22 August 2008. Stevie Betsworth
Spoken word performance at Mutter, curated by Kit Paulson, BIAD, Birmingham.
Part of the ‘my life stories’ series.
Text:
My best friend is called Stevie Betsworth.
My mum says he’s a bad influence but I go and play at his house anyway because I like him even though his house smells funny.
When I go there I tell my mum I am at Paul Biggington’s house who lives two doors down.
Stevie Betsworth likes horror movies and he shows me pictures in his books of horror movie actors like Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee who did a better Frankenstein’s monster than Boris Karloff so Stevie says.
One time we were going to do a play of Dracula or something behind the garage where my mum works on one of the flat-bed lorries like it was a stage but it never happened in the end. I think because Stevie was sad about something.
One day I was climbing trees near the big school with Jumbo who is my next door neighbour and who sometimes gangs up on me with my brother and we saw Stevie Betsworth’s brother Andy Betsworth sitting in the ditch around the school and he was blowing up a plastic bag and it went in and out.
Then he saw us getting out of the tree and he stood up but he was shouting in a funny voice and he fell over on the floor.
We went home then.