Kick-ass Steve

Steve had so much stuff going on, I can't pretend to know what the next creative phase of his life would have looked like. But I can talk about the part I hoped I was going to get to share for longer with him, and I think he had big hopes riding on it too.

In late 2017, Steve approached me about writing a screenplay for a short film he wanted to make, a kung-fu film. I was in a bit of a creative dead end at the time, so it was a relief to work on somebody's else idea. I was excited about working with Steve, because: who wouldn't be? And I was intrigued about little morsel of story he sketched out for me.

The idea was this: a beaten-down gangster's moll is fearing for her life when she is approached by a tall sinister figure with a supernatural aura. Who promises her that if she follows through on her deepest inner desire to kill the gang boss - the man tormenting her - with the razor-sharp hairpin he provides, that he will protect her.

This figure is Azrael, the Angel of Death, who has fallen in love with this mortal woman.

Obviously being Steve, it was going to be lurid, loud and ultra-violent - but he also talked about the moral shading he wanted to give the story, for it to be a brooding reflection on the meaning of vengeance. We both liked the idea of combining western gothic with Asian martial arts, and I thought Steve - with his energy and eclecticism - could pull something like that off.

Steve and I spent the next year working through many drafts of what became The Seed.

It was the first time I got to know Steve closely. He was really my brother's friend - part of a hilarious, unhinged and creative posse of mates who congregated at each other houses in the Avenues area of Hull. Later, they were in Pink Grease together - and I got to see a fair amount of him then, but still without much getting to know him beyond the superstar aura so many people talked about at his Zoom wake.

But working on the script, I felt like I properly made his acquaintance for the first time. I was surprised at how focused he was - not just at realising his vision, but drawing the best out of me too. My very earliest draft featured the these Hong Kong Triad gangsters at a fancy-dress party, all costumed up as the Pope, cardinals and the Swiss guards. He let me down gently about that!

We eventually arrived at a script we were both pleased with, but it was ambitious in terms of the location and money needed. So Steve wrote a much tighter 5-minute prequel to his short - called End Credits - that I then reworked.

He filmed End Credits in autumn 2019 at his home-from-home the Curzon Soho and was planning, once he'd edited it, to show it at a future edition of Fighting Spirit martial arts film festival.

It was amazing today to get my head around the scale of the galvanising effect Steve had on so many people around him. For myself, I felt like we were in the process of forming a strong creative partnership: he taught me a lot in that year about how to write succinctly for the screen and made me push my limits. And I think I was helping to encourage him to push through some moments of inertia. Seeing that introspective side of him wasn't what I expected when we started working together, but it was somehow helpful as well. At various points, I began to doubt that we were going to arrive at somewhere we were both happy with. But, even feeling that things might go nowhere, it was a pleasure to be in his company at the Curzon, abuse the soda taps, and just chat about life and what was happening with our families.

I doubt we will ever get to see The Seed now, but I hope End Credits can be one day be completed and seen by everyone. Both are full of Steve's DNA, his energy and vehemence, and I'm sure he went at filming End Credits 1,000%. He talked about his vision being like John Woo meets Wings of Desire. Though I have to admit, his idea of Azrael, listening in to the melancholy thoughts of men, feels weird and haunting to me right now ... So long, Steven, RIP.