No Pictures Please Productions
Works
Broken by Matthew Lyon
Inspired by the work of Steven Berkoff, Broken fuses Shakespeare with modern dialogue and is an expressionistic satire, written in verse, on the highs and lows of falling in - and inevitably out - of love.
First staged at the White Bear Theatre in 2015, Broken has gone on to play to rave reviews at The Edinburgh Fringe 2016, The Space in East London and the Etcetera Theatre, as part of The Camden Fringe 2017.
In 2018 the show had its first three-week run in a London fringe venue, playing at The Old Red Lion in Angel, where it received praise for its writing from The Stage newspaper and a nomination in
The Offies 2019 (Edie Newman - Best Female Performance in a play).
In 2024 Broken had it's first outing at a professional venue; The Riverside Studios, where it played for two weeks in the Bitesize Festival to rave reviews from audience members and, in competition with 26 other shows - scooped a Bitesize Award for Best Writing.
Sweet Fanny Adams by Matthew Lyon
Matthew's second play; 'Sweet Fanny Adams', a black-comedy about a tempestuous alcoholic couple and that age-old demon that every scribe must at some point face - 'writer's block', has played to 4-star reviews at both The White Bear and The Bread & Roses and was likened by one critic to 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'.
Silver Hammer, Just to Sit at Her Table, Mirabilis: A Trilogy of One-Woman Plays by Matthew Lyon
Silver Hammer, Just to Sit at Her Table and Mirabilis are a trilogy
of one-woman plays about three women on the fringes of society - Carly is a serial killer, Sadie is an escort and Laura is experiencing a spiritual awakening. When the shows ran at the Bread and Roses in 2019, London Pub Theatres described them as "exceptionally well written and insightful and beautiful".
Bio
Matthew is an actor and writer and graduated from The Actors Company in 2001. Since then he has performed in various venues, including The Riverside Studios, Battersea Arts Centre and The Assembly Rooms (as part of the Edinburgh Fringe). In 2015, at The White Bear Theatre, he directed and performed in a piece of his own work called 'Broken'. Broken has since played at The Edinburgh Fringe 2016, The Space and The Etcetera Theatre (as part of the Camden Fringe 2017).
Matthew has long loved words and is greatly inspired by writers such as Bob Dylan, Charles Bukowski, Sue Townsend, George Orwell, Jimmy McGovern, David Chase, Steven Berkoff and Woody Allen. And prompted by this, as well as a passion for great acting, he has set up No Pictures Please with the aim of producing high quality work that celebrates the written word. No Pictures Please is currently looking for a producer, actors (particularly actors who also write) and directors. if you are interested in being involved with an evolving theatre company that has a passion for good writing please send your resume to the email at the bottom of this page.
In the Press
And then there's the best of the rest; in particular - 'Broken'. This is where Shakespeare would have been comfortable, methinks. In the Free Fringe, at the back of a cafe, on bare boards. The piece is unpretentious, flirty and witty, with a love affair that starts with a sneeze on the tube and turns raunchy, raw and the victim of drink and unemployment. It's written in mock Shakespearean verse, but with a sassy disrespect, with noisily energetic sex and slanging matches. "As the doors slid open at Leicester Square, you appeared like a solar flare", "The path of true love and Sunpat Crunchy never doth run smooth". Writer; Matthew Lyon plays the Boy, Lauren Mills; the Girl. The show was a tonic leaving its rhythms ringing in your ears.
★★★
The romance and grandeur of Lyon's rhyme, which often borrows exact phrases from Shakespeare, Wordsworth and others, is cleverly offset by the frequent mundanity and ordinariness of the context and language. Lines such as "Thou dost infect my eyes like pepper spray or Richard Curtis flicks" or "You only know it's summer because the rain is warm"are a marriage of urban poetry and observational knowledge of daily life that is modern and appealing, which this production emphasises extremely well.
★★★★
Maryam Philpott -
The Reviews Hub.
Tim Cornwell -
The Scotsman.
For those among you who aren’t enamoured by Shakespeare-esque verse, it doesn’t matter, as the relationship between the man and woman on stage is recognisable and timeless, not beholden to iambic pentameter. But for those of you who are well-versed in the Bard’s canon, there’s plenty of allusions to his work that one can appreciate without thinking this is heavy-handed, tiresome or derivative. At times I did catch myself thinking about certain ‘eloquent’ but modern phrases, “How would Shakespeare have expressed this?”… only for me to conclude that he probably wouldn’t have changed a thing. Pretty much everything that’s spoken in Broken is quotable.
★★★★
Michael Davis -
Breaking the Fourth Wall.
There are similarities to Edward Albee's seminal work 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'; Sweet Fanny Adams is full of venom, full of black humour, but also the odd redemptive moment of tenderness. It's a proper kitchen-sink drama; naturalistic, messy and morally complex. It would be all too easy for this play to be a morose and unpleasant experience. On paper, it's two drunks arguing for an hour. But there's so much more that has been threaded into the script by Lyon's writing and emphasized by Coate's direction. The characters are multi-faceted, and we feel both desperate frustration and sympathy for them. The humour is quick, dry and clever and provides a brilliant spark to the drama.
★★★★
Verity Williams -
London Pub Theatres Magazine.
There’s absolutely no denying it is a cracking piece of writing. Lyon and Newman both rattle through the rhythms with suitably grotesque gusto.
★★★
Fergus Morgan -
The Stage Newspaper.
Written and directed by Matthew Lyon, Sweet Fanny Adams is a funny, acerbic take on the creative relationship between artists....Much like his onstage alter ego, Lyon’s a gifted wordsmith who relishes the written word – throwing in literary allusions, inventive insults, wordplay and even poignant silences into the mix. With a lesser talent, Emily could have been a harridan much like the thankless roles Joan Sims was often saddled with in the Carry On movies. While Bennett as Emily gives as good as she gets, she shows moments of vulnerability and candour that disarm Jack.
Much like the dynamic between George and Martha in Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, the absence of children in their lives is a source of friction, though one wonders how any child brought up that environment would turn out. So instead, Emily waits for the ‘birth’ of Jack’s new play, his creative ‘love letter’ to her, his muse. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a show that is so playful with its semantics, when the utterance of phrases such as “I love you” are really a passive-aggressive way of saying “I f****** hate you”…
★★★★
Michael Davis -
Breaking the Fourth Wall.
There were plenty of clever moments of dialogue throughout that provided respite from the couples dismal outlook and an unexpectedly sweet ending lifts the piece. After all the vitriol and malice we are left with a seed of hope.
★★★
Amber Woodward -
Spy in the Stalls.
This spoken word piece is a mostly seamless blend of Ol’ Will’s choicest phrases with the rough and ready London lingo and a wealth of references to popular culture. The juxtaposition of distinctive Shakespearean verse, and coarse colloquialisms, perfectly reflects the clash of the loveliest and ugliest natures of love. In keeping with Shakespeare’s flair for metaphor and simile, Lyon offers some particularly lowbrow modern picture language of his own.
The set-up couldn’t be simpler. Two performers - Lyon and his co-star, actress Edie Newman - alone together on a bare stage with nowhere to hide, and aided only by an effective and efficient use of audio effects. With their ferocious barrage of blank verse and a captivating physicality, the performers feed off each other in a gracious partnership, both capable of holding the floor alone, never out of step when they are working together. All three elements, word, body and audio, are like wet brushes deftly blended to paint vivid pictures in the mind....If you’re holding out for plot twists, or some fresh revelation of the nature of love, you’ve likely come to the wrong show. However, the simplicity of the plot allows Lyon to place every minutiae of this relationship under his lyrical microscope, strain out all the permutations, the clichés, their individual desires and confusions, and take us step by agonising step through this excruciating yet exhilarating process.
The result is a raw, no-holds barred tragi-comedy which constantly walks the line between pathos and parody. The rhythmic and ultra-stylised sex scene which becomes a turning point for the relationship is a particular highlight –, a five-minute two-man beat poem, fast-paced and intense, that is both witty and brutally honest.
★★★★
Mike Swain -
London Pub Theatres.
Broken is one of those rare things where you feel as though you are watching a classic in the making. Set in Shepherds Bush it focuses on the bewitching beginning, tumultuous middle and excruciating ending of a relationship. Shakespeare's dialogue is brought screaming into modernity, losing none of its beauty but gaining a startling and irresistible crassness. Matthew Lyon and Lauren Mills make for a sweet and totally unwholesome couple. The pair of them have a strong grasp of the rhythm of the play and embrace a physicality that borders on comedia de l'arte; unsurprising given the fleshy, tangible nature of the language. The early, exciting, invigorating start of the relationship is a joy to watch. The pair of them are eaten up by it, the beautiful foppery of it is irresistible. The astute and penetrating view of relationships and the intricacies of their disintegration come from Lyon's triumphant script. Broken feels like a conglomeration of Shakespeare's greatest love stories and Steven Berkoff's 'East'. It makes you believe in love, in the possibility that it allows you to transcend yourself, thanks to the shows unique language, and then it breaks your heart. We go through the whole gambit of emotions with the characters. I was completely seduced by its soaring musicality and delicious smuttiness. As they say - if it aint broke, dont fix it, and there's nothing broken about this show.
★★★★★
Verity Williams -
London Pub Theatres Magazine.
A very impressive performance by two young actors. The script was very clever; I loved the rhyming prose using language both period and contemporary. The message was cleverly portrayed and the body language just brilliant. This was a slick and energetic performance with perfect timing.
★★★★★
Jacqueline Reining –
The Audience Club.