Brother to Brother
An extract from a work-in-progress play!
Hello! Been hit with the sudden urge/rememberance of being an art person! So thought I’d capitalise on that by sending out this newsletter to you lovely people. In it is a WIP extract of a play I’ve been working on that is (furtively) called Brother to Brother. Hope you all enjoy that when we get to it! But before that, here’s the media roundup as standard.
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Mayhem (2025) - Lady Gaga - The more I listen to this album, the firmer a grip it has on my brain. The current love of her life is a Very Strange tech man, but I am happy to see that her love for him brings us to a space of bangers.
The Summer with Carmen (2023/25) - Really sweet film which breaks my general eye-rolling at Films About Making Films with some really touching moments, and really great mini background stories. Whomst among us hasn’t perched with a notebook watching the natural patterns of a scene go by?
Hurricane Season (2017) - Fernanda Melchor - Really gnarly book with incredibly powerful style and character voices. Kept pushing right to the edge of my tolerances and then unveiling a new fascinating layer. Incredible stuff with a list of content warnings as long as my arm.
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Scene 2 - Left Behind
A Few Days Later
Mo enters the stage working out a rap and then sees It (a trampled flyer) on the floor in front of the couch. He pauses with wide eyes and just stares at it. Frozen.
Bee eventually enters the stage and sees It then freezes.
At this scream, Tobi stumbles out perplexed. When he gets within sight, he also Freezes.
They stand round it, all with hair tussled, clothes crumpled, wearing wild nights on their bodies and faces. The silence breaks when the three exclaim almost simultaneously:
Mo: FAAAAAAM
Bee: Eww eww eww
Tobi: Oh -
Bee: Was this another one of your Babylonians Tobi???
Tobi: No! Also actually he wasn't even white, his grandma is North African! Wow, niggas always wanna divide when we're all from the same cradle -
Bee: What colour are his eyes?
Tobi: ....
Bee: What colour is his hair?
Tobi: ....
Bee: What job did his grandfather have?
Tobi: Imports and exports.
Bee: It is well
Tobi: Look I -
Mo - Bro nobody cares! We've seen the receipts! Was the same when we had that flat in the last year of uni you know. And it's the same waffle 6 years later!
Bee - I NEVER could figure out how I kept finding blonde strands all over the place!
Mo - Saaaaame
Bee - um, you know I'm the only one who touched that hoover, it was me and Henrietta against the world!
Mo: Man it’s not my fault you got the magic touch!
Tobi: Hey I helped sometimes!
Mo: When?
Tobi: I got the spiders out of your room that time
Mo: Not this again….
Bee: (operatic) Nooo! No! Not the creepy-crawlies. There’s one, there’s two, there’s THREE. I need a Big Strong Man to come saaave me
Beat
Mo: Bee ain't you been fucking with that guy who's always in Westminister?
Bee: Hold up! Daniel works in policy isn't that just pushing pencils at the council or whatever?
Tobi: Let he without sin -
Mo: Well what are we gonna do with it?
Bee: Frame it!
Tobi: Frame it?
Bee: Yeah with a giant warning to ward the demons away!
Mo: Okay but what if someone asks how we got it?
Bee: We'll say we klarted one of them UKIP pricks and stole it
Tobi: Well they barely exist anymore, it’s like saying you ran into a wild snake or a windows phone
Bee: What suggestion do you have?
Tobi: Burn it and we never speak of this again
Bee: And let the bad juju release into the air?
Tobi: Fine! Give me the number for your finest babalowo!
Mo: Wait…wait…wait. What if it's a trap? What if they WANT us to burn it and so they've put some chloroform shit in the ink so when we light that shit we all lose our minds and our memories?
Bee: Right…yeah.
Tobi: Right and I’m sure Zuckerberg is somehow involved
Mo: (opens his mouth to continue and then..)
Fiiiine just shred it with the window open! And Bee can…do the… cleansing or whatever.
Bee: Yeah
Tobi: Yeah
Mo: Yeah
Bee: Not right now though, I gotta do my hair and that
Tobi: So what policies is your mans writing?
Bee: MY mans
Tobi: Yeah like…I dunno, what does he think about taxation? Does he recognise that the middle classes are getting overtaxed, while the super-rich just throw their weight around?
Mo: Bro don't you always say you wanna be super-rich?
Tobi: Hey I'm just saying maybe we crossed paths in my student politics days.
Bee: Or crossed beds?
Tobi: God where's your TACT? You had an open invite to our debates but you never came - if you did maybe you’d know what he was about!
Bee: I don't make them fill a poll and sign an NDA before they hit the mattress sorry!
Tobi: So you don't care who they are? What they stand for? See this is the problem, nobody is ever engaged enough.
Bee: 1) Can I stand the sight/smell of em? 2) Do they buy me nice things? 3) is the dick at LEAST mid? All I need to know
Mo: (awkwardly winking) Ayyy guess who fills all three
Bee: And who were you filling last night Mr Complete Package?
Mo: Leave it man
Tobi: Whaaaat, you got some secret tories hiding in your backbenches?
Mo shoots a look
Tobi: Come ooon man, how long have we been friends? Feels like that bed is never empty but we only find out about them when you forget the walls are thin and the streets love talking.
Mo: …
where's the shredder?
Tobi: You don't have to play the strong and silent type All The Time, it’s played out. You’ve been doing that shit for years! Who is chasing you?
Bee:(abruptly) It's next to the boiler
Mo: Thanks, b. You two start opening windows and prepping your prayers.
Mo tentatively approaches the flyer, picks it up with a tissue then heads off stage where a LOUD shredding noise fades us out of the scene.
I’m less online lately, but whsiper on the winds and maybe you’ll fine me! Always appreciate your support whether that’s verbal, financial (ko-fi.com/tayowrites) or whatever else.