Meeting Joe Strummer

Published Tuesday 8 August 2006 at 17:25 by Jeremy Austin

Paul Hodson’s touchingly well-observed play is about more than just two south London men’s obsession with the greatest ever punk band The Clash, it is about growing old, friendship and that peculiarly male obsession with music. It’s High Fidelity with depth.

Middle class Nick Miles meets working class Steve North on an anti-fascist march in 1977. They are both teenagers and while Miles is exercising his middle class angst, North just marched along for a laugh and got caught up. They are chalk and cheese but when Miles plays disco-loving North The Clash single White Riot, so begins a life-long obsession with all things Joe Strummer. The play then follows their lives as they drift apart and meet up again at a benefit for the striking firemen four years ago, drawn in by the fact that Strummer is playing with his band the Mescaleros.

Both Hodson’s writing and North and Miles’ interpretation of the script perfectly captures that moment when you hear for the first time a song that is going to stay with you for the rest of your life. While the two actors make apologies for asking for quite a large suspension of belief when playing their 16 and 20-year-old selves, they manage to convince. What could be a cliched moment, “It’s like The Clash are singing about me and how I feel,” is perfectly measured. Remember when you were 16, Hodson seems to ask, you did actually think like this. The pain the pair feel at Strummer’s untimely death near Christmas in 2002 is poignant.