McQueen: or Lee and Beauty

James Phillips

Jun. 2015 · Bloomsbury Publishing

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You look otherworldly. Like all my girls. This will make you a queen. Like years ago and people wore clothes like weapons, like weapons against poor people, because even is you were hungry how could you raise your fist against what looked like a god? But I can make things that are weapons against day to day stuff.

A girl has watched McQueen's Mayfair house for eleven consecutive days. Tonight, she climbs down from her watching tree and breaks into his house, to steal a dress, to become someone special. He catches her, but, instead of calling the police, they embark together on a journey through London and into his heart.

The play captures the fairy-story landscape of McQueen's mind - the landscape seen in his immortal shows - where, with a dress, an urchin can become an Amazon and where beauty might just help us survive the night. McQueen is a journey into the visionary imagination and dark dream world of Alexander McQueen, fashion's greatest contemporary artist.

James Phillips's play received its world premiere at St James Theatre, London, on 12 May 2015.

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James Phillips is a writer and director. Plays include: The White Whale (Slung Low/Leeds) The Rubenstein Kiss (Hampstead); City Stories (St James); Hidden in the Sand (Trafalgar Studios); The Wind in the Willows (Latitude/ Theatre503); Time and the City (Slung Low/Hull); Bobby and the Chimps (Florida); The Little Fir Tree (Sheffield Theatres). The Rubenstein Kiss won the John Whiting Award and the TMA Award for Best Play. Directing credits include: The Rubenstein Kiss, Hidden in the Sand, City Stories, Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune (Sound Theatre); Macbeth (Sheffield Crucible); Trettondagsafton (National Academy in Stockholm); Touched (Soho Theatre). His first professional production, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme at the Pleasance, London, won an award from NESTA, the national endowment for the arts. He was an Associate Director of Sound Theatre, London. He is a selector for the National Student Drama Festival. TV credits include: If We Dead Awaken (Channel 4/Touchpaper). His first film script, The Watching Tree, is being produced by Blonde to Black Productions. His first book of documentary photography, Nicosia: The Last Dividing Line, was published in Cyprus in 2013. His photographs can be seen at www.jamesphillips.net.