Butcher On Bordesley
“Not all those who wander are lost” ~ J.R.R.Tolkien.
Logline
Jack Cutler is in a race against time to save his kid brother…
His quest sparks an epic battle in war torn Birmingham.
“Butcher On Bordesley”
An edgy, gritty TV series, hewn from the genre of kitchen sink realism.
Our Journey begins in 1942 Birmingham.
Spanning three decades we follow the rise of Jack “The Lad” Cutler.
From Bordesley Green butcher boy to reluctant leader of a black - market supply chain.
“It’s all about getting your cut” ~ J.C.
A fictitious story based on real characters.
SYNOPSIS
Birmingham 1942.
Rough tough gritty inner city.
Jack “The Lad” Cutler returns from the African front to find his beloved town changed forever.
His brother Charlie is missing. His girlfriend Sylvia has married Sid the new owner of his favourite pub “The Coach & Horses,” which is now an Irish Republican hangout.
Jack wants to escape, but he can’t. There’s more on his plate than illegally slaughtered prime Angus… Murder, extortion and corruption, are served up in equal measure.
SHOW CROSS
MEETS
Jack “The Lad” Cutler
MAIN CHARACTER 28, Tough, ruggedly handsome, flawed. A free thinking, free spirited dreamer. A wheeler dealer. No woman will tie him down! He’s had a taste of the big wide world. Jack The Lad is on a mission to escape forever. However, every time he makes a break for it ...He takes one step forward, two steps back.
Our story begins with Jack returning from war to a new battle on the streets of Birmingham. His world has been turned upside down. The little he had has been lost.
A fish out of water Jack gets trapped in the net of the black market underworld, will he escape ?
“All I know is butchery and dealing.Choppers, knives blood and cash.It’s all about getting your cut” ~ JC
Charlie Cutler
MAIN CHARACTER
Jack’s younger brother 23. Hair as short as his temper. Cocky tough loose cannon, pain in the arse Charlie.
A lifelong thorn in Jack’s side. Charlie lacks his brothers guile and finesse. Craves the spoils but can’t stomach the hard graft. Craves a wife but who’d have him? He is only tolerated because he is Jack’s brother.
Now he is missing, caught up in another mess that Jack will have to get him out of. If there’s a screw up, guaranteed Charlie will be holding the screwdriver. “As slippery as an eel in a bucket of snot”
Wheeling dealing borrowing and stealing, Charlie Cutler.
Brian Hackett
MAIN CHARACTER
50’s short sighted, gout ridden, thrifty, shifty. Doing very well for himself by Bordesley Green standards.An outsider who tackles problems with zeal and cunning.
He has risen from modest butcher shop owner to become Birmingham’s link in a nationwide black market supply chain.The finer things in life, cars, antiques,classy wine, require cash...an endless stream of cash. Brian will always “Get his cut” !
Brian has dark secrets. He needs Jack’s help in his nefarious dealings. They enter into a precarious and from Jack’s point of view, unwanted partnership.
Silvia Brannon
MAIN CHARACTER 30’s bottle blonde, former Miss Birmingham. Former “fiancee” of Jack. When the cat's away the mouse will play ! Sylve plays rough, but she melts at the mention of Jack.
Sylve married Sid Brannon, new landlord of The Coach and Horses when Jack left. She thought Jack had in his words “Escaped The Green forever”. Now she’s caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Our Jack is back, offering a life of travel, adventure, a dream life in the sun.
Should she settle for a mundane life, under the perpetual grey mantle that shrouds Birmingham? Which path will she chose?
Brandy
recurring character
The opening to our story may be a cold one, but our Brandy is smoldering .
Dark, mysterious, and beautiful, with a tantalizing hint of danger !
Where has she come from ? Where is she going ? What the hell is she up to?
Is it pure coincidence that she and Jack share a rail carriage ? Are they just ships passing in the night ?
She knows lots of things that we do not.So many questions to be answered about Brandy.
Annon Badawy Aya
Annon Badawy is Jack’s mysterious Egyptian connection from the Khan el-Kalili Bazaar. His daughter Aya and Jack are lovers.
We see Aya, Badawy and his slimy business sidekick Apep, during flashbacks to Jack’s adventures in Cairo.
Whatever is in Jack’s kit bags was supplied by Badawy. He supplies a lot more as our story unfolds.
He is Jack’s Mr. Fix it.
We know that Middle East content is extremely sought after right now. This is an area of the story that we will expand on !
PILOT
Cold Open: Man badly beaten, lashed to a beef carcass in a London slaughterhouse, an interrogation.
Steam train slices through English countryside. A flash back to Egypt as Jack is dishonorably discharged from the army. Back to the present, his first encounter with the gorgeous “Brandy”.
After shooting dead Hackett’s prize bull on Bordesley Green Road. Jack discovers that his fiancee Sylvia, is now Mrs Sid Brannon, the new landlady of The Coach and Horses. Jack gets a brutal “Irish welcome “ from Sid and his republican boys.
Jack returns home to find his mother struggling to make ends meet, his brother Charlie missing. Hackett’s name is in the frame.
Jack seeks out lifelong pal “Jimmy The Jew” Lipman. Jimmy is also AWOL . Jack is persona non grata with the battle axe Ruth Lipman. He now has another point to prove!
Jack takes his cut from Hackett’s bull. PC Jenkins has an axe to grind with Jack, battle ensues !
A rendezvous in The Coach & Horses with Hackett. A late night clandestine delivery from Liverpool. Jack forces Hackett to spill the beans about his black market operation. Forced to open his safe at knife point, Hackett’s secret life is revealed. Hackett is left for dead.
Jack drags Sylvia out of the pub. Anger and lust in equal measure, consensual sex or rape ?
Episode ending cliffhanger as we ride the tail fin of a German bomb whistling down toward the Cutler home !
TONE
Dark and gritty.From the war torn 40’s through the resurgent 50’s to the swingin’ sixties.
Jack Cutler is Birmingham’s living metaphor. In constant flux. Dark humour, inner city working class ,fighting the system.
Two up two down a cold tap in the kitchen and a shithouse in the yard. Hopes and dreams twist like back alleys. Cold wet dark.Dreams of sea and sun. No genteel CRACK of leather on willow, no CLINK of delicate China, no POLITE conversation. More SWOOSHING steel, SNAPPING bone, SPLATTERING blood.
THE WORLD
THE WORLD
THE WORLD
THE MUSIC
The Music Vibe
Original recordings from classic artistes. Plus young talent, adapting songs from each time period to give a unique modern vibe.
Scenes in The Coach and Horses need kickass Irish songs “Come Out Ya Black n’ Tans” Wolfe Tones. “McAlpine's Fusiliers” “The Auld Triangle” Ronnie Drew & Dubliners. “Dirty Ol’ Town” The Pogues.
Van Morrison for reflective soulful scenes. “Into The Mystic” “It Stoned me” (Jack & Charlie bonding)
Unease the audience first with frantic then with erie mysterious Jazz runs from Miles Davis and John Coltrane like “Footprints” and “On Green Dolphin Street”.
When The Windrush Generation arrive in Birmingham. Old classic Jamaican reggae,“Ska” and “Rocksteady”.
In series 2 Jack moves into Clubland. Cameos of Birmingham artists and bands like Stevie Winwood, Moody Blues, The Move, Sabbath, Zeppelin etc.
FUTURE SEASONS
SEASON 1 1940’s War torn Britain. Jack is a fish out of water, his life turned upside down. He is reluctantly established as Birmingham’s black market ”connection”. The Irish, cockneys, scousers and the C.I.D. all gunning for Our Jack. We are introduced to Jack’s Egyptian connection Annon Badawy. What’s Brandy’s angle?
SEASON 2 1950’s Jack “The Lad” goes international. The arrival of “The Windrush Generation”. Jack eyes The Caribbean as Rock n’ Roll and The Teds hit Birmingham. Jack enters the nightclub scene. It’s not his dancing that has him treading on dangerous toes!
SEASON 3 1960’s Explodes into the swingin’ sixties. Free love? Nothing is free, love ! Mods & Rockers, mohair suits. Our lad Jack desperately wants out. We all know it ‘aint that easy. Jack finally escapes to his Shangri-La Is it all that he imagined? Jack learns that you can run but you can’t hide!
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“Butcher On Bordesley”