Biting Point (eBook)

Sid Sagar (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
96 Seiten
Faber & Faber (Verlag)
9780571398836 (ISBN)

Infos

Look, you won't know me. But you will. I want you to know me, you see. I want you to know me in the way I know these roads around us, the roundabouts in surround sound, the bridges, the cut-throughs, the one-way systems, the water. Supermarket driver John and property manager Anita spend their working days in Hull's endless traffic, trying to keep ahead of targets and ticking clocks. Driven to distraction by substitute groceries and dodgy plumbing, tensions flare when they collide on a busy roundabout. Biting Point is about class, race and anger in contemporary Britain. It's about the communities we belong to, the pressures we're under, and how modern life can turn us into people we don't want to be. Sid Sagar's play was produced by Middle Child and first performed at Fruit Market Multi-Storey Car Park, Hull, in May 2025.

Sid Sagar is an actor, playwright and screenwriter from an Indian background. He grew up in England from the age of eight. He read History at the University of Bristol and trained on numerous writing programmes, run by Soho Theatre, the London Library, Hampstead Theatre, the Almeida Theatre and Channel 4. As an actor, he won an Eastern Eye Award for Best Actor for his performance in Kenneth Lonergan's The Starry Messenger in the West End, as well as an AudioFile Earphones Award for his narration of Salman Rushdie's Victory City. Other credits include Ballet Shoes (National Theatre), Cabaret (West End) and Slow Horses (Apple TV+). As a writer, his work includes Middle Men and John from Hemel (both BBC Radio 4). His first short film, Baked Beans, was produced by BFI NETWORK and was selected for festivals in the UK and internationally. He has been part of writers' rooms for Channel 4 and CBeebies and is developing a variety of projects for stage and screen.

Textauszug

1

John is in a cheap suit, tie loose, headphones on, nodding along to music, holding a bundle of important-looking documents, gazing at the view.

When it feels right, he notices the audience, takes his headphones off and addresses them directly.

John You need to know that when that Nissan Micra clipped my bumper on the Wingfield Farm roundabout, just after the junction with the a15

We stopped

And I was pissed off because now I’d be late

And I get paid for the time that I’m there and lateness doesn’t help that one bit.

You need to know that

You need to know that I’ve always been anxious. That I’ve always struggled to control those anxieties. That I wasn’t born anxious but maybe, just maybe, my mum knew exactly what world I was entering into and that her own worries wormed their way into me. Because these things are linked, aren’t they? You don’t drink or smoke when a human’s growing inside you but you can’t help it when the man you married because he was initially a charmer with a heart of gold is causing you all sorts of upset. And I think those worries made it to me. Now I’m no scientist, hate science, think it’s dull as fuck, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that science is significant. And maybe I’d have a better grasp of nature and nurture if my school wasn’t shit and my teachers gave a shit and I didn’t

Fall

Off the rails

Age ten, I beat someone up. Well, couple of punches and a kick but it did the trick. I had to walk the long way home. Around this field of pitches and pavilions and private school money. I mean what the fuck is a pavilion? I certainly didn’t know but the boys in the blue blazers certainly did. They played and played and played and I always had to walk the long way home. And this boy in a blue blazer he called me a chav. And I don’t know why. Well, I do know why. But I don’t know what that really means. But I do know that it felt fucking good to see him in the mud with blood on his lip and his nose and his eyes filled with fear. And when my foot connected with his side … Jesus Christ. He gasped and bulged and … Jesus Christ. It was a shame really because it seemed to prove that although I didn’t live in a council house I was very much capable of some pretty explicit violence.

You need to tell them that against all odds I got to twenty-five with a degree and a job

And I was doing okay.

2

Anita enters in a rush, wearing a dressing gown and holding a coffee.

She slows herself down. She closes her eyes. She puts a finger to her nose, closes a nostril, breathes in, then out, then does the same to the other nostril. A breathing exercise designed to be calming and meditative … Then her eyes snap open, wide.

Anita If all the yoga malarkey actually worked, why am I still so bloody wired? Fuck it. It’s presentation day. There’s a gig to clinch. A client that’s so nearly mine and I do really need this contract because … well, I’m not quite meeting those targets so the commission is drying up and you know how the story goes. So, instead, let’s focus on this one. Let’s get Anita through and seal the bloody deal! No questions at this time, please and thank you, just keep staring ahead, that’s right, no smiling allowed, not even a sly nervous grin to your shy nervous mate who doesn’t quite know why you’ve dragged them here.

I mean, look, no one grins in a meeting about expanding a property portfolio and changing the managing agent of a block in disrepair, it’s not really giving Live at the Apollo vibes, but I guess that’s the world of work and adulting and Jesus Christ, Anita! Get it together, love. And maybe one day remember to replace those Nespresso pods in the kitchen because another dawn-breaker of instant coffee in a KeepCup and your bowels will wreak havoc at the least opportune of moments.

She takes a sip from her coffee. She grimaces.

God, that’s rank. Like warm tar.

She tips the cup upside down, chucking coffee dregs onto the ground.

Genuinely thought I’d seen a drain there. Is that … am I littering? Is coffee tipping in a public place a bit like … fly tipping? No matter, I’ll mop up, goddess in the kitchen me, always tidying up after others, always making things gleam and shine in time for someone else to keep their shoes on and bring in the mud and dust and shit of the outside world. No matter, no worries, I’ll clean up later, I’m just OCD is all, that must be it, I need to take a chill pill!

She’s distracted by the coffee puddle on the ground.

But you should know, actually, that …

You need to know that there’s a life out there I might have lived had I turned the indicator on in time, left some room for manoeuvres, anticipated what was ahead and around the corner

Looked out and up and over

Looked through the mirror, properly tried, strained, if I’d realised it wasn’t a reflection but actually, maybe, just a very misleading window

Dirty, grubby, in need of a dash of Flash or Viakal or maybe just your bog-standard anti-bac wipes, own brand will do

Because through that window there’s another version of me

Gazing into a future filled with the doors of opportunity

Stardom maybe

Can you imagine?

Instead, though, I kept seeing bloody mirrors

Like one of those creepy houses at a funfair

Faces staring back at me

Mainly mine

I couldn’t stop looking

Call me vain, fine

But I couldn’t stop being bothered

I didn’t like what I could I see

I couldn’t stop looking

And sometimes that look would get me into trouble.

The sounds of a busy kitchen, pots and pans, oil and meat sizzling.

Anita’s Dad What’s wrong, bachcha?

Anita’s Mum She’s just sulking. Leave her.

Anita’s Dad Sulking? Why?

Anita’s Mum She won’t tell me anything.

Anita’s Dad We all get the grumpy grumps sometimes. School was okay?

Anita’s Mum I’ve made the kebabs you like, Anita, there’s raita in the fridge, I’ll put this naan in the oven and someone needs to set the table –

Anita’s Dad I’ll do it. I’m doing it.

Anita’s Mum Wait! Stop. Those aren’t dry. Look!

Anita’s Dad What are you saying? They’re dry. It’s dry.

Anita’s Mum Stop, for God’s sake, always making things worse –

Anita’s Dad They’re dry, yaar.

Anita’s Mum Look down! Look at the splashes! I wipe the floor God knows how many times and you drag these plates and bowls making puddles when I’ve told you –

Anita’s Dad Fine. Do it yourself.

Anita’s Mum Water everywhere when I tell you every time that these things need to be left to dry, I tell you every time and still –

A door slams in the distance.

Stupid man. Anita, will you –

Anita Can I get laser?

Anita’s Mum What?

Anita Laser. On my … to get rid of this … all this.

Anita’s Mum No. You don’t need it.

Anita I do.

Anita’s Mum Just use the thread.

Anita It doesn’t work.

Anita’s Mum It’s a tradition from ancient times, darling, I think it does –

Anita It doesn’t. And my stupid DNA means I end up with a tash and looking like some … some stupid brown detective.

Meat sizzles. A smoke alarm starts beeping.

Anita’s Mum Oh for crying out – (Calling to Anita’s dad.) Wave the towel in front of the thing! Did you hear me? Wave it! (To Anita.) The...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.5.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Lyrik / Gedichte
• ISBN-13: 9780571398836 / 9780571398836