Now I Know You’re Mine is the semi-autobiographical tale of two teenage friends from West Lothian hitchhiking their way to London’s Wembley Stadium in July 1990 to see Madonna’s Blonde Ambition Tour. Armed with just £16, a school bag each and the promise of a pair of tickets they won on the radio, this dramedy is a tale of friendship, fandom and self discovery.
Set against a backdrop of Section 28, the AIDS crisis and a lingering echo of the Poll Tax riots, this coming of age story looks to use the escapism of pop music and the glamour of celebrity to explore what it was really like for gay teenagers in Thatcher’s Britain as her reign was coming to an end.
Drawn partially from my own experiences of being a teenager from Livingston’s poorest area in the late eighties and finding an ally though Madonna’s politics, it’s a story of hope, of resilience, of falling in love… and dreaming your way into a better situation. It’s not really about Madonna, it’s about Madonna’s representation of the American Dream.
Tonally the script has parallels with other contemporary plays that explore queer joy, though as with my other works, the humour is interspersed with some fairly hard-hitting grit as our protagonists’ journey is derailed by the precarity of youth, poverty and naivety.
A Creative Scotland funded period of research for the full length stage play of this concept allowed space for in-depth world building, recreating a particular time from my youth; a time of aimless wandering while listening to music, the feeling of endless momentum while continually being pulled back to my commitments at home, of constantly travelling while failing to make the destination. It’s a feeling reflected through the story and lends itself to a strong physical performance.
My mood board when writing included the works of David Woynarovitz on vagrancy and truck- stop cruising, Davey Davis on community AIDS response and shame and Ann Marie Di Mambro’s take on domestic violence. My comic sensibilities however are firmly rooted in the voices of writers like John Byrne, Simon Donald, Irvine Welsh and laterally Ottessa Moshfegh.
WHY NOW?
Thematically, this seems like a good time to tell the story. As the UK comes to terms with the end of an era of Conservative governance that has broadened the divide between the wealthy and the poor, there’s a rise in anti-LGBT sentiment, entire communities are feeling disenfranchised, and swathes of music fans are filling stadiums to escape the trauma. (I may be drawing a long bow with that one… but there was certainly a lot of nostalgia around Madonna as she marked her 40th year in the business, and hoards of music fans are still filling stadiums throughout the western world to see Gaga, Beyonce, Swift and Lana).
Thanks to the generous support of Creative Scotland’s Open Fund for Individuals in 2024 and 2025, this script has been completed and a period of initial development has been undertaken. I’m keen to chat with venue producers able to support this work into full production; and I am of course looking for national and international presentation opportunities for the work.
BCW 