Love on the Plastic Programme (1)
“We should rename this club – ‘The Myth of the Everlasting Bonk’. Perhaps they’re right to pay for it; apart for greed, lust seems the only real emotion left in the 20th Century.”
Julia Schoefield’s play was set in a Mayfair Hostess Club. The world of ‘Necessary Business Expenses’.
“I’m suspicious of programe notes. If any aspect of a show needs explaining or decoding or defending in the print, then there’s usually something wrong with what’s on the stage. But because some people may find this show shocking or upsetting, I’ll go on record as saying I do too. That’s the point. That too often we care so little for each other, that our own and other people’s bodies and emotions as tradable commodities, and measure what we value in life by how much it costs. Yes; there is a great deal of money to be made working in a hostess club; but you pay a high price for earning it. Yes; “Prostitution, is a way out not a way down” for some. Yes; this play is probably obscene. Not for what it talks about or how it says it; but because it holds a mirror up to the unnatural, the artificial, the clandestine and the destructive.”
Chris Bond, Director
You can access the script of this play via the British Library’s MPS Modern Playscripts Collection.
George Costigan is an actor who performed at Half Moon Theatre in the late 1980s. He talks about performing in Love on the Plastic and it’s importance as a reflection on contemporary society at the time. Interviewed by Lorn Mackenzie.
Chris Bond was Artistic Director of Half Moon Theatre on the Mile End Road from 1985-88. He talks about commissioning Love On The Plastic, a play set in a Mayfair hostess club, which provided a great opportunity for ‘meaty’ roles for female actors. Although the poster image led to a potential law suit. Interviewed by Rosie Vincent.
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