Bottleneck

Luke Barnes

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781849435246
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

Am I a virgin? I think I am. I mean it went in her but it was floppy and it wasn't very nice so I think I am a virgin. I'm going to say I am. Will look better on me uni applications.
Liverpool, 1989. Greg is thirteen. He has just started secondary school. He earns pocket money sweeping up hair in a barbers. Girls are aliens. Liverpool FC are everything. Edinburgh, 2012. Greg has an extraordinary story to tell you. Bottleneck is a vibrant coming-of-age story about becoming a man through adventures both big and small. It is about a notorious city; Liverpool. How the outside worlds views it. And how it views the outside world. Botleneck was first presented by HighTide Festival Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival, August 1 2012, directed by Steven Atkinson.

HighTide Festival Theatre present

Bottleneck premiered as part of the 2012 Edinburgh Festival. The production transferred to Soho Theatre, London and then Toured theatres across the UK.

This revived production of Bottleneck was first produced as part of the 2014 Edinburgh Festival on 30 July 2014.

Production supported by

The Boris Karloff Charitable Foundation

bottleneck

By Luke Barnes
A HighTide Festival Theatre production

Greg | James Cooney

Director | Steven Atkinson
Lighting Designer | Natasha Chivers
Sound Designer | Tom Mills
Movement Director | Georgina Lamb
Stage Manager | Isabel Sullivan

The producers wish to thank

The Boris Karloff Charitable Trust.

George Chilcott, CMS Cameron McKenna, Richard Fitch, Foyle
Foundation, Ideastap, Lansons, Silki Morrison, Clare Parsons
and Tony Langham, Criona Palmer and Tony Mackintosh,
Shoreditch Town Hall, The Royal Victoria Hall Foundation.

CAST

James Cooney Greg

For HighTide: Bottleneck (Soho Theatre, UK Tour, Edinburgh Festival, HighTide Festival).

Other Theatre includes: The Only Way Is Chelsea (UK Tour); Apples (Theatre503); You Once Said Yes (Lowry Salford); The Bird (Old Vic New Voices); Island (National Theatre/Tour); Romeo & Juliet (Lodestar).

Television includes: Doctors (BBC).

Theatre whilst training includes: A Small Family Business; Sweeney Todd; Don’t Forget the Distance; Les Liaisons Dangereuses (LIPA).

COMPANY

Luke Barnes Writer

For HighTide: Bottleneck (Soho Theatre, UK Tour, Edinburgh Festival, HighTide Festival); Eisteddfod (Latitude Festival).

Other theatre includes: The Saints (Nuffield Theatre); Beats North (Curious Money, Northern Stage); Weekend Rockstars (Hull Truck); A Wondrous Place (Manchester Royal Exchange, Northern Spirit, Unity, Sheffield Crucible, Northern Stage); Weekday Nights (National Youth Theatre); Chapel Street (UK Tour).

TV includes: Minted (Channel 4 Pilot with Rare Day).

Awards: Scotsman Emerging Talent Award (Chapel Street), Shortlist for Most Promising Playwright at Off West End Awards 2012 (Chapel Street); Shortlist for Best New Play at Off West End Awards 2013 (Bottleneck) Shortlist for Best Studio Production at Manchester Theatre Awards (A Wondrous Place); 2013 Writer on attachment to Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, and Soho Theatre.

Steven Atkinson Director

For HighTide: peddling by Harry Melling (Off Broadway, HighTide Festival), Pussy Riot: Hunger Strike by Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Bush Theatre / Southbank Centre), Neighbors by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Nuffield Theatre, HighTide Festival); Bottleneck by Luke Barnes (Soho Theatre, UK Tour, Pleasance Edinburgh); Clockwork by Laura Poliakoff (HighTide Festival); Bethany by Laura Marks (HighTide Festival with the Public Theater); Incoming by Andrew Motion (House of Commons, Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Latitude Festival, HighTide Festival); Dusk Rings A Bell by Stephen Belber (Watford Palace Theatre, Assembly Edinburgh, HighTide Festival); Lidless by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (Trafalgar Studios, Underbelly Edinburgh, HighTide Festival); Muhmah by Jesse Weaver (HighTide Festival), and The Pitch by Nick Payne (Latitude Festival).

Other theatre includes: Three Card Trick by Luke Barnes, James Harker, Joe Ward Munrow (Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse); The Afghan and the Penguin by Michael Hastings (BBC Radio 4); Freedom Trilogy by various (Hull Truck Theatre); Sexual Perversity in Chicago by David Mamet (Edinburgh Festival).

Awards: 2012 and 2010 Fringe First Awards for Educating Ronnie (producer) and Lidless (director); two SOLT Stage One Bursaries for Lidless and Stovepipe; 2009 Whatsonstage Award nomination for Best Off-West End Production (Stovepipe); and Esquire’s Brilliant Brits 2009.

Steven co-founded HighTide Festival Theatre and is its Artistic Director. He read Film & Theatre at Reading University, graduating in 2005.

Natasha Chivers Lighting Designer

Theatre includes: Adler & Gibb (Royal Court); Boeing Boeing (Sheffield Crucible); 1984 (West End / Almeida / Headlong Tour); War Correspondents (UK Tour); The Mistress Contract (Royal Court); Gastronauts (Royal Court); The Djinns of Eidgah (Royal Court); Praxis Makes Perfect (National Theatre Wales); Macbeth (Broadway); Green Snake (National Theatre of China); Talk of the Town (Landmark Productions / Dublin Festival); The Shawl (Young Vic); The Village Bike (Sheffield Crucible); Bottleneck (HighTide Festival Theatre); Macbeth (National Theatre of Scotland / New York); Motor Show (Requardt and Rosenberg); The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (National Theatre Wales);

A Few Man Fridays (Cardboard Citizens); Alice in Wonderland (Royal and Derngate); Judgement Day (The Print Room); 27 (National Theatre of Scotland); One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show (Eclipse Theatre); The Wheel (National Theatre of Scotland); Happy Days (Sheffield Crucible); Chekhov in Hell (Plymouth Theatre Royal / Soho Theatre); And The Horse You Rode In On (Told By An Idiot / Plymouth Theatre Royal); The House of Atreus (Guildhall); The Young Idea (RADA); The House of Bernada Alba (National Theatre of Scotland); Empty / Miracle Man (National Theatre of Scotland); Cinderella (Lyric Hammersmith); That Face (Duke of York’s Theatre, West End / Royal Court); Love (Lyric Hammersmith / Vesturport); The Glass Cage (Theatre Royal Northampton); Beauty and the Beast (Lyric Hammersmith); Statement of Regret (Royal National Theatre); Beyond Belief (Legs On The Wall – Carridgeworks, Sydney); Othello (Frantic Assembly / Plymouth Theatre Royal Tour); Kindertransport (Shared Experience / National Tour); Pool (No Water) (Frantic Assembly / Lyric Hammersmith / Plymouth Drum / Tour); Wolves in the Wall (Improbable / National Theatre of Scotland); A Fine Balance (Tamasha / Hampstead Theatre Tour); Mary Stuart (National Theatre of Scotland); Sunday in the Park with George (Wyndham’s Theatre); Mercury Fur (Paines Plough / Plymouth Drum); The Bomb-Itty of Errors (The New Ambassadors); Pyrenees (Paines Plough / Tron Theatre Glasgow); Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Liverpool Playhouse); Playhouse Creatures (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Small Things (Paines Plough); Jerusalem (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Lizzie Play (National Tour / Hong Kong Festival); The Straits (Hampstead Theatre / 59E59 New York); The Kindness of Strangers (Liverpool Everyman Theatre); Peepshow (Frantic Assembly / Lyric Hammersmith / National Tour); Tiny Dynamite (Frantic Assembly / Lyric Hammersmith / National and International Tour); Hymns (Frantic Assembly / Lyric Hammersmith / ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Characters
• Wednesday
• Thursday
• Friday
• Saturday
• Assembly
• Other Titles by Luke Barnes