ROY
From North Liverpool to the page and stage: PJ Smith transforms life's chaos into Roy’s dark, sharp true tales of urban wit and reflection.
PJ Smith was born in North Liverpool. Just another one of the kids growing up on Newby Street.
He followed a path, lost his footing. His fall was broken by the net of creativity. Writing, just getting it all out of your head and onto the page. Roy was born.
The fella least likely first walked onto a stage four years ago and took the mic. He immediately grabbed and held attentions and led them through the streets of his imagination introducing his weird and wonderful characters.
Roy wanders his world and observes. He watches and recounts tales of ordinary and extraordinary inner-city madness. Where good snarls at evil and evil snarls right back. It’s dark, it’s sharp, it’s heartwarming and it’s funny. Ladies and gentlemen, the stories you are about to hear are true. Only the names have been changed to provoke the guilty.
Here, life’s not a preparation for death. Nor is it about a dig thrown at a wake or a selfie taken at a funeral. We’re only just figuring out that our relationship with the place we grew up, has set the tone for every other relationship we’ll ever have. Meet me outside Threshers, at the top of Kearsley Street. That girl is coming. The one who learned Indian head massage at The Rotunda. Her Da knew your Da. They had a straightener In The Halfway House. It was about whether Luther Vandross was better than Paul Weller. Style Council era. No one was hurt, more entertained. There’s your mates sister departing Kellys Wines. She’s clutching a bottle of rose and a heavy sense of cataclysm. Her neighbour has put his Union Jack flag up. The flag pole will get snapped next time Liverpool are at home, when those lads from The Easby go for a pint in the St Hilda. The Hilda once used the phrase ‘A refreshing alternative to grim reality’ as a slogan to entice people in. We like a slogan round here. The Iron Lung sold us their dream with a ‘First Class Ale At Third World Prices’ banner. Someone whistles you from Wetherspoons doorway. *That whistle* It was Frosts prior to a pub. Your kid got pushed round there in a pram, as Wayne Clarke lobbed John Lukic and practically clinched Everton’s second title in three years. Pretend ghosts prowl the pavements of L4. But these are ghosts with the voices of 1980s radio commentators and the sartorial elegance of your 23 year old Ma who starts all her Friday nights out off in The Royal Oak. Here, she discovered that the most basic form of human absurdity is failing to remember what you originally set out to achieve. Did you get your school trabs from Barnie Shields? Black reebok classic. Ever had your bommy wood robbed by The Deli Mob? Fell asleep standing up in The Elm Tree? Why haven’t you ever traipsed down the Barlows Lane garage at 03:24 am for two scotch eggs and a jar of marmite, when you’ve only come down for a tube of Pringles. Sour cream n chive? The returning smell of the empty streets is spellbindingly resonant, the last remnants of sanity are fascinatingly unbalanced…yet the only valuable truth is Home. Stanley Road has a very particular life rhythm. It’s a blatant force, firing it’s way between The Gordon and The Rydal. Boxing at The Rydal taught me that charm is more valuable than beauty. After observing every afternoon feign to get measured out in discarded McDonalds’ spoons, it was decided that there are no lines to read inbetween. There are over there… but not here. Here is where we are. Here’s where I stopped looking. At the Junction of Lambeth and Wezzy Rd. Before inspirational quotes ever existed, we found out that happiness is just a by product of authenticity. Sitting off at The Kwikky car park, adorned in garishly coloured Lacoste tracksuits, meant we were well armoured with the worlds rewards. Sipping from cans that had us drifting off into realms that our future selves may not fully appreciate. No one wants to be a meff forever, do they? There’s that fella from The Brick. He asks if you’re still into ‘that indie music’ because you once put The Farm on The Netley Jukebox. His reality is an illusion that we can agree to agree on. Walking towards the station, I can hear the soundtrack of a bittersweet western that nobody has ever seen. We are top of the pops and the song remains the same. Our mess, with age, becomes our message. You can unwittingly love or begrudgingly hate. Just know that the most personal is also universal. I read it in the Scottie Press. There will be no stay behind. Instead, we leave ahead…armed with the confidence of innocence. The stories this place tells, are only good if you’re listening at the right moment.
Here, life’s not a preparation for death. Nor is it about a dig thrown at a wake or a selfie taken at a funeral. We’re only just figuring out that our relationship with the place we grew up, has set the tone for every other relationship we’ll ever have. Meet me outside Threshers, at the top of Kearsley Street. That girl is coming. The one who learned Indian head massage at The Rotunda. Her Da knew your Da. They had a straightener In The Halfway House. It was about whether Luther Vandross was better than Paul Weller. Style Council era. No one was hurt, more entertained. There’s your mates sister departing Kellys Wines. She’s clutching a bottle of rose and a heavy sense of cataclysm. Her neighbour has put his Union Jack flag up. The flag pole will get snapped next time Liverpool are at home, when those lads from The Easby go for a pint in the St Hilda. The Hilda once used the phrase ‘A refreshing alternative to grim reality’ as a slogan to entice people in. We like a slogan round here. The Iron Lung sold us their dream with a ‘First Class Ale At Third World Prices’ banner. Someone whistles you from Wetherspoons doorway. *That whistle* It was Frosts prior to a pub. Your kid got pushed round there in a pram, as Wayne Clarke lobbed John Lukic and practically clinched Everton’s second title in three years. Pretend ghosts prowl the pavements of L4. But these are ghosts with the voices of 1980s radio commentators and the sartorial elegance of your 23 year old Ma who starts all her Friday nights out off in The Royal Oak. Here, she discovered that the most basic form of human absurdity is failing to remember what you originally set out to achieve. Did you get your school trabs from Barnie Shields? Black reebok classic. Ever had your bommy wood robbed by The Deli Mob? Fell asleep standing up in The Elm Tree? Why haven’t you ever traipsed down the Barlows Lane garage at 03:24 am for two scotch eggs and a jar of marmite, when you’ve only come down for a tube of Pringles. Sour cream n chive? The returning smell of the empty streets is spellbindingly resonant, the last remnants of sanity are fascinatingly unbalanced…yet the only valuable truth is Home. Stanley Road has a very particular life rhythm. It’s a blatant force, firing it’s way between The Gordon and The Rydal. Boxing at The Rydal taught me that charm is more valuable than beauty. After observing every afternoon feign to get measured out in discarded McDonalds’ spoons, it was decided that there are no lines to read inbetween. There are over there… but not here. Here is where we are. Here’s where I stopped looking. At the Junction of Lambeth and Wezzy Rd. Before inspirational quotes ever existed, we found out that happiness is just a by product of authenticity. Sitting off at The Kwikky car park, adorned in garishly coloured Lacoste tracksuits, meant we were well armoured with the worlds rewards. Sipping from cans that had us drifting off into realms that our future selves may not fully appreciate. No one wants to be a meff forever, do they? There’s that fella from The Brick. He asks if you’re still into ‘that indie music’ because you once put The Farm on The Netley Jukebox. His reality is an illusion that we can agree to agree on. Walking towards the station, I can hear the soundtrack of a bittersweet western that nobody has ever seen. We are top of the pops and the song remains the same. Our mess, with age, becomes our message. You can unwittingly love or begrudgingly hate. Just know that the most personal is also universal. I read it in the Scottie Press. There will be no stay behind. Instead, we leave ahead…armed with the confidence of innocence. The stories this place tells, are only good if you’re listening at the right moment.
Algorithm Party was Roy’s debut publication in which an utterly original, fully-formed literary voice announces itself, somehow full of life, on the page.
His deft, articulate and startlingly observed stories veer from the comic to the calamitous in a breath, cutting to the quick of the broad swathe of people and personalities that comprise his native city, from struggling parents to small-time criminals, pent-up white-collar workers to drinkers long lost to the ale.
Roy’s eye is as keen as it is generous, presenting, in the great tradition of English realism, the real lives of people up against it in all sorts of ways, muddling through, trying to make the best of it.
