VOODOO VALENTINOS
A night-long, road comedy set in seventies, north-west England.
The paths of two, girlfriendless, working class, teenage losers are dramatically and hilariously altered by a voodoo cabbie who collects them en route to a middle class, village party to which they are not invited.
Granny and Tommo are unrelenting in their mockery of each other but are kindred spirits; Granny insisting they stick together for the night, Tommo doing all he can to get away, reticent of parties.
Granny believes that imitating his kung fu teacher, an older northerner, Big Stan (who apparently beguiles teenage girls with cliché oriental wisdom), will be key to his success with females; while Tommo, resigned to life without females, wanting to mask his despondency, ridicules the naïveté of his companion's exuberant believing.
From pub to pub, taxi to party, Granny and Tommo are battered, shagged and humiliated beyond belief, courtesy of two merciless bouncers, two fat slags, a witch doctor and a limitless supply of middle class, party eccentrics.
Girls are won/lost, reputations gained/destroyed, all by the effects of a self-image-boosting, juju potion, sold to Granny by the cabbie; Granny transforming himself (unintentionally) into a ‘wise’, kung fu superfool, with inhuman strength and immense mind powers; Tommo turning himself (involuntarily) into an obsessed, banana-grabbing monkey-pet, after failing to conjure himself into Rudolph Valentino, which he would have preferred.
Further conversions to arse-chewing bear and humorously polite defecator force Granny and Tommo out into the night, parting company and leaving behind a house-full of traumatized guests, for which, somehow, they go completely unpunished and remain curiously likeable, having learned absolutely nothing from their experience.
Charismatic, anarchic, strangely enigmatic, Voodoo Valentinos invites audiences on a fast, dreamlike ride through the seventies night, painting portraits of some of life’s truest, unselfconscious clowns.