Theatre: Time at the Tristan Bates Theatre

A story of four armed robbers who meet up after a job goes south with tragic consequences is getting a run in the West End.

Time is the newest play from Bermondsey born boxer turned actor Michael Head.

Mr Head’s playwright career started after a bet with a friend resulted in him creating The Sword and The Dope, a musical parody on the legend of King Arthur.

Since then he has had two stage successes, The Greater Game and Worth A Flutter, before his new thrilling crime drama.

Michael said: “I grew up hearing tales about people ‘doing a bit of work’ or going on the trot and Time puts all these things together as well as trying to explain what makes these people tick.

“It doesn’t glorify villainy, but it does try and humanise the people who live in a life of crime.

“These people are not often the monsters as portrayed in the films but family people who have a lot of honour and I wanted to show that as well.

“As my grandad always said ‘you can’t have a contract or lawyers in his line of work and a CV isn’t much use so all they have is their word and reputation, so they have to stick by it.”

Michael didn’t have the most standard of upbringings, his mother had mental health problems, which lead to Michael largely being raised by his grandparents “who were both lovely people but my grandad, who was my best mate didn’t always walk on the right side of the law – in fact, he lived his life skating right past it.”

Michael added: “I also wanted to show the human side of them, which again I think some films and media can forget, to me they were just normal people who through circumstance take a different path.”

Time will be running at the Tristan Bates Theatre for one week only from February 10-15.