Bravado

Scottee

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786823342
• eBook ISBN: 9781786823359
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Social Sciences

Scottee grew up around strong, brave and violent men and boys. Bravado is his memoir of working class masculinity from 1991 to 1999 as seen by a sheep in wolf's clothing.

Scottee grew up on a council estate in Kentish Town, where as a child he knew the inside of every pub. In Bravado he goes back to the raw, harsh days of that childhood - growing up among men who worked hard, drank hard and fought hard. He describes his first fight, trying to prove himself to tougher boys and experiences of domestic and sexual abuse. 

Scottee also grapples with the contradictions of being a gay man who is attracted to working-class men, but also feels scarred by the experience of growing up with them. Bravado was devised as a show that would be performed in typically male, working-class environments such as pubs, garages or changing rooms, and that would be performed by a volunteer who would be paid £100 for reading the script, and receive counselling after the show. 

Bravado explores the graphic nature of maleness and the extent it will go to succeed. This show is not for the weak-hearted – it includes graphic accounts of violence, abuse, assault and sex.

Walk-in song: ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ by The Verve.

WALK-IN SCREEN:

BRAVADO

A memoir of working-class masculinity

(1991 – 1999)

OPENING PREPARATION TEXT:

This show contains graphic accounts of violence, assault, domestic and sexual abuse.

Leave the room whenever you like, stay at your own expense.

This isn’t a show for those of you still processing abuse.

We require one volunteer to perform this show.

You will need to be comfortable performing material about sex, violence and abuse.

You’ll be required to read and sing along to a few Oasis songs.

Put your hand up now if you’d like to volunteer yourself.

(Volunteer is chosen by technician.)

PERFORMER SCREEN:

Hello! Thanks for volunteering to perform Bravado. If at any time you want to pause or take a breather please put your hand in the air so the technician can see you.

You will read forty minutes of text, the screen will change once you’ve read everything on that screen.

You will be paid one hundred pounds for your time.

If you fluff your lines that’s totally okay.

The material you’ll be performing is of a graphic nature – you are going to talk about domestic abuse, sexual violence and the extremes of bullying.

To indicate you are okay with this please give the technician a thumbs up. If not please return to your seat, we totally understand.

(Pause for confirmation.)

There are three Oasis songs to perform. You’ll sing along to the originals so don’t worry if you are not the best singer.

Take a deep breath. You’ll be ace.

There is a bottle of water on stage for you.

Thank you and don’t forget to wait around so we can pay you and buy you a bevvy!

Scottee. X

(During this time a rewinding of the imagery used in the show, including date markers, flashes past on audience-facing screens, similar to VHS rewinding.)

(‘BLOOD’ appears on all screens.)

BLOOD

I can tell you what the inside of every pub in Queens Crescent, Kentish Town and Camden Town looked like.

I can tell you where pubs once stood, what they were called, who ran them, who sat where and even what some of the houses above a few of them smelt like.

(‘1991’ flashes up on one of the audience screens.)

I come from a family of drinkers.

Now, you might be painting a picture of a family of Irish alchie winos.

That would be wrong.

Only half my family are Irish.

We’re well-turned out, Nan calls us ‘respectable people’.

My family are like all the other families on the estate – they worked hard and played harder to forget Monday would soon be upon them.

The men prop themselves along the bar – told off by the Mums for using grown-up language in front of us kids.

The women, our Mums, are sat at tables with packets of Brannigans Roast Beef and Mustard flavour crisps, torn open for sharing.

We are left to play outside with one pound coins jingling in our pockets, given to us by drunken relatives or by even drunker friends of relatives.

Our spends are spent on sixty p. cones of chips swimming in vinegar and if you were lucky a screwball from the Greek ice cream bloke who often held the cone and your hand for just a second too long.

The once-thick carpets are rough and smell of stale beer and cheap air freshener bought from Gordon & Ruth’s Home and Hardware.

On a Sunday the landlady would put freshly cut sandwiches on the bar.

Salmon paste smothering cheap, white, thinly cut bread that instantly became stale at the edges.

Mum would wrap a few up in a kitchen towel for my friend White and I, sending us out before the men could put their pissy hands over them.

White and I spent many afternoons and occasional evenings outside The Napier.

The Napier was known as my Mum and Dad’s pub – they didn’t own it, it was just where they drank.

The Gypsy Queen, Robert Peel and The Shipton were my Grandad’s haunts, the Lion and Unicorn or the Spread Eagle my Dad’s,

The Carlton was my Uncle’s pub. My other Uncle drank in Hackney.

The Dragon was a bit different – a pub for everyone and the only pub my Nan would step foot in, suitable for women of a certain age.

The Napier had two rickety picnic benches and a four-foot high concrete mound outside of it.

The cement had set a long time along, no one knew why it was there – it just was.

Sometimes it would be White’s island, other times we’d both just run up and down it passing the time and trying not to cut our knees.

White would often get her yellow, floral summer dress dirty. She was the sort of girl who sat open-legged sipping Orangina, . . .telling me how to climb the willow tree across the road, never conscious you could see her knickers.

The drunk adults would encourage us to call each other girlfriend and boyfriend.

We wanted to be friends, they wanted us to be something else.

This dynamic would eventually mean we would never see each other again.

The concrete mound was our boundary set by my Mum – beyond it were a row of three semi-demolished terrace houses.

Bricks and broken glass sit amongst used needles with speckles of dried blood in them.

We’re told to stay away from these mysterious objects because we would get AIDS.

If a fight kicked off at The Napier (which inevitably it did) men always took their violence outside at request of Mrs McCarthy.

From on top of our concret...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Foreword by Scottee
• Foreword: Bold Love by Jen Harvie
• Foreword: Bravado: A Perspective by Stewart Who?
• Bravado