The Chocolate Ocelot's 2014 Fringe - Day Three

Shambolic audio diary of the day's events here

CJ Hooper's LJ of the day here

It's Day Three! Which can only mean it's time for my annual Oh bugger what's the time what do you mean we're going out to our first show in half an hour I've got a blog to write bugger bugger post. This is in no way linked to the unusually late night chez Ocelot, entertaining friends with a few glasses of wines and some witty banter. To draw a discrete veil over the proceedings, I shall refrain from naming exactly who was totally wankered last night, in case their wife back home reads this, after walking their dog Dakota. Suffice to say, the tut was talked, the world was put to rights, and it all ended up with us watching rude songs on YouTube, courtesy of the Socks and K*nt and the Gang (I can't even bring myself to type out the comedy version of the word).

So, straight on with the reviews, for today only rendered in bite-sized nibbles:



Breakfast with Shakespeare
Theatre I guess
No idea
Also no idea

As this was on at like ten in the morning and I had a blog to write, this was one for CJ and Herself only. It was apparently funny, with various Shakespearean characters all bumping into each other. I am told it was both funny and well acted. Plus there were croissants and coffee on offer for breakfast. Herself gives it 9/10.



Lunch with the Literati
Literature or something. Spoken word maybe
Some literary types
Some club in a quite square near the Ghllie Dhu

Never went to this. Another one for Herself and CJ, the artsy fartsy scamps. People talking about Robert Burns. Food may have been on offer. I imagine there was lots of unintelligible Burnsese spoken and great chieftains' o' puddin' clans praised. I sat outside on the steps waiting for them and munching on a stalectable day old cheese sandwich. Herself gives it 6/10.



The Hound of the Buskervilles
Musical
Walsall Dramaturge Collective
The Frooty Goose

Entertaining musical update of the classic Holmes tale, built around a walking tour of the Edinburgh streets around the Frooty Goose. The rapping dog was a particular highlight. 8/10.



Antiquithon
Theatre
Les Femmes a Barbe
Institut Francais d'Ecosse

Brilliant half-hour macabre visit to a cabinet of curiosities, tucked away on Randolph Crescent, away from the main Fringe action but well worth the walk. A dispossessed Romanian sister and brother take us through a slightly randomised selection of their grandfather's prized oddities - dwarf skeletons, mummified crocodile babies, spider-rabbits, that sort of thing. Doesn't outstay its welcome, ends brilliantly. Go. 10/10



Potted Sherlock
Kids
Dan and Jeff
Pleasance

No idea. It was cancelled due to an 'incident'. Gave us a chance to get food at the Potting Shed on Potterow though. 0/10. Well done again though to the Fringe office for the auto-refund a couple of hours later.



Alternotive a Capella
Song
Oxford Alternotives
C

Good songs, nice choreography. Some of the solo lead voices drowned out by the backing singers. I prefer it when they adapt well known pop songs to a capella (i.e. I didn't recognise some of the slower ones or the ones made popular in the last 5 years). The beat box chap was especially good. 6/10

Canterbury Tales Remixed
Comedy (I'd have said Song)
Baba Brinkman
Under Belly Cowbarn

One man plus his mate on the mixing desk retelling three of the classic tales, Eminem style. Brilliant. Reminded me of Mitch Benn's Macbeth. Education with a beat. Not so bothered about the scratchy mixy interlude, but I imagine American Brinkman needed to give his throat a rest from rapping solidly for half an hour. Bought his CD. 8/10

The Generation of Z
Theatre
Royale Productions
Assembly George Theatre (mainly the underground car park)

Fantastic interactive zombie apocalypse experience from New Zealand. Dark, spooky, firearms, body parts, swearing. Awesome performances from all the actors - grunts, zoms and civilians alike. Also splendid aerobic exercise at the end. Too many people in the audience though for the peril to feel real - too much queueing when we should have been running for our lives. I got to do a bit at one point, being on comms with the other squad, though I really wanted to go on a scavenging run with mohawked Private Moose. Awesome stuff. Go Moose! Go Frosty! Lots of fun photo ops at the end. 11/10



Lord of the Dance Settee
Comedy
Richard Herring
Assembly George Theatre

Feel good stuff from Ocelot favourite Herring. Lighter material than in previous years with no especial theme, unless you go with his suggestions of inertia vs mobility :) There are sombreros and dancing around on a settee. Mr Herring is looking fitter than he has in years. Well done to him. 8/10



Then stayed up late. So late.

Scriptics: AKA - A Foggy Day In London Town

Well, hello again. I've been having a jolly good rummage through the Pouch's back catalogue of late, fishing out a few never-before-seen (except by everyone who knows me but weren't able to run away fast enough) products of my imagination. Comic strips, nasty digs at gamers, satirical tarot cards and the like. As you do.

This seasonal harvest of creative goodies is in no way linked to my starting a new grown-up job on Monday, thus signalling the end of a fun but ultimately financially punitive year off / sabbatical / mid-life crisis / failed attempt to make a living out of making shit up. Oh no. Nothing to do with that. Not an eleventh minute of the eleventh hour, half-arsed display of what one might laughingly call a portfolio of written work in order to remind myself that while yes, I might be going back to the old nine-to-five and taking the Man's dollar (pound actually) once again, secretly I am still a writer of mildly entertaining things which the day job is just there to fund.

Speaking of mildly entertaining, remember those little TV script excerpts I splurted out a couple of years ago? Stuff like AKA: The Children of the Fields? Department X and the Iron Menagerie? The Man From 2000: The Year of the Monkey?

What do you mean, No? I'm wounded. Oh alright, I forgive you, like I always do.

Once more with the introduction then. These scriptics are one-page scripts for fictional British TV shows from the 60s and 70s, which I wrote for the splendid game 7TV. They range from Dr Who meets The Avengers to Time Tunnel meets Adam Adamant. Yeah - that wide a range. Hey, whaddaya want from me? It's an homage to cult British telly, or as I like to think of it, everything I watched between the ages of seven and thirty-two.

In the scriptic below we return once again to the supernatural adventures of that mod mage of swinging London, Adam Kismet, played (in my head) by sixties icon Simon Dee. Or more precisely in this case, we return to Adam's friend and companion (we'd have said assistant or Girl Friday back in the day) Eloise Pargeter (probably played by Paula Wilcox), as she falls afoul of sinister devil-worshipper Sir Humphrey Lomax (almost certainly played by legendary heavyweight villain actor Charles Gray).

Throughout these scenes, kindly assume a modest TV budget, low rent effects, scenery chewing character actors and a cracking Radiophonic Workshop soundtrack...

* * *

6.30 Black and White

A.K.A.

starring Simon Lee

A Foggy Day In London Town

by DON COTTON

Ms Pargeter decides that the best way to keep an eye on the enigmatic Adam Kismet is to move into the house next door. But moving day is interrupted a dense fog that blankets the city. And then people begin to disappear.

Ms Pargeter ...................... PAULA WILCOCKS

Fortnum ............................. RONALD CORBET

Mason ...................................... JOHN CLEASE

Sir Humphrey Lomax/

Magister Malleus .................CHARLES GREY

Producer PRESTON TREVOR

Director SAM PONSDALE

* * *

SCENE 18. ALLEYWAY, EXTERIOR
A London alleyway, wreathed in thick fog. Ms PARGETER, dishevelled but struggling is dragged before Sir Humphrey LOMAX by two of his burly CULTISTS. His lackey HAMILTON stands behind Lomax and whispers into his ear.

EFFECT – Smoke machine.

HAMILTON

We ought to kill her, Magister.

LOMAX

No, Hamilton, not yet… Bring her to my sanctum.

He turns toward the rear door of the club.



SCENE 19. INNER SANCTUM, INTERIOR
A richly appointed wood-panelled study, adorned with occult idols, paintings and books. A walnut desk with a leather top. A high-backed chair behind the desk. A flimsy stool before it. LOMAX is in the highbacked chair. He is wearing the full black and gold robes of a magister. Ms PARGETER is sat in the flimsy chair, bound at the wrists and ankles. HAMILTON stands by the door.

EFFECT: Darkly lit by a reading light on the desk.

LOMAX

It is useless to struggle, my dear. Those bonds are quite secure, I assure you. 

He reverently pats an old leather-bound book on the desk.

LOMAX

Do you like my inner sanctum? It was here, many months ago that I came across the Ritual of Apollyon, a ritual I intend to enact, tonight!

PARGETER

You’re mad!

LOMAX (Chuckles) 

Am I? Is it madness to question the nature of this world? To probe the fabric of reality? In another time, another place, I would have been hailed as a visionary, a sage!

PARGETER

You’d have been burnt as a witch, more like!

LOMAX

Really, Ms Pargeter, I had hoped you would understand my viewpoint. Appreciate the historic challenge I have undertaken – to make contact with Those Who Lie Beyond.

PARGETER

So that’s what you’re doing! Adam said only a fool would try something like that.

LOMAX (Splutters indignantly) 

It is Kismet who is the fool! Wasting his talents in the service of those sheep out there. With his arcane skill, his knowledge, he could have bent this world to his will long ago! But soon, with the power I will wrest from Beyond, he will bend to me, and acknowledge that Magister Malleus is his better.

She gulps.

PARGETER

He said it was impossible. Nobody would have the willpower to resist those… things you’re talking about. He said their minds are so huge, they’d overwhelm anyone who even looked at them!

LOMAX

Do you question my strength of will, Ms Pargeter? I can assure you I am more than capable of carrying out my plans. Did I not summon the choking fog that even now paralyses all of London? Is it not my will that maintains the endless corridor that your precious Adam Kismet is doomed to walk until he starves to death?

PARGETER

You lunatic! I demand you let him go!

LOMAX (Slowly shaking head) 

I hardly think so, not at this crucial juncture. But… I think you still require proof of my power, my dear. Perhaps a small demonstration will suffice to convince you. Hamilton – bring the body in!

HAMILTON opens the door. Two robed CULTISTS enter carrying the dead body of GEORGE the milkman between them. They place it on the floor by Ms PARGETER’s feet and leave. Hamilton closes the door again.

PARGETER (Tremulous) 

That’s, that’s the milkman! He’s dead!

She cannot take her eyes from the corpse of GEORGE.

LOMAX

Life, death, these are mutable states of being, dear girl.  Surely Kismet has told you that much? Now, behold the power of a true magister of the forbidden arts!

LOMAX fixes his gaze upon the corpse of GEORGE.

EFFECT: superimpose glowing eyes on LOMAX.

The corpse begins to twitch and slowly begins to rise to its feet. Ms PARGETER struggles to get out of the chair, but the bonds around her wrists and ankles are too secure. The corpse of GEORGE sways upright behind her.

MAKE UP: GEORGE the milkman. Corpse pallor, blacked out teeth, opaque contact lenses.

LOMAX smiles cruelly and he switches his gaze to Ms PARGETER. The corpse of GEORGE raises its arms to her neck. Ms PARGETER screams.

Roll Credits.

* * *

There will be many more of these, as I feel the burning need to expose my one-page wonders to you in their full majesty. Later efforts will, I assure you, feature lobster men, Nazis and Diana Dors.