John - Film, DV8 Physical Theatre broadcast from the National Theatre

DV8 Physical Theatre Company interviewed 50 men about life and love. They decided there was 1 man whose story they had to tell using word-for-word reported speech, acting and mime. John is the classic 'man of constant sorrow, seen trouble all his days', to borrow words from a Country song. His life is the standard tale of woe, childhood misery followed by drink, heroin,and  the long-lost son who does not want to know when he discovers Dad has done time for arson.

The arson sentence appears to be a classic case of police distortion and plea bargaining. Anyone's guess if John did it or not. There was a fire in a building, no one-died. John wakes up in hospital covered in cuts and blood with no memory of how he got there as he was out of it on booze and an overdose of prescription sleepers at the time. The police always try to make the people they arrest look as bad as possible in court and if people are out of it either with or without of the assistance of substances they become sitting targets. It's all wrong and John gets five years, the charge of 'intention to cause death by arson' dropped to 'reckless arson.'

On the good side John is an intelligent man who gets an Open University degree with distinction whilst inside, he is honest, totally without self-pity and he often has a neat line in self-reflective humour.

DV8's style of male physicality suits John's story well, particularly the extended sequences in the latter part of the drama where he visits  male saunas sometimes as a paying guest and decides that he is 'proper gay.' The mime and frank voice-overs are well acted and I am sure they give a mimetically true description of how it feels to be an active part of this environment. Some viewers may find them sexy.

At the end of the drama John is 41 and searching for love. Anyone with a heart will hope that he finds it.

John, if you are reading this - here's to ya!