Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Welcome to Lager Time; hope you’re ok out there in Lager Land. Large up everyone who listened to last week’s episode. That was the last one I’m going to be doing in the Satellite Stories series. I’ve enjoyed doing those, I feel like I’ve hit on a way of writing them that feels closer to the sort of stuff I want to be creating whilst also improving the production side of things.
So this week, I’m dropping in the first in a new series of stories, called Young Unprofessional. It’s about a character called Reece, who’s moved to London in the mid 2000’s, he’s in his mid 20’s and he hails from a fictional satellite town, called New Town. Of course. So yes, it’s loosely based on my own experiences but a lot more removed.
I’ve been writing stories and bits as this character, on and off, for a long time, well over ten years. I’ve got a whole bunch of short stories, monologues and a short play, all in the vaults; just never quite knew what to do with it.
Back in around 2010, I used to have a piece I performed a lot in my spoken word sets, called My Town; which was in the voice of the Reece character. I loved doing it but increasingly I never quite felt it fitted with all the autobiographical stuff I was doing; which went on to become my first two solo shows; so I just stick with doing that stuff. Whenever I had a bit of free time, though, I’d return to the character and the world in which he lived.
The Satellite Stories I was writing; were really born out of the early Reece stuff I was writing. There is a lot of similarities which you might pick up on. To be honest, I was never fully comfortable doing the auto-biographical stuff; which is why I often changed a lot of the details, like the characters. Apart some myself; all of that characters in the Satellite Stories are often amalgamations of a number of different people I grew up with.
I’ve been looking for a chance to go fictional for a long time; so now here it is with Reece. You might not even notice the difference to be honest. Either way, I know I’m gonna be having fun writing these.
A little reminder you can come and see me live at Poetry & Poppadum’s at Karamel in Wood Green, Friday 29th September. Simon Munnery is headlining, he’s a bit of a legend in the comedy and poetry worlds. Last time I did this gig it was packed out. Come on down, they serve banging Indian food and Paul Lyall’s is a great host.
If you like what I’m doing, do me a favour and hit subscribe on whatever platform you’re listening to this on, or even better, subscribe on Substack and you’ll get all the extra bits I’m gonna be sticking up on there.
I also jazzed up website this week, if you care to have a look? You’ll links to lots of my past projects as well as a shop where you can purchase books, music etc
www.paulcree.co.uk
Have a banging weekend
Keep it lager
Peas and taters
Paul
Young Unprofessional Ep 1 - Par For The Course