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In Spite of it all


Action, gadgets, laughs and sex – what isn’t in The Spy Who Wouldn’t Die Again?
Action, gadgets, laughs and sex – what isn’t in The Spy Who Wouldn’t Die Again?
TIM Spite was meant to write a play about tagging. Instead, his latest show, The Spy Who Wouldn’t Die Again, is a spoof on an old classic.
“[The show] sprang out of necessity. Last year we wrote a show called The December Brother, which was partly about David Bain and partly a family story based on my father. There was a perception that it was quite serious and people reacted like, ‘I’ve had enough of David Bain’.”
“For this play, I was much more into playing to the bums-on-seats, comedy side of things. Let’s face it, it’s a recession and people want to laugh,” he says.
Spite is the founder of SEEyD – the company currently enjoying a three-year residency at Downstage Theatre. Spite is the single creative constant in SEEyD; actors and writers are hired for each production, to help turn Spite’s ideas into plays.
“We spend three months devising, writing, and rehearsing, which is actually a luxurious amount of time. We’ve never really had a ‘dud’, that’s what happens when you have time to refine your ideas and practice things properly,” he says.
“You don’t get writer’s block with a group.”
The Spy Who Wouldn’t Die Again is described as being, “like an 80’s action blockbuster live on stage”, and was co-written by Spite’s wife Gabe McDonnell.
“She’s a real hot bitch,” he says.
Pardon?
“She’s in the Real Hot Bitches dance troupe, she wrote their last two shows,” he clarifies, laughing. “She loves the 80s.”
Spite says the idea “must have” come while the couple watched a James Bond film together.
“It’s been great fun. Obviously it’s not the easiest thing to sit down at home with an 18-month old child and write a play with your wife, but we just let our imaginations go. First we just wrote stuff that cracked us up, and then we tried to sculpt it into something linear,” he says.
It may be set onstage, but the show has all the ingredients of a good Bond story.
“There’s full-on action, and lots of silly gags. There’s some amazing, silly gadgetry and lots of sex. It’s a recognisable genre that we all grew up with; I think it’s gonna be a romp.”

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