For this month’s Pick Six we turned to Notts born screenwriter, playwright and actor William Ivory ahead of his play The Market Deeping Model Railway Club, which comes to Nottingham Playhouse between Monday 6 - Saturday 25 July.
Personal Hero: Joe Strummer
Fifteen years old, living in Southwell – hardly the front line of the punk rock explosion. But then at the library (ditto), flicking through the LPs you could loan out, I saw a black and white cover featuring three savage looking lads. Career Opportunities, Janie Jones, White Riot. Written by Strummer and Mick Jones. I grew to love Mick (and Paul) but was Joe’s man from the start. I worshipped him. He made me believe passion could fire a revolution.
Book: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Hard. Conrad’s Nostromo, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe, DH Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and Super-Infinite by Katherine Rundell, have all had a profound effect on me. And Money by Martin Amis, of course. Not to mention the Professor of Modern Literature at NTU, Rory Waterman’s latest collection: Come Here to this Gate. But Jeanette Winterson’s 1990 novel has EVERYTHING. It is scabrously funny, moving, sexy and brilliantly profound. She is a genius.
Sports team: Notts County
Notts County, or the newly promoted back-where-they-belong-bring-on-the Stags Magpies, have been my team for 55 years. My cousin, Tony (from a split family – two brothers Forest fans) decided I needed to be instructed in the True Faith from an early age, so took me off in his plumber’s van to see them one Saturday afternoon, not telling anyone, not even my mum! I still think of Luke Williams’ Pies and them getting back into the League at Wembley in 2023 as my greatest Magpie memory.
Notts Spot: Nottingham Playhouse
It opened when I was three months old on Wellington Circus. Mum and dad encouraged me to see ‘anything’ there. I obliged since in the 70s nudity and violence were almost de rigueur on stage. Then, in 1975, I saw Trevor Griffiths’ Comedians, starring Jonathan Price. I knew that I wanted to be a writer and responsible for electrifying the room.
Local Historical Figure: Alan Sillitoe
I nearly said Ross Bradshaw, who runs the Five Leaves Bookshop. Before that, he worked at the Mushroom Bookshop (to a young lad – a terrifying but thrilling place of revolution, counterculture and beautiful women doused in patchouli oil). Ross, genuinely, should have a statue – he’s been the historical heart of culture in the city for an age. In the end though, Sillitoe – he’s decidedly less fascistic than Dirty Bertie, and he wrote in a book of mine: TO BILLY WHO WITH HARD WORK, DETERMINATION, AND THE LOVE OF IT, WILL BECOME A WRITER.
Restaurant: Everyday People
Because the Tonkotsu is bloody lovely and so are the waiting staff. Also, the puddings at Kushi-ya are hard to beat and falling out of the Bell drunk on pork scratchings and fizzy beer is a Nottingham tradition not to be sniffed at, too (NB… what IS this real ale nonsense? I’m starting KAFKA – Kampaign for Kegged Ale; a frothy pint of SHIPPOS at the push of a button – as it was when I used to go to the Bell regularly…).
William Ivory's The Market Deeping Model Railway Club comes to Nottingham Playhouse between Monday 6 - Saturday 25 July. Check the link below for tickets.
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