Brighton Year-Round 2026

Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances

Ollie Wilson King

Genre: Biographical Drama, Comedic, Dark Comedy, Drama, Fringe Theatre, Historical, Short Plays, Theatre

Venue: Yellow Book SweetVenues 3a York Place

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

A lost leader? Pete Measden more or less invented, or articulated Mod culture, and much of the ethos round the group he maanged, The Who. He also unmade them, getting them to change their name to The High Numbers. The story of how that name reverted, what Measden did, and how he ended up with The Who again, makes a compelling story. Ollie Wilson King’s debut play  Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances co-directed by Stewart Barham, Wilson-King and Rocco Biancadi, plays at Yellow Book SweetVenues till May 30.

It’s a 65-minute five-hander, which sounds an unbalanced proposition. But the play’s in its powerful first stage: not embryo. It features Wilson-King as Measden himself, and four actors multi-roling: darting in and out of the core narrative delivered by Wilson-King. Spanning 1962-78, Wilson-King delivers nearly 500 lines as those four actors in a dizzying change of costume apparate – usually just once – as another character.

Avowedly using the structure of Keith Waterhouse’s 1989 Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, Wilson-King allows life to flow out in sideswipes from the flies: actors pop out or just correct or occasionally reinforce; and often guy the protagonist. The lighting design by Chris Dent, Wilson-King, cast members and Gabriel Magill allows some subtlety in a small space with a few blackouts.

Wilson-King, whose grasp of theatre can be adduced by his 15-year stint writing for The Stage (delivering ten reviews per day at Edinburgh), has slowly moved from page to stage. It’s an interesting journey, the reverse of the expected. More recently he’s become a sound designer: he crafts this soundscape of songs alongside the distinguished sound designer Chris Dent; who has turned to stage-acting and stand-up late. Finally for the past three years Wilson-King’s also become an actor following a period of study.

As it stands the play’s in compression mode. You can see it bursting its bounds and expanding to 80-100 minutes, where the imbalance can be fully worked through. The plot is riveting: Measden’s discovery, nurturing, occasionally overweening control, sudden ousting from managing The Who by richer people; descent and spiral, flirting with other bands with some disaster, and then return to work for The Who. It still needs aerating and become what it should be: genuine drama.

It has a greater potential in this genre – as a conventional play –  than its model. By contrast the central character can never be quite as compelling as Waterhouse’s creation. Measden’s self-aware, but lacks one might say a criticism of life. Certainly Bernard’s unflinching self-condemnation amidst sly laughter is something Measden lacks.

Rocco Biancardi is the hardest-working support actor. Inhabiting the role of Pete Townshend, he creates in remarkably different costumes the most consistent reappearing character. He’s also Andrew Long Oldham, the manager taught everything by Measden. And Kit Lambert oozing and oleaginous here, who replaced him as Who manger. As Irish Jack he’s full of remorse, and Lance the Hitch-hiker wearing merely underpants which got appreciated. There’s three other walk-on roles. Biancardi’s a chameleon force, voicing several different kinds of sleaze and inhabiting Townshend’s honest bafflement.

Amber Gilbert’s three journalists are functional and bright, but she enjoys slinky Sandra Blackstone, the tragic Gina Strauss, the empathic Doctor and Measden’s mother Rosina Measden in a wig and hat. The two women’s roles reflect a curious feature: Mods on drugs had little testosterone for the “sorts” that women were reduced to. Gilbert’s a fine actor and as it stands the two female parts might be collapsed into one.

Stewart Barham’s characters are the most virtuosic – he’s worked with Steven Spielberg and you’d expect his gallimaufry of voices to be as consummate as it is: Jack the Barber, the old Mod Mate from Glasgow in a spectacular old Mod jacket (heroic in this heatwave), the German Helmut Knob whose need of a manger for The Who brought Measden to them in the first place; and father Stanley as well as a nasty Bouncer. Barham’s contributions are some of the highlights of the show.

Finally Ingrid Mort takes three brief rules as a radio journalist, a Canadian widow (blink and miss) and in a curious midway point after the core narrative ends, Aphorisms Girl. It’s certainly an odd moment, and perhaps stems from Jeffrey Bernard. Mort in particular might enjoy an expanded palette and series of roles.

Wilson-King’s on stage nearly throughout. He’s a natural comedian, and carries that side of Measden with aplomb. He registers everything from button-holing self-delight, through exuberance outrage, despair, and self-deprecation. He’d be the first to admit he’s not a natural fit for the part, but he inhabits with gusto and emphatically proves the point that with a talented cast and creatives, he’s more than proved this play should be seen on tour in all the Mod-friendly places, and more widely: recast perhaps but also expanded.

Essentially Measden’s an enthusiast; it’s an aspect Wilson-King captures with engaging innocence. Measden began at 20 by manging the Rolling Stones, but was ousted. After The Who he was dumped by several including – disastrously – Captain Beefheart: as UK manager he forgot to obtain visas after booking venues and they weren’t allowed in. He was sacked on the spot.

A comprehensive litany here would be tedious. Cleary a lack of professional guile, something Wilson-King makes palpable, and professionalism with details, lies at the heart of every Measden failure. Yet his attention to the culture, and his commanding transmission to say Pete Townshend, was all about detail. It’s a paradox: don’t tend the things you love without loving yourself.

Wilson-King’s structure begins straightforwardly, driving to that ousting moment. Then it eddies. There’s a reprise of his earlier attempt with the Stones, then a jump forward to the rest of his tale after that curious interlude (delivered by Mort) of Mod ethics. Including memorably the line that gives the play its title. (It might be added it’s the title of one of Owen Hatherley’s volumes. Known for his left-wing histories on architecture, he collected sundry essays including music, in 2020. The Verso volume probably shouldn’t be confused with Wilson-King’s play: but would make a fine collision). Wishing to foreground the most famous moment of Measden’s life forces Wilson-King to shape it this way: but it does lend a circularity, since we return in the final section for Measden the Phoenix.

As it is the play’s in a three-quarter stage. Its essential shape is assured, and so is the tight, funny writing. Pathos is intimated, and that can be extended when the monologues are more broken up; and one-line responses can develop into full-blown dialogue.

The play’s absorbing and clearly already has a following. It’s attracted a sold-out brief run. When this work’s fully developed it’ll be a cult piece: beloved by more than the Mods who pile down from London to see it. Factually realist, but liminally fantastical, it wields potential for serious sly fun, and real drama. It’s to be hoped that Wilson-King will ruthlessly pursue it.

Production Manager Ollie Wilson King, Rehearsal Prompter Philip Willett, Stage Manager Philip Willett, Props Manager Ollie Wilson King, Costumes Ollie Wilson King, the cast, Philip Willett and Gladrags. Poster and Programme Designer Christopher Crawford.

Published May 30, 2026 by Simon Jenner