Rock and a Hard Place takes place in a single set, a rehearsal room. It’s centred around bass player Mickey Mars and drummer Dan Gullivan, former members of old-school rock band Savage Eclipse, who played loud, partied hard and broke up acrimoniously thirty years ago. Out of the blue their one hit, The Pain of Love, has become a hit in Armenia, as the soundtrack to a TV commercial for suppositories. The now elderly members have been brought back together by Mandy Lyons, the go-getting young head of their record company, to rehearse prior to undertaking an Armenian tour. But it turns out that front man Mark Arnott is on his deathbed, Mickey is bankrupt and Dan has been nursing thirty years of unspent rage. The unexpected appearance of Mark’s musician daughter Gigi, and the influence of copious amounts of alcohol and drugs, lead to recrimination, violence and several deaths. It’s a comedy.
ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
by
Chris Trengove
CHARACTERS
Dan Gullivan: in his seventies, former drummer with semi-famous, one-hit rock
band Savage Eclipse. Working-class background, fallen on hard times since the
demise of the band. Volatile, abrasive, a heavy user of drink and drugs, he’s in poor
health.
Mandy Lyons: in her late twenties/early thirties, a record company executive, who
entered the music business after a stint in Velvet Pussycats, a Little Mix-style girl
band. A Gen Z non-drinker and non-drugtaker, her only addiction is her phone.
Forceful, ambitious, prone to ‘business speak.’
Mickey Mars: in his seventies, former bass player with Savage Eclipse, later a
property millionaire, most recently bankrupt. Like Dan uses drink and drugs
extensively. Unlike Dan he attended a minor public school, and picked up scraps of
culture along the way. Can be patronizing and pretentious.
Gigi Arnott: in her late thirties/early forties, androgynous appearance. Daughter of
Mark Arnott, Savage Eclipse’s former front man, to whom she was close. An
accomplished singer/guitarist, she’s clever, confident and outspoken.
PROLOGUE
House lights dim.
Over the house speaker system, a female voice sings acapella the old
music hall song ‘After The Ball.’
VOCAL: After the ball is over
Just at the break of dawn
After the dance is ended
And all the stars are gone
Many is the heart that’s aching
If you could read them all
Many the hopes that have vanished
After the ball…
ACT ONE
A rehearsal room. A few cheap chairs, a ratty old sofa, a pool table with
a couple of pool cues.
A microphone, front centre stage.
Enter MANDY, phone to ear.
MANDY: Zinnia, you’re my PA, it’s your job to keep people away from me.
(pause) Especially my moron ex. (pause) I know he thinks the Range
Rover is his, that’s why it’s locked in the yard. (pause) Look, if the
bastard turns up, call Tremaine, he’ll sort him out. (pause) Mm, the big
2guy on security. (pause) He will, he’s been kind of simping on me
actually…
Enter DAN, carrying drum cases. He shuffles to a halt, puffing and
panting, drops the cases to the floor.
He’s about to speak, but Mandy stops him with a raised finger.
MANDY: (to Dan) Wait one.
Dan frowns at the ‘wait one.’ Totters to the sofa, flops out.
MANDY: Look, I’ve got to go, I’m at the rehearsal place. (lowers her voice) Yeah,
Savage Eclipse, the old rockers. (glances at Dan) Mm, really old
actually. (pause – then bright) Perfect! Amazing! I’ll circle back later,
OK? Bye… bye… bye…
She cuts the call, turns to Dan, who’s still breathing heavily..
MANDY: Sorry about that. Divorce. Total nightmare. (looks closely at Dan) Are
you all right?
DAN: You could have got a place on the ground floor.
MANDY: Nothing else available I’m afraid. Nothing within budget anyway.
DAN: It’ll have to do I suppose. (gets to his feet, surveys the room) Not what
we’re used to though.
MANDY: Were used to you mean. The Pain of Love was a long time ago Dan.
Before I was born.
DAN: It was a classic though. I still get royalties from it. Got a payment this
morning actually.
3MANDY: Really? How much?
DAN: Thirty seven pounds fifty. (off Mandy’s amused look) Hey, it’s better
than a kick in the cobblers. You can get a nice Ruby Murray for that.
MANDY: A nice what?
DAN: Ruby Murray, curry, you know…
MANDY: (shrugs, disinterested)
DAN: Chicken Madras, peshwari naan, lovely.
MANDY: Sounds like major carbs to me. Anyway, if it’s not organic, I don’t touch
it.
DAN: (rolls eyes) Course you don’t. Gen Z, right? Up at sparrow fart, glass of
green stuff, down the gym. No drink, no drugs, right?
MANDY: Not an option if you want to carpe the diem. When I was in Velvet
Pussycats we had six o’clock roll call, six thirty Pilates, breakfast at
seven.
DAN: Not a Full English, I’m guessing.
MANDY: Egg white omelettes. My body’s a temple.
DAN: Yeah. Mine’s more of an ancient ruin.
MANDY: (surveys Dan’s body, decides not to comment) Well, on the upside, it’s
a ruin you’ll soon be able to renovate. Tickets for the tour are flying off
the shelves.
DAN: Just because of one TV commercial. For suppositories.
4MANDY: One TV commercial, your song on the soundtrack… and all of a
sudden you’re a hot property again.
DAN: In Armenia.
MANDY: Don’t knock it – thanks to you guys, Hemoroyal is Armenia’s best-
selling haemorrhoid treatment!
DAN: And Pain of Love is top of the charts.
MANDY: Five weeks running. On the back of that, you’ll go down a storm. (looks
round) Mind you, they are expecting three of you. You’re a trio, right?
DAN: Fourth Best Rock Trio of ’75. We’d have been third if it hadn’t been for
Emerson Lake and bloody Palmer.
MANDY: Who?
DAN: ELP. Prog rock. All their songs were half an hour long… and they didn’t
even have a guitar player. If that’s rock’n’roll, I’m Charlie Watts.
MANDY: Who?
DAN: (rolling his eyes) Only the original drummer with the Stones.
MANDY: Who?
DAN: The Rolling Stones! (off her querulous look) Don’t say ‘who!’
MANDY: Course not. I know them – my gran’s got loads of their stuff.
DAN: On vinyl, right?
MANDY: Cassettes. She tries to keep up.
Enter MICKEY – also in his seventies, but better dressed and in better
shape than Dan.
He’s carrying a bass guitar case and an amp.
MICKEY: Mickey Mars, reporting for duty.
DAN: Here he is, just in time to avoid helping me with my gear.
MICKEY: Fuck off Dan, I’m a bass player, not your roadie.
DAN: Mandy, meet Mickey. A rude bastard then, a rude bastard now.
Mandy briefly shakes Mickey’s hand and pulls away.
MANDY: Two down and one to go. I’m assuming the other one will be along at
some point?
MICKEY: Mark? Who knows? He runs on lead singer time.
DAN: Yup. Last one on stage, first one back in the hotel with a nice cup of
tea.
MANDY: Really? Didn’t you have your roadies lining up groupies?
MICKEY: Yeah. For me and him. First come, first served.
DAN: Yeah… first come all right!
They both guffaw… and suddenly remember Mandy’s presence.
MICKEY: (hurriedly) Different times of course…
DAN: Oh yeah, yeah… different times…
Mandy’s phone rings.
She silences Dan with a raised forefinger.
MANDY: Wait one. (answers) Speak. (pause) You’re kidding! Seriously? What
about Tremaine? (pause) He ran him over? Christ, is he all right?
(pause) OK, call the cops. I’m on my way back, I’ll just wrap up here…
MICKEY: Problems?
MANDY: You could say that. My moron ex has stolen my Range Rover. So, I’ve
gotta go. Just remember, the Armenians will only want to hear what’s
on the commercial. You don’t have to bother with any new songs.
Nothing, you know… experimental.
MICKEY: Have you heard any of our stuff? Melody Maker said our second album
made Motorhead sound like Nana Mouskouri!
MANDY: Right. I don’t know who they are. And I’ve really got to go…
She heads towards the exit, turns back.
MANDY: Just practise The Pain of Love, OK?
MICKEY: No problem, we’ll do a medley of our hit. (points at Dan) If he can
remember any of it.
DAN: Oh fuck off!
MICKEY: You fuck off!
Mandy grimaces (what are these old people like?)
MANDY: OK. Perfect. Bye!
Mandy finally heads towards the exit, pressing speed dial and talking
urgently.
MANDY: Zinnia, I’m getting an Uber now, ETA twenty past. OK, bye… bye…
bye…
And she’s gone.
Dan and Mickey start to unpack and assemble their gear.
The tension is palpable – it’s only taken moments for all the grievances
of their shared past to surface.
Finally…
MICKEY: So… what have you been up to then?
DAN: What, for the last thirty-odd years?
MICKEY: Bull points. Births, marriages, deaths, that sort of thing.
DAN: You really want to know? Last time you got in touch the Spice Girls
were still big.
MICKEY: And all I got was a mouthful of abuse.
DAN: What did you expect? A standing ovation?
As they continue to set their gear up, Dan and Mickey experimentally
tap and pluck their respective instruments.
MICKEY: Pardon me for giving a shit. I just wanted to see if you were all right.
DAN: How all right could I be? I was living in a Dormobile parked off the A3.
8MICKEY: Ah, excellent, a pioneer of the fashionable off-grid trend. Ahead of your
time. Surprised you didn’t make it into the Sunday magazines…
DAN: Oh, still a snarky fucker then. (pause) I was off-grid for years actually.
Ended up in a cabin in the Cairngorms.
MICKEY: A bit off your patch, isn’t it? How come?
DAN: You remember Woodsy? Colin Woods, our roadie?
MICKEY: Yeah. Wallet had a combination lock on it. Always in the bog when it
was his round.
DAN: That’s him. Turned out he was saving all that beer money to buy a
smallholding in the Highlands. Anyway, somehow he heard I was in the
shit, and he offered me a cabin on his land.
MICKEY: For nothing? Doesn’t sound like Woodsy.
DAN: Yeah, well I did have to keep an eye on his sheep.
MICKEY: What, on your own?
DAN: Nah, I had a sheepdog. Ben. He did all the chasing around. (pause)
Clever little bugger, he was. One year he won the local sheepdog trial.
Got a cup and everything.
MICKEY: I am talking to Dan Gullivan, right? The man who doesn’t like to stray
more than a mile from a KFC? Who once declared that when you’ve
seen one tree, you’ve seen them all?
DAN: Yeah, well… needs must. And I got quite into it in the end. No phone.
No internet. No hassle. The way I like it.
His kit set up, Dan takes a drum case and places it centre stage.
He draws up a chair, pulls out a baggie and chops out several lines of
cocaine.
Mickey fishes a bottle of brandy out from his guitar case, joins Dan at
the drum case ‘table. It’s all clearly a well-practised ritual.
They swig and sniff, continuing to do so desultorily from this point on.
MICKEY: Hmm, quality blow. Not widely available in the Highlands and Islands,
I’m guessing?
DAN: You’re guessing wrong mate. These country places, they’re so fucking
boring the kids are out of it 24/7. Pizza van comes round Friday night,
you can get a gram with your deep dish pepperoni.
MICKEY: All the basics covered then. (pause) So it was just you then was it, up
in the Cairngorms? You didn’t get lonely?
DAN: I told you. I had a dog, Ben. (a poignant ‘moment’) He was a good boy.
A long beat. They swig and sniff
MICKEY: So how did you hear about the Armenian hit? Carrier pigeon?
DAN: Mandy sent an intern. Train to Aviemore, four changes, two buses,
snowshoes from there.
MICKEY: Glamour of the music business, eh?
DAN: Yeah. (pause) Then when he finally arrived, he got attacked by this big
ram.
10MICKEY: Aren’t sheep supposed to be, you know, sheepish…
DAN: It was rutting season. Ram thought he was going to shag one of his
ladies. Anyway, the woolly fucker knocked him arse over tit and
chewed up his shoulder bag.
MICKEY: Blimey, and they say London’s dangerous!
DAN: Just as well as it turned out. I wouldn’t have answered if he’d knocked
on the door, but the screaming disturbed my afternoon nap.
They sniff and swig.
MICKEY: So it was just you then, was it, apart from Ben? You didn’t get
lonesome?
DAN: Nah. If I wanted company, I talked to the sheep. They make more
sense than most people.
MICKEY: Just talked to them I hope. Didn’t, you know, take them out to dinner or
anything.
DAN: Don’t fucking start…
They sniff and swig.
A long beat…
MICKEY: Look, I know things didn’t go too well for you after the band broke up.
DAN: Didn’t go too well? That bastard Gary took all my money!
MICKEY: Um… you gave it to him Dan. Of your own free will. Because he said
he could get you a fifteen per cent return on it.
11DAN: He was a thieving bastard!
MICKEY: Oh right, which made him unique amongst band managers, who’ve
always been famous for their generous nature and scrupulous honesty.
DAN: He ruined my fucking life!
MICKEY: You know what – there’s an old saying: “If it looks too good to be true, it
probably is.” But apparently you thought growing oranges in
Kazakhstan was a sound business idea.
DAN: You know Gary… he could talk the hind legs off a donkey.
MICKEY: Which is why he’s currently running a sanctuary for legless donkeys in
Costa Rica, where you can grow oranges – and which, by an amazing
coincidence, has no extradition agreement with the UK.
They sniff and swig.
DAN: What about you then? You were always a jammy bastard. I suppose
you went into business, did you? Joined “the establishment” you were
always wanging on about?
MICKEY: Not exactly. I own a few rental properties.
DAN: Oh, very alternative. One minute you’re demonstrating in support of
squatters, the next minute you’re chucking them out.
MICKEY: I’m an ethical landlord actually.
DAN: Huh… talk about an Oxford moron.
MICKEY: What?
1DAN: Come on, you’re the educated one… military intelligence, gourmet
vegetarian, all that.
MICKEY: Oh, oxymor… (decides not to pursue it) Well you try getting a decent
job after you’ve spent the previous twenty years doing drugs, going
deaf and criss-crossing the country in a Winnebago.
DAN: I did try.
MICKEY: So you’ll have quickly found out that ‘rock musician’ doesn’t exactly sit
well on your CV. Just above terrorist, but a few places below bank
robber. Why do you think so many old musos end up self-employed?
DAN: Because no one else is going to employ them.
MICKEY: Exactly! Anyway, the low point came when I was applying for a job as
a replenishment assistant.
DAN: A what?
MICKEY: Shelf filler. I was filling out the application form, and I’d just got to the
question ‘where do you see yourself in five years’ time’ when I thought
‘not carting boxes of wet wipes around.’ I had an epiphany.
DAN: Yeah, I had one of them but the wheels fell off.
MICKEY: (ignores him) A complete re-think. Took the few quid that Gary hadn’t
nicked off me, and put a deposit on a little flat in Peckham.
DAN: Peckham! That’s a right shithole!
MICKEY: Was Dan, was. You’ve heard of urban regeneration, right?
Gentrification?
DAN: (guarded) Yeah… sort of.
MICKEY: Wanna know what that little flat’s worth now?
DAN: Go on.
MICKEY: Eight hundred K.
DAN: Jesus!
MICKEY: What was a rat-infested dump above a greasy spoon, is now – and I
quote – “a characterful Victorian apartment with high ceilings and
original features, close to all amenities.” And by amenities they mean
vegan cafes and live-work spaces for hipsters.
DAN: Hipsters! With their fucking beards and man buns. Sitting around on
the pavement like they’re in France or something, drinking their… (with
genuine venom) coffee! I bloody hate them!
MICKEY: Well I love them… because once they started to move into the area,
property prices went (flicks fingers to indicate speed) whoosh!
DAN: So you’re a rich bastard then, are you? I should have known. (picks up
the brandy bottle) Hennessy XO. The good stuff.
Dan swigs.
DAN: Fair play, it does hit the spot.
Mickey sniffs another line of coke.
MICKEY: And this shit’s not bad either.
DAN: Forty five quid a gram. Almost covered by the royalty payment.
A long pause, punctuated by swigging and sniffing.
14DAN: So your Peckham shithole turned out to be a goldmine – what
happened then?
MICKEY: I took out another mortgage using the equity, and bought a second flat.
Then a third. Then the property boom kicked in. The rest is history.
DAN: So how many gaffs have you got now?
MICKEY: (diffident) Now? I’m not sure, I’m always buying and selling.
DAN: Roughly then. Round figure. Five? Ten?
MICKEY: I dunno. (shrugs) Eighty? Ninety?
DAN: Whaaat? That’s immoral, that is… when there’s people sleeping in the
streets.
MICKEY: Wow, you’ve changed your tune – when the money was pouring in you
were all ‘why should I give my money to bloody scroungers?’
DAN: Yeah, whatever. At least I don’t ponce off people who just need a place
to live.
MICKEY: Of course you don’t. No need. Because you’re getting your fifteen
percent off those Kazakhstani oranges.
DAN: Shut up about that. I was badly advised.
MICKEY: Of course you were. (pause) Anyway, you’re all right now, aren’t you?
Happy enough in your cosy cabin?
A long beat.
DAN: Yeah, I’m fine.
1MICKEY: Hanging out with the sheep. And Ben the dog.
A long beat.
DAN: If you really want to know, Ben died.
Mickey pauses. Recalibrates.
MICKEY: Oh. Sorry to hear that. When did…
DAN: A couple of months ago. I don’t want to talk about it.
MICKEY: OK. He was a good boy, yeah?
DAN: I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.
A long beat.
DAN: Anyway, what’s your story? If you’re a richo, why do you want to tour a
country in the middle of nowhere, playing a fifty year old song to a
bunch of punters who can’t even speak English?
MICKEY: What? Who in their right mind would turn down a lifetime supply of
suppositories! (off Dan’s sardonic look) Because I thought it might be
fun, OK? Like the old days, lock up your daughters, nail down your
TV’s, here come Savage Eclipse! (pause) And by the way, plenty of
Armenians can speak English, especially since they achieved
independence.
DAN: Oh Christ, you’ve been hitting the guide books haven’t you?
MICKEY: Nothing wrong with a bit of local knowledge.
Mickey swigs from the brandy bottle, Dan sniffs another line.
They’re both starting to feel it.
DAN: It’s all coming back to me now. Tour bus is ready to go, all the gear
loaded, Spinal Tap on the video, and suddenly it’s ‘oh hang on, where’s
Mickey?’ Last seen dragging a yawning groupie round a cathedral,
bending her ear about the beardy blokes on the stained glass windows.
MICKEY: (sarcastic) Of course, how weird to want to know something about the
World Heritage city you’re in. Much more fun to lie around a hotel room
that looks like a bad day in Baghdad.
DAN: Or were you always just a bit of a ponce?
MICKEY: Oh fuck off Dan!
DAN: (jabs his finger at Mickey) You fuck off!