John White was a Tottenham Hotspurs and Scotland national team player at the top of his game in the 60s. He was killed in 1964 and his son, Rob, grew up without that direct father-son relationship. After writing a book about his journey of discovery about who his father was and how they were similar, he commissioned writer, Martin Murphy to bring their stories to life. We asked Martin about taking stories off of the pages of history and honouring a lifetime’s worth of material to bring them to the Edinburgh Fringe.
Can you explain what the Ghost of White Hart Lane is about?
The play tells the story of former Spurs and Scotland star John White who was killed by lightning at the age of 27. It also focuses in on John’s Son Rob, who was just five months old when his dad died. The story explores loss and grief but always with John White’s famously cheeky sense of humour at the front and centre.
How do you select moments from both men’s lives to form the play?
This is incredibly tricky, particularly in an hour-long show, you have to essentially work out which parts of each man’s story make up the skeleton of their lives, the parts without which everything falls apart. From there you have to add some meat and some juice. But there are always part you have to leave out or the show could be two lifetimes long.
For Rob’s story it was a bit easier as I could chose key milestones in his life that I wanted to cover and then ask him about them. With John no longer being with us I had to rely on the information which is out there about him, luckily Rob has already written a book (with Julie Welch) so a chunk of my research was made a lot easier. The book offers a huge amount of material on John, so it was editing that down into what absolutely had to be there that was my job.
Why take moments out of order, what benefit does this have for you and audiences?
As a little kid I had an audio tape of an old Oscar Wilde story which said “every good story starts at the end then goes to the beginning and ends with the middle” which has just stuck with me, I guess.
There would be no point ending with the “surprise” that John White is killed by lightning as that’s arguably the thing he’s most famous for, sadly. So from that perspective I had to work out what felt most satisfying for an audience. The difference between a comedy and a tragedy is when you chose to stop telling the story, I want to leave audiences laughing, feeling warm inside and with a smile on their faces, and John was known for having a great sense of humour. To do that I had to make sure I was telling the story in the right order.
This year is 60 years since John White died, does that anniversary make it harder or easier to write about historic events?
It’s harder in the sense that, sadly, there are very few people still alive who knew John, so the direct discussions can’t happen in the same was as with a living persons’ story, but easier because there’s a lot entertaining source material to share and bring to life. Most people that see the play won’t know everything, even if they already know John and Rob’s Story. There are still things to discover, even if it’s the emotional experience rather than facts.
What will happen to the show after fringe?
We’re very much looking to do a London run once we’re back from Edinburgh and would be open to touring the show to anywhere that would want to see it but are still in the process of confirming venues so you’ll have to follow the Bruised Sky socials to get more info when we can share it.
The Ghost of White Hart Lane will be performed at 1.25pm in Underbelly Bristo Square (Dairy Room) from 31st July – 26th August (Not 12th)
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