INTERVIEW / The language of the streets: Mick Mahoney's plays did a nice line in all things tough and cockney, until their author hit on bad times. Now he's back with Fantasy Bonds. Leo Burley met him

'ARE you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? Well, there ain't nobody else here . . .' The actor Bill Key is rehearsing a speech from Mick Mahoney's new play, Fantasy Bonds, in the Governor's room at The National Theatre Studio. His monologue is made up of lines from contemporary American movies, including Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and Martin Scorsese's re-released classic, Mean Streets, though the play itself is set in a Soho drinking club.

Like Mean Streets, 34-year- old Mick Mahoney, is making a comeback. Commissioned by the National Theatre's department of new writing and financed by Carl and Suggs of the pop group Madness, Fantasy Bonds, opened this week under Mahoney's direction at the Old Red Lion in Islington, London, the pub-theatre that launched his career 12 years ago.

Friday Nights, a bleak comedy about a violent night out in north London, opened in 1981 and got rave reviews before transferring to The Riverside Studios. Then only 22, Mahoney quickly established a cult status with a series of street-realism plays, each more successful than the last. When Yer Bottle's Gone in SE1 was commissioned by Adrian Sharegold of the Soho Poly in 1988 and led immediately to a commission from the National Theatre, Up for None (1984), which depicted the world of West End pavement traders. This in turn prompted an offer of a writer's residency from Peter Gill of the National Theatre Studio. With a background of fly-pitching and football hooliganism, the playwright's only previous invitation from a national institution had been of the non-refusable, short-sharp-shock variety.

Strutting out on the tail end of punk, Mahoney, a working class Londoner of Irish stock, seemed to fill a need. In a world of fake cockneys and art school rebels, here was someone with the right credentials: 'I got pigeon-holed a bit as the 'hooligan playwright', though I've never actually written a play about the terraces,' he explained during a break in rehearsals. That reputation came courtesy of a piece he wrote for Time Out in 1983, entitled 'Dressed to Kill', which gave a first-hand account of fashion and violence among hooligan gangs of Arsenal and Millwall. Now reluctant to talk about it, Mahoney agrees that the feature hit the wrong mark.

'I haven't been in a fight since I was 18, but people still remember that article,' Mahoney, whose face is noticeably scarred under the left eye, said. 'I thought it was only going to be read by students and social workers, but it seemed like every hooligan in London had bought a copy.'

For Mahoney, the football violence of the late 1970s was merely one influence. Barry Keefe's Gotcha and G F Newman's four-part serial, Law and Order, convinced him that there was room for a realistic portrayal of life on the wrong side of society.

The success of his stage plays led to several film and television commissions. 'During the early 1980s, a lot of things happened for me and I took them all for granted. To be honest I thought it was a bit of a laugh; I did these things, wrote them down and people gave me money.' Until recently, Mahoney had never written a second draft.

'It got to the point where I wasn't doing the work I was being paid for. All I really cared about was going out and having a good time.'

He made a point of not socialising within the theatre world, preferring the pub and club scene of north London which also provided many of the themes for his work. Though Mahoney now regrets his refusal to network, Nicky Wright, director of new writing at the National Theatre and the man who first drew Peter Gill's attention to Up for None, identified it as an integral part of his approach. 'Whatever one's origins, putting plays on is essentially a middle- class activity and Mick always resisted that side of it,' explained Wright. 'He has stayed true to his own voice. In the long term that will be a great strength.'

Mahoney admits guardedly to a 'difficult' period during the late-1980s. As further commissions began to fall through, he became despondent and increasingly bitter towards the arts world. In a fair imitation of one of his characters, the laddish bravado gave way to a more desperate and fearful existence in which alcohol played an increasingly important role.

'Looking back, there was no conspiracy or class system against me, the only thing holding me back was me. I got married some time before, but around the time we had our first child I realised that I had to sort myself out.' Mahoney is unwilling to be drawn further on the subject. He is now a teetotal father of two children aged four and two. 'I had some self-destructive pastimes which I simply don't pursue these days.'

Fantasy Bonds may be the last Mahoney play to mine his own background. 'I'm ready to move on now. I don't want to be stuck with people who talk out of the side of their mouths all the time - I think I've exorcised that need. But I've done those characters justice. Whether they like it or not, I've done them justice.'

Fantasy Bonds is at The Old Red Lion, Islington: 2-27 March. pounds 6.50/Concessions pounds 5.50. 071- 837 7816.