James Murphy

In a 2002 interview David Bowie was asked what he felt the point of art was – ‘It’s a head-spinning dichotomy – of the lust for life against the finality of everything…it’s those two things raging against each other, you know. And that produces these moments that feel like real truth…that is the entire story right there. That’s it, there’s no more to be said.‘

TRIBUTE PODCASTS are a series of 13 dramatic monologues between 7 & 15 minutes in length – all eulogies / reflections about the deaths (and lives) of fictional characters.

One of the inspirations for this project – if that’s the right word – was a series of deaths in 2016 – my mother, principally, but also David Bowie, Victoria Wood, Prince, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Terry Wogan, Gene Wilder etc etc And in September 2015, one of my son’s best friends, 20 years old, died in a boating accident in New Zealand. He died saving someone else’s life when he and a group of 10 friends got into dificulties kayaking on a lake. It was only James and one other American boy who died, the rest survived. And James may have survived if he hadn’t swum back into the lake to try and save a friend. James was the nicest young guy you could ever meet. Gentle, kind, with a smile that lit up a room, his death at such a young age has really rocked his local community and of course devastated his family – his parents and two younger brothers.

So this project is dedicated to the memory of JAMES MURPHY.