Storyline
Beautiful Burnout is the story of a coach training up a group of boxers to become professionals. The boxers are Cameron Burns, Ajay Chopra, Neil Neil, and Ainsley Binney. But when Ajay is given his marching orders by Bobby; Neil Neil is hit by a car; and Ainsley isn't good enough in the eyes of Bobby; Cameron steps up to the plate to face Ajay in a fight. His mum goes from really disliking boxing to liking it and becomes more positive about Cameron going into the fight. One of the female boxers who isn't chosen to try and become a professional is Dina, and she feels really mad that this has happened to her. During the fight between Cameron and Ajay, Cameron suffers a blow to head and collapses in the ring. The blow to the head that knocked Cameron out and made him collapse in the ring, caused damage to his brain.
Main Ideas
The idea for 'Beautiful Burnout' came from a 10-minute visit to Gleason's Gym, a world-famous boxing gym in Brooklyn. Frantic also got the title from a song by Underworld from their album, Oblivion with bells, and they immediately looked at it as a potential title for the show.
Beautiful Burnout is in Scotland within the play, and Frantic Assembly spent a lot of time researching into the boxing in Scottish culture.
Frantic Assembly Other Ideas & Thoughts:
- They approached Bryony Lavery because she knew very little about boxing, and they thought that she would bring "fresh, hungry eyes to a world where every story it can tell has probably been told".
- They gained experience and information from visiting gyms, professional bouts, amateur administrators, doctors and promoters.
- They had two development sessions; one was interviewing people and visiting gyms and tackle the potential physicality of the show, and the other was to look at the possible narratives.
- They brought in some highly physical dancers to spend 3 hours with them in a room trying to find out how far they could stretch the physicality of boxing.
- Frantic Assembly had no intention of shying away from the moral debate surrounding boxing.
- They thought that boxing presents a credible.
- Frantic Assembly struggled to convince people about the merits of Beautiful Burnout.
- They thought that talking about the typical themes of boxing sounds like some clichéd film you have seen before.
- They didn't want a title that sounded too sensational or provocative.
- The supporters that were called by Frantic Assembly referred to boxing as the 'noble art' and the 'sweet science'.
- Frantic Assembly felt inspired of giving the audience the same visceral, thrilling and conflicting experience as if they were watching a real boxing match.
Influence
The influence for this play came from the story of former English boxer Michael Watson, whose career was prematurely ended due to a near-fatal injury. On 21st September 1991, a rematch between Watson and Chris Eubank was arranged. In round 11, Watson was ahead on points and also seemed to be on the verge of stoppage victory when he knocked Eubank down with a right hook. Moments later, Eubank was back on his feet and connected with a devastating uppercut which caused Watson to fall back and hit his head against the ropes. Referee Roy Francis stopped the fight after round 12, after which Watson collapsed in the ring. A total of 28 minutes elapsed before Watson received treatment in a hospital neurosurgical unit. He spent 40 days in a coma and had 6 brain operations to remove a blood clot. He slowly recovered after over a year spent in intensive care and six years in a wheelchair, and he slowly regained his ability to speak and write.
So the inspiration for Beautiful Burnout came from the story of Michael Watson's injury in 1991, which he astonishingly recovered from. The story of what happens to Cameron Burns during the play is very similar to Watson's story, starting with a horrendous injury and ending with a slow but absolutely remarkable recovery.
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