Danny Dyer to Play Sid Vicious in Cobain Play

Published on 13 July 2009 by Nathan Brooker

Screen actor Danny Dyer is set to portray the troubled Sex Pistols' bassist in a new play called Kurt and Sid.

Set in 1994, Roy Smiles' play Kurt and Sid is about a fictitious meeting between Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Sid Vicious, hours before the American rockstar's suicide.

The legendary Cobain killed himself in April, 1994, after a bout of drug-fuelled depression. Kurt and Sid reimagines the last moments of the Seattle-born singer's life with a visit from an unknown stranger who purports to be Sid Vicious. A hero to the young Cobain, Vicious was also a notable heroin addict and died of a self-administered overdose, aged just 21, in 1979.

Though Sid was never recognised as a competent musician, Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren once declared that: "If [Johnny] Rotten is the voice of punk, then Vicious is the attitude."

Dyer is perhaps best known for his screen acting in films like The Football Factory, Human Traffic and Mean Machine but he has performed onstage before, appearing in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming.

Kurt Cobain will be played by Shaun Evans. Kurt and Sid will play at The Trafalgar Studios from 9 September until 3 October, 2009.