Bright Phoenix

by Young, Jeff

• ISBN13: 9781474228800
• ISBN10: 1474228801
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-10-24
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

Summary

I am flying. I swoop over the rooftops of Liverpool, over the waterfront and out to sea, following a trawler as it drags its nets through the wild sea. I am a sixteen-year-old bird boy, addicted to seagull blood, flying through sea-storms, up to the moon . . .

On the run from tragedy, Lucas escaped Liverpool - then a city cast aside, a city crumbling.

Now he's back, the old gang don't rush to welcome him home and ghosts haunt the ruins of their childhood playgrounds. The city chases renaissance: could his love affair with childhood sweetheart Lizzie blossom again too?

Bright Phoenix is a wild, dream-like play about the carnival of the city at night; about a gang of rebel kids who still don't quite fit in as grown-ups; and about their love for a dying cinema and their mad plan to bring it back to life like a phoenix. Featuring live music, Jeff Young's epic and poetic play reveals the magic of forgotten places and dreaming beneath the stars.

The play received its world premiere at the Liverpool Everyman on 3 October 2014.

Author Biography

Jeff Young is an experienced television, stage and radio dramatist from Liverpool. He is one of BBC Radio Drama's most established and acclaimed writers, having written over twenty plays. He is also a renowned playwright, specialising in unique collaborative and site-specific projects. For television, he has written for Casualty, Doctors, Eastenders and Holby City. He is also currently developing original projects with numerous broadcasters and indies and recently completed his first commission for children's television, an episode of Stepping Up for LA Productions/CBBC. Alongside his continuing television, radio and theatre work, he has completed his first feature-length screenplay, The Don (freely adapted from his radio play of the same name). Jeff Young's other recent work includes the book for the stage version of The Who's 1973 album Quadrophenia, which opened at the Theatre Royal Plymouth in May 2009 before embarking on a major UK tour.