Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (DVDs) brought a lot of pain into the word. It’s directly responsible for the thousands of godawful cockerney geezah gangster movies that clog up the ‘straight to video’ section of Blockbusters like a hairy plughole.

Worse than that, it also shone the spotlight on a lot of people who would be better off left in the dark. Guy ‘one trick pony‘ Ritchie (DVDs). Jason ‘rent-a-thug’ Statham (DVDs). Dexter ‘Gamesmaster’ Fletcher (DVDs). Vinnie ‘Ug’ Jones (DVDs). Sting ‘sting’ Sting (DVDs/CDs/books).

There is really only one person who has managed to wash his hands of that stinking jellied eel of a movie. And that’s Nick Moran (DVDs).

Where the other stars of Lock Stock seemed to get caught up in the
mythology of being an east-end wideboy gangster, Moran was the only
person who not only remembered he was an actor, he also cared a lot about
his craft. And that’s the difference between DeNiro and, say the cast
of Hollyoaks.

When a film of his – Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry – couldn’t
find distribution, he started doing
interviews where he’d
berate the British film industry for it’s conservatism until,
finally, it got a (very) limited release in 2002.

He disappeared off the radar for a while, preferring to choose the
best roles instead of chasing money (as well as directing a weird
Nigerian film). But now he’s back. And not as an actor – as a writer.
His play, Telstar, has just been moved to the West End.

Telstar is a bioplay about Joe Meek (CDs/books), Britain’s first independent
record producer: a suicidal, paranoid, drug addict homosexual who made Margaret Thatcher‘s favourite song.

Even today, Meek’s music sounds like it comes from the moon, so it’s
hard to imagine what it sounded like to people who thought Please
Please Me was innovative. He pioneered compression, and the use of
echoes and sampling. He’s kind of like a white, English Lee Perry (CDs), and
as far as comparisons go, that’s a pretty bloody good one.

He and his house band The Tornadoes (CDs) shot a promo for a song called The Robot. It’s
mental. The band play their instruments wearing brown suits and huge
metal robot helmets, and they kiss girls in the woods. If Vic and Bob
haven’t seen it, we’ll eat our communal hat.

The play focuses on Meek’s relationship with his landlady. Without
wanting to spoil the plot, Meek ends up killing her. And then himself.
The play is a comedy, by the way.

It opens at the New Ambassadors Theatre on June 24th, and runs until September 10th

[story by Stuart Heritage]