LEACHFIELD

The story of a man getting over a nervous breakdown returning to the dull suburban setting he despised as a young man. Finding it all the same, he feels out of place with the Home Counties’ bigotry and claustrophobic provinciality. The story has music of the ‘blues’ as a living disease that enters the minds and stupefies its victims. Music coming from the enslaved, of freedom and expression is highjacked by a predominantly white, middle class, and shaped in a reactionary fashion. The spite, resentment and fear of the conditioned self are observed through the eyes of a man who has been shuffled into a position having a marginal view.

The principal character, Jim, witnesses the dynamics of estranged people vying for a status of a revered ‘normality’. The action takes places over three consecutive Friday nights in a pub, which hosts a ‘blues’ music evening.

Jim takes a job behind the bar; his story follows the activities and thoughts of the extraordinary life taking place. The characters, often inadequate, lumber in a fantasy world, a place that causes Jim to be disturbed and distressed. Jim’s tale becomes a surreal telling as he makes his way to his freedom via a punk anthem at odds against the musical prejudice of the suburban delta ‘blues’.

MAIN CHARACTERS

JIM - Early forties
KEITH - Fifty
SIMON - Early forties
JUDY - Late thirties
JEAN - Early forties
BARRY - Mid forties
RUSSELL - Late forties
BURNS MARSHALL THE 2ND - Early forties
CLAUDE - Mid forties
FRANK - Mid forties

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