Why we made a new theatre show exploring male violence

The National

2 hours ago

He isn't keen to be specific about his first experience of violence, but it was bad enough for him to want the superpowers of Spider-Man to cope.
He didn't quite manage that, but he did become an MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter, which later inspired him to collaborate on a fascinating theatrical exploration of men and violence.
Pete LannonHis friend, colleague and collaborator on the project, Pete Lannon, says men can see violence as 'about a kind of taking power and having some kind of control, like being able to solve your problems in a simple way, as opposed to the more complicated, structural problems that exist in the real world that you feel powerless to do anything about'.
He adds that a lot of the violence in modern media represents a 'fantasy that you can punch a bunch of bad guys and solve the problem. The complicated thing for me is that that's often the only way of expressing yourself or saving the day that you see, especially for men.
'I think those stories can be really enjoyable but also … is it really the only way that we can express ourselves as men? Is it the only way we can solve our problems? As much as I'd love to be able to just punch my way through the problems that I see around me, is that the best way?'
These are just some of the questions asked by a powerful theatrical show put together by Lannon, Banks and the creative team around them and about to set off on a UK tour in a matter of weeks which runs until mid-October.
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Stuntman is a compelling mix of true-life stories of violence interwoven with highly choreographed stunt fights inspired by popular action movies in a package which serves as both a celebration and critique of that genre.
It's thought-provoking, highly physical, a lot of fun and involves a lot of fake blood. It also encourages comments from and debates with members of the audience.
'I started competing in boxing at a really young age,' says Banks. 'At the time, you weren't legally allowed to fight in MMA until you were 18. It was regarded as human cockfighting.
'One week after my 18th birthday, I had my first MMA fight, and I won my first three fights in four minutes combined. I was terrified every time. I was ready to die when I went out there.
'One of the most complicated things about it now, when I look back on it, is in that first fight, when this man hit me, I realised I never had to be scared again.
'I think when you've grown up and you have maybe been attacked or assaulted or you've been afraid, it's with you everywhere, all the time. It's a constant threat, and you're constantly switched on. It took a lot of years to unpack that, move away from it and realise I was safe.
'One of the stories we tell in the show is an incident where I ended up in the cells for the weekend, and I was looking at a custodial sentence for fighting.
'My MMA coach, who was a European judo champion and the UK kickboxing champion, was also a musician. He encouraged me to go to drama school.'
When he began studying at what is now the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow, he met up with Lannon and the two began swapping stories from their lives.
Lannon's earlier years were very different from Banks's but, again, violence burst through. 'I grew up in Berwick and my dad was a minister,' says the show's director. 'There was a very strict moral religious code. I grew up not really being allowed to watch any movies, but also with the idea that violence was something to avoid. To be the bigger man, or to turn the other cheek.'
On his way to school one morning, he was attacked and assaulted by another pupil and his friends. Teachers who saw the attack did nothing to stop it.
'I thought, I'll not fight back and just try to protect myself and stop him hitting me. If I make it a fight, I'm in the wrong as well. Even in this moment of being punched in the head, I was trying to take some kind of moral high ground.
'I wasn't protected by any teachers who saw it but didn't come forward because they were scared of the families involved.'
Banks and Lannon discovered a shared appreciation of a certain type of action film. 'Especially a bad action movie,' says Lannon.
'The kind of sweet spot where it's not a five-star film, but it's just bad enough that it's fun … the kind of eighties and nineties action movies that we grew up watching.
'Die Hard feels like some kind of classic. Almost any movie starring Jason Statham is at that sweet spot.'
Banks chips in with some more examples: 'Rambo, Commando, Big Trouble In Little China, Road House … we were really interested in looking at those films. It was interesting how our relationship had changed with those films since growing up as well.'
Lannon adds: 'We went back and watched a lot of these films for the show, and I think we still do. A lot of the time, we're still texting each other. If one of the creative team has seen a good action movie, we're like, 'oh, we should put this bit in the show'.
'I think it also comes from this love of that kind of stylised violence, a kind of you could say glorified violence. And the tension between that and real life is very complicated. I'm not sure I really 'enjoy' action movies.
'There's always a part of me that feels very strongly that I don't like real-world violence, especially the kind of hyper-masculine aggression that you see on the street, especially when you are growing up and going out to pubs, or the kind of violence that you see in high school all the time.
'The tension between those two things – violence in films and in real life – is uncomfortable and is where the idea for the show started; what it says about men. Why are we like this? Or why are we told to be like this?'
A few years after graduating from the Royal Conservatoire, Lannon and two former classmates created the performance production company Superfan. When they first thought of putting together a show like Stuntman, Banks was the first person they contacted.
The early versions of the show were pretty much low-budget – or no-budget, as Banks describes them. 'In the beginning, we used sandwich bags of fake blood sellotaped to me. That was the kind of the production standard we had … very home-made.'
An injection of funding in 2022 helped develop the basic idea into the version now about to tour. It now features impressive lighting and digital design, more focus on sound and music and high-impact input from fight choreographer EmmaClaire Brightlyn.
Stuntman is a two-man show featuring Banks and fellow performer Sadiq Ali recreating action movie sequences in ways which challenge audiences to explore what they say about men's relationship to violence. A member of the Superfan team met Ali at the National Centre for Circus Arts in London. Lannon describes him as an 'incredible physical presence on stage'.
'He and David met through this project, but have instantly created this brilliant chemistry, and I think they are exactly the right people to be telling these stories and to be on this stage,' he says. Meanwhile, Banks likens bringing Al into the show to 'adding another instrument to the band'.
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Lannon was keen to add another voice to the show. 'Bringing in Sadiq, who has a totally other, different and very complicated relationship with violence in real life was kind of the beginning of this version of Stuntman, where it felt really exciting for the three of us in a room starting to share the experiences we'd had, and find where the kind of commonalities were and where the differences were.
'The way that we devised it then was almost like a kind of collage, like taking some of their stories, writing them and working them into something for performance, and then also a lot of staging deaths and fight scenes from movies or inspired by movies, and working on that.'
The show leaves space for audience interaction, and they say they can get 'a bit rowdy'.
Banks says: 'We get to experience together in that space, these acts of catharsis. It looks at the consequences, whether they're good or bad, and we wrap that whole thing up in a spectacle.
'A lot of the performances that we do are set about capturing that feeling of 'we're in this together'.'
Lannon adds: 'We work really hard to find audiences who maybe wouldn't otherwise come to see contemporary theatre. It can be quite an intimate show, and the audience feel very close to the action.
'David said in another interview that it also felt like it was a message to men in the audience that felt really beautiful, 'where the one thing that you hope the audience, especially men in the audience, leave with, is that the feeling that they're not alone'.'
They've had good feedback from men's mental health groups and the upcoming UK tour includes three performances at HMP & YOI Polmont, the only prison in Scotland to house young males aged 18 to 21. Banks, Lannon and Ali have all been involved with staging arts events in prisons.
'The audience that we're looking for is present in Polmont,' says Lannon. 'There will be a discussion afterwards, which we've made lots of time for.'
Stuntman's exploration of the male relationship with violence feels even more relevant today than when the show was devised.
'There's more inequality in general than when we first made the show,' says Banks.
'The world's on fire right now from a couple of men, and people are idolising the individual in reference to acts of violence on a global scale.
'By creating a show that maybe bridges that gap between the micro scale of our own stories versus the grand scale of the spectacle of an action movie, we're hopefully allowed to bring people closer to their own truth.'
Lannon adds: 'We don't have an answer necessarily to some of the questions that we ask about violence and masculinity.
'One of the questions the show asks is: how do we do this better? How do we be men better?
'We're trying to ask it in a way that hopefully makes the audience go away and try to find an answer.
'I'm not saying that this show will change the world, but we hope that the audience, at the very least, go away thinking about the relationship to violence and masculinity, and about what they can do to find a better way.
'We talk about a lot about the emotional violence that men do to each other, but we're not saying that men are the real victims in the way that a lot of people have been saying recently.
'There is a kind of anti-feminist movement that is really dangerous that portrays men as victims of modern society.
'There is a huge problem of violence men do and men have to be part of the solution.'
But Stuntman isn't just a show for men. Although much of its content has been shaped by Banks, Lannon and Ali, most of the creative team are women and that has changed it too.
Banks says that when he was growing up, before he went to the Conservatoire, all his friends were male.
When he was going through difficult times, they would take him out for a drink, or a game of snooker, or a walk. But they would not talk about the problems.
That only changed when he had friends who were women.
The experience of creating and appearing in Stuntman has changed his relationship with movie violence. Has he even fallen out of love with his favourite superhero? Does he still want to be Spider-Man?
'I've had the privilege of being educated now, so I know a lot of those movies reinforce colonialism, racial hierarchies, patriarchy … so I'm a little bit discouraged from the superhero genre.'
For more information on the show visit superfanperformance.co.uk/portfolio/stuntman