{"id":165,"date":"2012-10-01T00:40:12","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T00:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michaelrossplaywright.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2012-10-01T19:53:46","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T19:53:46","slug":"dawn-rescue-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelrossplaywright.com\/?p=165","title":{"rendered":"Dawn Rescue website"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Click on the above panel to access the Dawn Rescue<\/em> website<\/em>. Picture by Tom Ross<\/em>)<\/p>\n

“I’m sorry to bother you, but\u00a0do you mind if\u00a0I ask you a question?” A well-spoken, elegantly dressed woman had stopped me on the Charing Cross Road back in late 2007. My heart sank as I felt\u00a0certain she would ask me directions to someplace I’d never heard of, and I do hate to shatter the illusion of myself\u00a0as some kind of\u00a0Peter Ackroyd\/Iain Sinclair\u00a0figure\u00a0with\u00a0an encyclopediac knowledge of\u00a0every\u00a0obscure alley and side street\u00a0of this dark metropolis.\u00a0But I\u00a0signalled my assent for her\u00a0query to commence, and much to my surprise she\u00a0asked “Do you know why the blood of Jesus poured out of him on the cross?”<\/p>\n

This bizarre\u00a0question stayed with me,\u00a0burrowed\u00a0into my subconscious, and eventually, one day,\u00a0hatched\u00a0forth a short play ‘Eyes Full of Pornography.’ As is often the way of things, real-life inspiration had led\u00a0down a\u00a0meandering path to arrive somewhere rather different.\u00a0In my play the\u00a0questioner was now a man and the location\u00a0had moved to\u00a0a gay bar in nearby\u00a0Old Compton Street.\u00a0The play became about an evangelical Christian organisation named Dawn Rescue which trawls the\u00a0pubs and clubs of Soho trying to “save” young men from embarking upon (what they see) as a life of sin. Of course the irony is that\u00a0Dawn Rescue (and religion in general)\u00a0is in fact\u00a0the true corrupter of youth, a decadent predator stalking the vulnerable and poisoning the minds of the\u00a0innocent. (Here endeth the sermon.)<\/p>\n

The play\u00a0was performed in 2010 by Eyebrow Productions, at RADA and then Theatre503, and\u00a0was filmed in 2011 as Dawn Rescue\u00a0by myself and my film director brother Tom Ross<\/a>. This year the film was shown at the Portobello Film Festival. (See\u00a0video below)<\/p>\n

[vimeo clip_id=47691619 width=”512″ height=”288″vimeo clip_id]<\/p>\n

I have\u00a0also now created\u00a0a website to accompany the film,\u00a0a spoof site\u00a0by\u00a0the Dawn Rescue organisation, complete with information about their mission and a blog by the character of Matthew (entitled ‘Going Straight’) detailing his struggles to remain pure and chaste, (he’s already hit a bump in the road, you’ll be sad to hear), and with some wonderful\u00a0artwork courtesy of my brother Tom.\u00a0I have no idea\u00a0where I’m going with it, but I\u00a0intend\u00a0to keep\u00a0it chugging along\u00a0until either\u00a0I get bored or get smote down by a heavenly thunderbolt, whichever comes first.<\/p>\n

I’m aware that picking fights with religion may seem, these days,\u00a0like shooting fish in a barrel. Especially in ‘the arts’ (if I can claim to be a member of\u00a0that club), in\u00a0this corner of secular Western Europe. But religion still insists on singling out\u00a0homosexuals as\u00a0scapegoats\u00a0for\u00a0universal human\u00a0lusts and\u00a0kinks and depravity, and religion\u00a0still furiously (and very loudly) opposes\u00a0bestowing equality and dignity\u00a0upon gay\u00a0people (witness the recent marriage debates) and\u00a0it will insist on doing so publicly,\u00a0not just\u00a0in the privacy of its own pulpits. So excuse me if I reload my revolver and\u00a0fire a few more rounds into the barrel.<\/p>\n

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, my reply to that woman on the Charing Cross Road was “Oh do\u00a0fuck off!” Yes,\u00a0it was a bit rude of me, wasn’t it? I should thank her really, for her golden shaft of inspiration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Click on the above panel to access the Dawn Rescue website. Picture by Tom Ross) “I’m sorry to bother you, but\u00a0do you mind if\u00a0I ask you a question?” A well-spoken, elegantly dressed woman had stopped me on the Charing Cross Road back in late 2007. My heart sank as I felt\u00a0certain she would ask me … <\/p>\n

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