly, it’s like a photo from a glossy American college brochure, all you’re missing is a group of athletic boys throwing a football around, but you’re in Liverpool, so the teenagers smoking a spliff near the bushes will have to do.

You settle down to read but can’t help overhearing random bits of dialogue from this strange little group on the grass. “Bad boy of the chocolate world”, “brain breaks down into a gelatinous mass” and “I will slay that cat” have you scratching your head wondering what on earth this play could possibly be about. Forty minutes later, absolutely bamboozled and no further into your book, you watch the group pack up their things, all of them praising a tall, dark-haired man, for his work. “He must be the writer” you think to yourself, (you also quietly contemplate that if any of these people are his true friends they might consider checking him into a mental hospital.) One of them mentions going for a pint and before you know it, they’ve vanished into the cool September sunset, leaving you alone at last.

Four months later, you find yourself sitting in the pub waiting for your friend Holly. Halfway through your second glass of Merlot, you debate going home; Holly has likely forgotten all about the evening you two had planned.

You go outside to enjoy a cigarette. Just as you’re starting the classic battle of Liverpool wind versus rolling a cig, you narrowly avoid getting smacked in the face by an avalanche of hair. The source of the hair, a short and, by the looks of things, very tipsy girl is chattering away non stop to a guy you can’t quite place, but you’re sure you’ve seen him before. He finally manages to get a word in edgeways and as soon as he speaks you recognise the voice, he was the writer of the play you overheard in the park all those months ago! Marvelling at what a small world we live in, you hear him offer her a part in the play. “Classic” you think to yourself, you’d heard rumours about how the acting industry worked but to think parts are actually given out based on who happens to be on a night out with who is a joke. You thank your lucky stars that your Mum didn’t let you take GCSE drama so you could grow up and get a real job, you’ve never been more grateful for your career in dentistry.

Three weeks pass and your life has turned upside down. Turns out your “friend” Holly was seeing your (now ex) boyfriend behind your back. You were understandably so depressed by the news that for five days you didn’t get out of bed. Due to unexplained absence, you were fired from your job as a dental nurse and now you’ve had to move back in with your Mum, who refuses to accept that you’re a pescatarian and keeps trying to force feed you chicken kievs.

Desperate to get back on your own two feet, you go to a nearby bar with your laptop and prepare to spend the evening drowning your sorrows and applying for jobs on Indeed. Just as you’re getting settled, a man bumps into the back of your chair, spilling one of the pints he was carrying onto your shoulder. You’re about to give him a piece of your mind when he turns and smiles, rendering you speechless; he has the whitest teeth you’ve ever seen in your life. He apologises profusely for the mess and offers to buy you a drink to make up for it. While you wait together to be served, he tells you that he’s all over the place because he’s just auditioned for a part in a play and he really wants to get it, he’s actually staying behind to have a drink with the director, assistant director and his friend who’s already been cast

He gestures in their direction, and lo and behold, there’s the girl with the long hair, the tall guy who offered her the part, and another girl with little sparkly dots under her eyes. What on earth is the universe playing at? Is there some profound reason as to why you keep being plonked in the same place as these people? Turning your attention back to the man with the teeth, you thank him for the drink and hope he gets the part he wants. He flashes his pearly whites one last time and tells you “if I get the part you’d better come and watch”. Is he flirting with you? Things are looking up.

A month later, you’re still desperately trying to turn your life around but to no avail. You’ve just been for your third job interview that week and it went horribly. Last week you ruined your perfect smile by chipping your front tooth on a hobnob and now no one in the dental profession will take you seriously. Deciding you deserve a little treat after yet another humiliating rejection, you take yourself out for ramen.

The restaurant is empty. “Thank god” you think to yourself, no one around to hear the embarrassing little whistle that occurs every time you slurp soup through the gap where the rest of your tooth should be. You’re halfway through your bowl when two guys barrel in yammering on about George Michael; you look up and nearly choke on the dumpling you’ve been trying to dissolve instead of chewing. It’s the writer of that play AGAIN. Is he following you? What if he thinks you’re following him? Does it still count as stalking if it’s completely by accident? They get seated on the table next to you, the writer’s friend smiles at you politely, and you, forgetting the soup that’s still in your mouth, smile back. It dribbles into your lap. You wish you were dead. Thankfully, the friend’s attention has been diverted back to the writer, they launch into an excited conversation about music for the play.

(CREDIT: Charlotte Patterson) LIZZIE WILSON

Wondering whether at this point you should just buy a ticket to the damn play just to see what all the fuss is about, you run to the loos to clean yourself up and when you come back, they’re babbling away about how good of a dancer some guy named Callum James Heeley is. Then, without warning, the writer’s friend breaks out into some kind of verbal jazz demonstration, it surprises you how good it is. You can see that they’re

sending a voice note to someone on Instagram and you debate informing them that there’s a one minute time limit, but decide against it. It’s creepy enough that you’re accidentally following them all over Liverpool without adding eavesdropping and phone peeping to the mix. Surely it won’t take them that long to notice the cut off? Six minutes, fourteen skee-ba-da-ba-do-ba-da-wow-wow-wow’s and three suppressed giggles from you later, they realise.

The writer turns to you and smiles apologetically, “sorry about that”. You tell him it’s fine, you were actually enjoying it, and you ask him what it’s for, as if you haven’t been in the background of nearly every meeting this guy has had for the past six months. He explains that it’s for a play he’s putting on, introducing himself as Jason Kelly, the writer and director, and you feign surprise. Faced with the opportunity to finally find out what this play’s about, you ask him. He proceeds to tell you all about it... and you’re blown away. The premise is unlike anything you’ve heard of before, but it’s the way he speaks about it; with so much passion and animation.

You can’t think of a single time in the last year you’ve felt that much excitement for anything in your own life. The more he talks about it, the more inspired you feel, no wonder this guy’s got thirteen cast members and a whole creative team happily giving up their time to bring his brilliantly insane ideas to life. You book a ticket then and there and in doing so have a profound moment of realisation. With your life in tatters, you’ve been given the opportunity to completely start over, and you promise yourself that you’re going to use that to find whatever it may be that will make you light up the same way this Jason guy does when he talks about his play. You pay for your meal and leave the restaurant with a new lease of life. You hear the birds singing, feel the warmth of the sun on your face and close your eyes to take it all in. And that’s when the number 86 bus hits you.

Oh no! Were you killed by a bus just as you were on the verge of turning your life around? Do you wish you could at least tell your Mum that you felt at peace when you died? Memento Mori has your back.

Deadhead will debut with a limited run at The Hope Street Theatre, Liverpool. 2nd-4th May 2024.