Off Topic Hull: City of Culture

I think their efforts to combat climate change by not using a van should be applauded.

 

Poor forum etiquette to respond to your own post I know but, they've only gone and revived "Up n Under''

# we'reallwessiesarentwe?

 

Starring Godber's daughter this time. It was just about worth sitting through this drivel of a play when Abbi Titmus was in it at Truck.

 

Can we expect a big mural painted on a gable end about it?

 

I actually asked Godber ( I was a theatre critic in another life) why he only wrote plays about rugby league. He's not even a RL fan, more union, but he was asked to at the time to 'put bums on seats' It was written as his first, if not one of his first plays when he joined Truck and it was written at the very height of RL popularity in Hull. In other words he couldn't go wrong with it. The production of 'Up and Under' was quite clever and bore ( sic) all the hall marks of Godber's later and better stuff. Bouncers being by far the best IMO. I believe Up n Under made him the most money especially after it was made into a film version.
Alan Plater's 'Confessions of a City fan' is by far a better play and the updated version was superbly written and starred Roy North and Martin Barrass, who are both supporters of Hull City. As was Plater himself, he stuck by the club throughout the very darkest of days at Boothferry Park. I once bumped into him leaving a City home game when we were at the foot of the old division 4 with crowds down to 3,000. He was very famous then although no-once seemed to recognise him at City games, and I asked him if there was anything he could do to stop the rot at City. It stopped him in his tracks and he looked me in the face and said, very seriously, 'I'm a playwright not a ****** magician'
He also donated £10 towards the printing costs of one of the very first editions of 'Hull, Hell @ Happiness' which was nice.
So if any more murals are to be painted on gable ends I would nominate Alan Plater.

 

I went to his Confessions of a city fan play, Plater and Tom Courtenay would feature in a club museum if we had one.

 

Hull Truck upped their game once they were finally shut of Godber, Richard Bean is a far better playwright.

 

Add Roy North to that. He once appeared on the BBC wearing a Hull City shirt, long, long before wearing replica kits became fashionable, that's if they ever were.
Also Mark Herman. 'Frankie Walsh goes to Wembley'. A film classic. Imagine the hysterics locally if that film had been 'Tubbylard and Robbie Robin go to Wembley' ?

 

Add John Alperton who, in an episode of Please, Sir! had a poster for a Hull City v Oxford match pinned on the notice board.

Always like the story about Mark Herman, who always has a character involved with the name of a City player, being asked how he would manage that in The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, a film about a Nazi death camp.
Enter a German guard called Meinhugel.

 

Tom Courtenay was a bit too supportive of Assem Allam's name change plans for a lot of supporters' tastes, me included.

Roy North and Mark Herman are both active and engaged City fans who do a lot for the Southern Supporters group. Splendid fellows both.

 

Alderton. An actor, not a tube station!

The character in TBITSP was called Meinberg.

 

Ooh, look, someone spotted a typo. Congratulations!

I heard he named a character after Myhill so assumed he used hugel, which is a hill or slope. Berg can include mountains and steeper and higher things than a hill.

 

You have spectacularly fat fingers if you aimed for the D and hit the P instead!

 

Kinell

 

Says the person who goes on about others pointing out typos and errors.

 

Godber did appear to have a monopoly at Truck and it was a bit of a coup when he was ousted. Personally, and I've told him this, I thought all his plays were based around the same theme, West Riding, ex or failed teacher, miner etc etc, with thick Wessie accents when I thought a theatre company operating under the name of Hull Truck should represent this area more. He told me to write something then !
But he was successful in the way that he put bums on seats.
When the new regime took over the plays went up market and the audiences fell. I saw some absolute tosh there after Godber left and some stunning stuff from local companies plus the excellent Alan Bennet's 'Lady in the van' But it's bums on seats that count, bit like football really.
I agree Richard Bean is a fine wrier as is Rupert Creed of this parish in fact we have a number of very good writers in this city, sadly not all of them get a chance to put something on at Truck even after Godber left. Jill Adams is another one, she had to move to Nottingham to get some recognition.
But John Godber was Hull Truck, he was the resident playwright and when he left along with Gareth Tudor Price they also left a huge void in the place and Truck, in my opinion has lost a bit of magic because of it.

 

Mark Herman still dines out on his 1984 film A Kick In The Grass of Hull City on tour in Florida, regularly posting pictures of Billy Whitehurst fooling around naked on his twitter page.