SYNOPSIS:

Savage Life A feature length comedy Written by Marc Pye Based on the novel by James Rogers Gaz Hoskins wants to be the coolest burglar in the world. Or in Shepherd’s Bush, at least. But he’s 17, a greasy, thick truant prone to one off the wrist, and the product of one of the most dysfunctional families ever seen – using the term ‘family’ very loosely. Gaz lives with his mum Addie, an agoraphobic ex-whore addicted to cheap fags and bad TV, his sister, Christie, a low-rent porn star who longs for small tits so she can do fashion, and Christie’s boyfriend, Dave, ‘Dog’ Barber, part-time crook and full-time thug whose idea of heaven is 16 pints of lager, an eight-sausage-fry-up and a copy of Grunt magazine. Dog is Gaz’ enemy No. 1, but then again there are a number of other contenders for that role... Up the road from Gaz, but worlds apart in terms of social and physical development, is Colin Nutter, his wife Kate and their two ‘yuppie sprogs’ Sylvester and Jessamy. Colin is a hard-drinking, soft-bodied insurance salesman of the second-from-highest-order, who inhabits the world of the Harvester and Japanese whiskey and who finds the Readers Digest intellectually hard-going. Colin works for, and aspires to be Dorian Savage, smoother than a very smooth thing and MD of Savage Life Insurance Co. Dorian has everything Colin wants. A luxurious house on a new estate on the flight-path from Heathrow, a red Porsche, ladies with legs up to there, and a yacht equipped with more things than most people’s houses. Dorian’s bible is Origin of the Species and in his quest to understand the difficult concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ has managed to get through all ten pages of it. When Gaz gets his first big burglary break, he inadvertently sets off the adventure of his life. In stealing photos from Colin Nutter’s house, as well as getting an eyeful of Kate in some home-made bedroom porn, he sees a face he recognises - it’s his dad. It’s Dorian Savage. And while Dog negotiates the sale of the porn photos to Grunt magazine, Gaz resolves to find and get to know his dad. Colin, meanwhile, wants to fortress his house against further intrusion, so he meets Dave Richardson, an ex-SAS security man, who is clearly barking mad. Gaz finds and subsequently pesters his dad, and it’s enough to convince Savage that Nutter is doing a massive wind-up, so he takes the best revenge he can: he sacks him. Colin ends up maudlin and pissed with Richardson, and in his drunken state, gives him a thousand pounds down payment to kill Savage. The next morning, one grand down, he can barely remember losing two frames at snooker, so he sure as hell can’t account for the missing money. From here on in, the lives of Nutter and Gaz get increasingly complex and enmeshed. Who is watching who? Is Savage murdered, or is it all a nasty accident? And who did it? How can Dog possibly end up as the good guy? And then there’s the Jehovah’s Witness conversion, the hacked-up bin-linered body, the late-night stalking, the mausoleum that double-takes as a bedsit, a hijacking, the amateur porn connection, the astonishing amounts of drink, and a bizarre stream of petty crimes and screwed-up characters that set your teeth on edge. This is a chokingly hot summer in London, where theme pubs are packed and car alarms are driving everyone mad. SAVAGE LIFE intertwines these twisted and sordid lives in a fast-paced story, which is part thriller and part urban dread. The plot is complex and breakneck, the characters unbearably real and grim, and the comedy is as savage as life can possibly get.

SAVAGE LIFE