BLACK TEETH AND A BRILLIANT SMILE by ADELLE STRIPE (2017)

Andrea Dunbar is best known for writing Rita, Sue and Bob Too, a play depicting the relationship between an older man and his two babysitters, made into a film by Alan Clarke in 1987.

Andrea was far from the stereotypical playwright. Growing up on the notorious Buttershaw Estate – reputedly the toughest part of Bradford’s toughest area – Andrea’s exceptional writing talent, particularly for dialogue, brought her to the attention of Max Stafford-Clark, who put her first play – The Arbor, written in green biro at the age of 15 – on at the Royal Court theatre in London’s West End. After three plays, all drawn from lives around her estate, Andrea died in 1990, aged 29, from a brain haemorrhage in her local pub.

Andrea’s story is now the inspiration for Adelle Stripe’s debut novel, Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile. The introduction insists it’s a work of fiction – populated by real and imagined characters – but this exceptional book is clearly biographical, the main events undoubtedly true.

It’s a tale of contrasts: acts of brutality and occasional kindness, of rich and poor, belief and doubt, north and south, even stage and screen. That Andrea’s life story – punctuated by sex, domestic violence and alcoholism – mirrors her work is no surprise but she deals with even the worst events with stoicism. There are though, fear not, moments of humour - both in Dunbar and Stripe's telling.

Although dimly aware of the film adaptation, and the furore that surrounded it, Andrea Dunbar’s name meant nothing to me. I’ve not seen the plays, read them or watched the film. I bought Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile because I’ve always enjoyed Adelle Stripe’s writing and poetry for the independent press and trust her judgement. Such faith did not go unrewarded. Not only is this Adelle’s best work to date - it’s a tremendous stand-alone “piece of kitchen sink noir” – it also serves as a very welcome introduction to the life and work of Andrea Dunbar.

Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile by Adelle Stripe is published by Wrecking Ball Press.

KEEP ON PUSHING: PUSH NINE HITS THE STREETS

Last March I wrote about the launch of litzine PUSH, edited by West Ham United sufferer Joe England. Since then the issues have appeared quicker than Andy Carroll at the bar and vanished faster than Rio Ferdinand at a drugs test. Produced as strictly limited editions they’ve sold up almost immediately via England hawking them outside the Boleyn and to an eager mob of postal purchasers. There are no back copies to be found of a now collectable series.

Issue nine is out now with an increased print run, so if you look lively there may yet be time to bag a copy. And you should, it’s very good. A stable line-up of regular contributors – including England, Joseph Ridgwell, Michael Keenaghan and Carlton Burns – lay the foundations with a blend of literary tough tackling and deft poetic touches. They’re supplemented this time by a couple of familiar renegades and mavericks: Dan Fante and Adelle Stripe. A natter with Primal Scream biographer, Sham 69 narrator and street-smart factotum, Grant Fleming, provides accompaniment to the half-time pint.

Sixty pages bristling with sex, drugs and punk rock ‘n’ roll. And Trevor Brooking. Sign up here. 

POETRY PICKS #1: RELICS by ADELLE STRIPE

RELICS

there’s a place
in haworth
called the golliwog shop
(that’s not its real name)
i don’t suppose any black people
go in there

it sells two tone records,
swastika armbands
and every size of golliwog a man could ever need

they hang on the counter from
a rack by the till
on thick silver chains
a nice ‘kids-size’ keyring,
like long forgotten strange fruit
from a bygone age
before all this ‘nonsense’
from the p.c brigade

they make me uncomfortable,
these faces I collected
from robertson’s jam in the nineteen seventies
the playing cards, the children’s badges
thankfully banished
to the boxes in the attic

when i look at the golliwogs
hung in the shop
i think of alf garnett, the national front
pissed gorilla men at lower league matches
waving blow up bananas at all the black players
and i wonder if here, in heathcliff’s manor
if i’m the only minority
in the crowd of white faces
who doesn’t agree with this new
‘retro trend’

i leave the shop
wanting to return with a brick for its window
but coming up here
with my ‘london ways’
I scuttle off, red faced
into the wind
wishing i was a braver woman
wishing i could be confrontational,
and throw a hard punch at the golliwog man
but instead, like the coward that i really am
i walk to my car, switch on the radio
and swear at the windscreen
vowing never
to return
here again.

“Relics” is taken from Adelle’s new limited edition signed and numbered chapbook Cigarettes in Bed, published by Blackheath Books and available for a mere £5 alongside other vibrant underground writing at www.blackheathbooks.org.uk

My thanks to Adelle and to Geraint at Blackheath for their permission to include here.