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Matthew Strachan :: Composer
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FEATURED WORK
The Man Called Monkhouse
As Is
Home Front
Edinburgh Festival/National Tour
Trafalgar Studios
BBC Radio 4
Regarded as a man with a ‘Teflon’ showbiz veneer, the show shines a bright light on a personality who among many accolades was simultaneously voted Most Loved
and
Most Hated Entertainer in a 1978 TV poll.
Alex Lowe
's one man play traces the life of Bob Monkhouse through a difficult childhood, via the vertiginous heights of television superstardom, the dent in his status during the ‘new wave’ comedy of the late ‘80s and finish with a re-born Bob, back on tv and
finally
feted as the comic genius he undoubtedly was.
Directed by
Bob Golding
and produced by
Cahoots Theatre Company
(
AN AUDIENCE WITH JIMMY SAVILLE
,
DEAD SHEEP
) the show plays at the Edinburgh Festival followed by a national tour.
'Appropriately slick and snappy in execution – Monkhouse himself would surely have approved – this is that rare thing; a play about a comedian that captures why they were funny while, without resorting to tears-of-a-clown clichés, digs sensitively into their psyche.'
The Scotsman
New York City, 1985. Rich
(Steven Webb)
, a young writer who is beginning to find success, is breaking up with his longtime lover, Saul
(David Poynor)
, a professional photographer. However, Rich's idyll with his new lover is short-lived when he learns that he has contracted the terrifying new disease AIDS and he returns to Saul for sanctuary as he awaits its slow and awful progress.
In a mosaic of brilliantly conceived short scenes, some profoundly moving, some brightly humorous,
AS IS
captures the pathos of Rich’s relationship with friends and family, the cold impersonality of the doctors and nurses who care for him and the widely diverse aspects of New York’s gay community. A heartbreaking and unsparing examination of a deeply felt human relationship shattered by a mindless, destructive disease.
'...Matthew Strachan’s warm, touching score that is gentle and emotionally fused, managed to keep the powerful dialogues between the characters flowing with perfect timing.'
The New Current
Part of the
BBC World War One Centenary season
and one of Radio 4's biggest ever drama commissions,
HOME FRONT
follows the fortunes of a group of characters in real time as they try to maintain normality while a fast changing Britain is at war.
The show started broadcasting in August 2014 and will continue until 2018, telling fascinating stories against a factual background, with every episode set 100 years to the day of broadcast.
'In a studio in Birmingham, there’s an air of excitement. Jessica Dromgoole and her team are recording new scenes for Home Front, Radio 4’s specially commissioned drama commemorating the first world war. They know that they’re about to launch on to the airwaves the boldest, most creative and enterprising venture yet heard on the station.'
The Spectator
Matthew Strachan :: Composer
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