Brixton Calling: the wild true story behind the new musical

Johnny Lawes and Simon Parkes backstage at Brixton Academy during the 1980s - (Justin Thomas)

Brixton Calling is currently rocking Southwark Playhouse Borough with a two-man theatrical music tour-de-force of a tremendous London tale: the story of how one man ‘bought’ an old cinema and turned it the Brixton Academy, one of the capital’s greatest music venues (now officially known as O2 Academy Brixton but who calls it that?).

That man is Simon Parkes, and the stage production is an adaptation of his memoir Live At the Brixton Academy by writer Alex Urwin, which features Max Runham and Tendai Humphrey Sitima playing Parkes, and his partner-in-(not quite)-crime Johnny Lawes. It is a riot of loud music and wild tales from his stint running the Academy from 1983 to 1997 but one that is giving the engaging Parkes some pause.