 Soup
SYNOPSIS:
"Seldom have I seen the subject of homelessness treated with such insight and compassion" (The Scotsman 1995 - Fringe First Winner)
By the time the laundromat's spin cycle is over, architect Tim Fox's life has been threatened by a thug and saved by a homeless raconteur. As he tries to repay the debt with soup and sympathy, he finds himself drawn further and further into the friendships and tragedies that lurk in the cardboard community under the railway viaduct, until a council order to 'move on' arrives...
In this Fringe First Winning show, Michael Mears who a nomination for The Stage Best Actor 1995 plays Displaced Don to Cantankerous Irish Bag-Lady, Glue-sniffing Runaway to Unemployed Alcoholic Brickie. Soup portrays a way of life that is often hidden and generally ignored, with sensitivity, passion, and zeal, filling the stage with their stories.
Funny, moving, challenging, Mears creates a captivating world realised with transcendent power...
  Reviews:
"Kill to get a ticket!" (The Scotsman)
"A master of the one-man show." (The List)
"In playing every part, Mears celebrates the art of acting and the multi-facetedness of the human personality and finally suggests that dereliction isa just a crisis away from any one of us." (The Independent)
"Powerfully evocative, filled with humour and dignity... Mears takes you right there, but you dare not look away. With his lightning-quick changes and the face of an El Greco he shows us a part of life that there but for the grace of God..." (Time Out)
"This challenging, marvellously funny evening, which epitomises the thrilling shock of the new tht makes the Fringe consistently irresistible... It's the real minestrone." (Today)
"Mears' performance is quite simply stunning, each character neatly and compassionately drawn. The play is a moving, warm and intensely rich experience." (The Stage)
 Michael Mears
Michael was born in North London in 1957, grew up there and trained as an actor at the Drma Centre, London.
He has worked in many theatres in Britain and recently finished a two-year spell as a member of the RSC. Previous theatre work includes playing Christ in The Medieval Mystery Plays Cycle in the Old Cathedral Ruins at Coventry, and Fagin in the musical Oliver! at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre. He spent a year on the road touring Britain and the Far East and Australia with the Actor's Touring Co., doubling as both Malvolio and Orsino in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for which he won great acclaim, the National press describing his Malvolio as 'the most inventive since Laurence Olivier himself'.
At London's Old Vic he played the role of Charlie, opposite American actor Judd Hirsch in the European premiere of Conversations With My Father, directed by Alan Ayckbourn.
His film work includes Four Weddings And A Funeral, Little Dorrit, Queen of Hearts, and The Old Curiosity Shop.
On television his work includes Inspector Morse, the first six Sharpe films (playing Rifleman Cooper), and Alex Kozobolis in two series of The Lenny Henry Show.
In 1991 he premiered Tomorrow We Do The Sky, his first solo play, at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh - receiving much acclaim and being nominated for the Independent Theatre Award. It then transferred to London's Lyric studio.
His second solo play, Soup, about a small community of homeless people and the architect who befriends them, followed in 1995, selling out and winning a Scotsman Fringe First Award at the Pleasance at that year's Edinburgh Festival. Michael was also nominated for Best Actor at the Festival that year.
BBC Radio asked him to adapt and perform these two solo plays on BBC Radio 4 and then commissioned him to do three more one-act solo plays for radio - A Slight Tilt To The Left, Slow Train To Woking and Uncle Happy. For this work he was described as 'the Alec Guinness of radio drama'.
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