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  • Cop Show Heaven

Cop Show Heaven

Lawrence Gray

English , 2015/04 Proverse Hong Kong

Tags: Literature, Fiction

210 x 145 mm , 168pp ISBN / ISSN : 978-988-822-780-8

  • US$22.00

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A character in a popular cop show, Dan Symmonds, is written out of the series and finds himself lingering in Cop Show Heaven. Here he must try to discover some depth to his personality in order to inspire a writer to re-invent him.

But of course, that’s just propaganda because no-body really wants depth, they just want what sells, or if not that, they just want that which sells what they want to sell! Here we are in a world aware of its own fictional nature, questioning the reasons for its own existence.

In this parody of parodies, any resemblance that Cop Show Heaven bears to Hong Kong and its film-making community is purely coincidental and whoever the readership assumes any of the characters to resemble is much mistaken. All is fiction. All is fantasy. Nothing is predicted. No thesis is proffered. No solution is offered. And it all ends as Hollywood would have it end, with a beginning. Shakespeare might hold up a mirror to the times, but Gray holds up a mirror to the mirror.

Cop Show Heaven came into existence because Heaven rented part of Hell to allow dead directors the pleasure of making movies. However, the Devil wants it back and is not allowing Heaven to renew the lease.

Cop Show Heaven was inspired by Gray’s experiences writing episodes of a big budget British TV show set in Hong Kong in 1989 and the increasing nervousness of Hong Kong’s population about the 1997 handover to China’s sovereignty.

 

“Here is Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China as it has never been seen before—in an absurd, allegorical fantasy that will have anyone familiar with the place laughing from beginning to end.  Nothing is spared—the British, the communists, the gangsters, kung fu, traditional Chinese medicine, religion in all its forms—the send-ups are endless.  Hong Kong itself is a bit of hell rented by heaven to allow deceased directors to continue making films.  … Hong Kong as heaven!  Now you’ve seen it all.  Weird?  Yes, but this is a great piece of writing and great fun to read.  It’s a tour de force.” 

– Bill Purves

Lawrence Gray was born and educated in the UK and took BA honours in Economics and Politics from Leeds University. He has lived in Hong Kong since 1991. He is a professional screenwriter and director and has written episodes of UK and Singapore TV dramas and written, produced and directed a number of films in English and Cantonese.  He directed the feature film “Lust $ Found”, which he describes as an eccentric English gangster movie set in Hong Kong.

Gray’s collection of short stories, Odds and Sods, was published in 2014 as a Proverse Prize Publication. It features stories that meld French farce, Chinese opera, religious mysticism, Hollywood and Hong Kong movies in a kaleidoscopic tour de force. 

In Hong Kong he founded the Hong Kong Writers’ Circle and chaired the group for twenty years, publishing many collections of stories from a wide variety of Hong Kong writers.

Gray has taught screenwriting in various cities around the world, and was one of the first to professionalize the industry.  In 1996, he won the first Public Awareness of Science drama award (PAWS) and the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum’s (HAF’s) award for best Hong Kong film project of the year in 2006.

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