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1
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Well, Brendan's attempt to unify so many massive games at once just led to a build-up of pressure in the Thalian ducts, leading to an explosion of film & crescent styles to contend with. Hence the wholesale takeover of the commentary by Characters from Under Milk Wood
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Theatrical Celebrity Commentary
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Continuing the timely revival of game 1
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First Voice: To begin at the beginning. It is summer, black moonless night as the dim, dark villagers scuttle in their coal-dark hovels this June 26th, the blue lilting lapping sea plashes across the tied-up trawlers, hauling the souls of four-fifty men each night from dark to dusk. The village between the wooded hill and the wine-dark sea settles into its nightly routine, bothered by unquiet thoughts of games beyond their ken
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2
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Meediam Syze: [Aside] Tis Graziela! I remember that name from when I was but a babe in arms! It was prophesied a witch of that name would help me in my hour of greatest need!
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Boleti: Now, Majesty, tis time to fulfil the age-old prophecy!
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King Syze: Never! The centuries-old tale that I would some day make the ultimate sacrifice? It's absolute balderdash! Why, I'm a Liberal Unionist! Other people make sacrifices for us! It is the way of the world
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Graziela: There was an age-old prophecy in my land, Highness, but that wasn't it. All the citizens knew it. Because I enchanted it into their minds
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Meediam: I know a prophecy too...
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Graziela: It went like this...
All four stand in a line. During the song they weave amongst each other and swap places continually
Graziela:
As I recall,
When I was small
A sorceress
With velvet dress
Came to my side
And prophesied
In twenty years
She'd lift a curse
That 'til then spanned
The breadth of this land
The legacy
Of the king-to-be...
King Syze.......
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King Syze:
'Twas long ago
My little bro
E. Conomy Syze
The Worldy-Wise
Told me the tale
Of how I'd fail
To lead this state
From the cruel hand of fate.
His reason was:
"'Twill be because
My good deeds lack
The ultimate sac-
Rifice"...
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Meediam:
The magic spell
I know it well
It's haunted me
Since I was three
I fear the King
Is weakening
And less than bold
For it was foretold
That we'd be saved
By someone depraved,
A force for good
But a woman he would
Despise...
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Boleti:
Throughout my days
The verbal phrase
"A marriage will save
The Kingdom" gave
Me cause for fear
As courtier
To my sovran head
Who'd ne'er be wed.
'Twould clear the air
In the gusts of their
Confetti shower
Or else we'd say our
Goodbyes...
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[All, to each other]: I never heard that! Goodness me! Well here's a how-de-do!
We've all heard something different - but I quite agree with you!
A marriage must take place, it's plain, but who shall take the bride?
We're doomed to lives of ruin if the omen's misapplied!
[Repeat twice, getting faster each time] -
Azulejo: So that's clear then, we must have a wedding post-haste. Any ideas who?
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King Syze: There's wisdom yet in the Oracle, if we can but translate its meaning...
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Graziela: Simple! We must all be true to ourselves, follow our own destiny and understand one another's feelings!
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Boleti: Great wisdom indeed. Were you visited by a spirit guide from the heavens for such a reading?
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Graziela: No, I just read my horoscope this morning.
[Chorus starts drifting on aimlessly] -
King Syze: But - does this mean I have to marry a witch to gain freedom for my country?
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Meediam: Yes, and I'm going to have to marry - the Lutenist!
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Lutenist: Hurrah! And I've composed a song all ready for the occasion! It goes like this...
The marriage bed awaits, the curse is dead [Chorus: "Curse is dead!"]
The brides and grooms are waiting to be wed [Chorus: "To be wed!"]
The witch and king, his girl, the lutenist [Chorus: "Lutenist!"; lutenist mugs at audience]
Can't hardly wait - come on, let's just get kissed! [Chorus: "Yikes!"; mumble amongst each other]
With Azulejo and his man, Boleti
To orchestrate the showers of confetti
Massiva Syze to usher - bride or groom? -
We've saved this land from everlasting doom! -
Chorus: "We've saved this land from everlasting doom!
At least, so we must assume
Now the King doth dare presume
To believe the viper whom
We saw atop a broom
In black and red costume
Amid the midnight gloom!
Hurrah!!!!!
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Gilbert & Sullivan
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as requested, a spin-off from Euripdes
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Organ Morgan: Praise the Lord, we are a musical nation! Oh Bach fach, Bach every time for me, and then Palestrina, unless Polly Garter's singing at the Sailors Arms, which are always open for young Polly...
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3
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Michael Jackson when he got busted in his hotel room. (But hey, Busted were pretty embarrassed too)
How do you worry a flock of sheep?
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Tasteless Spanklines
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| unifying 3&7
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Mrs Organ Morgan: You haven't heard a word I've been saying, have you Morgan? It's organ organ all the time with you... [bursts into a midden of salty howling, spearing a doorstep of lamb and mint sauce and burying it whole]
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4
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Meediam: O spiteful witch, breath of the infernal Erinyes,
Know you not that aegis-bearing Zeus sees all
And metes out ruthless punishment by means of... -
Graziela: The Erinyes? Yes I know, young mistress Meediam
I have the promethean gift, the gift of far sight
Which tells me of the Delphic prophecy, received
Not long ago - the cantanonian text
Baffles all sons and daughters of this castle
Is this not so? -
King Syze: You speak the truth at least
Your pact with the shades of Hades serves you well
Now Standates, seize the malevolent aged crone! -
Standates: No! Let them see the mysterious Oracle first
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Lutenist: We must look for the bare necessities
Concealed within this text. Then rest at ease
(And thank our secret agent Standates) -
Graziela: The Oracle envisions what's to come.
The King, most powerful in all the land
Must leave this place and steam away from here
To rid the land of the curse that blights it now
And Meediam must rule it in his stead
To pacify the wrath of great Apollo.
Enter Apollo in a gigantic flaming chariot
Apollo: Yes that's right. Aaaargh!! Get me out of here! Nyuuuurghh!!! Ow ow owww! [rides offstage] -
King Syze: O great and mighty Apollo, sun-maker, tamer of... oh he's gone
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Meediam: But I must be married before I can rule as Queen
For salic law still pervades this city-state -
Lutenist: That would be easily rectified
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Graziela: And I
Shall marry, oh let's say, Azulejo[Enter Chorus, banging tambourines and waving flowers]
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Euripedes
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Continuing the Euripedean section of 2
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Gossamer Beynon: At last, my love! What else to do, standing in the wine-dark slaughterhouse, but dream of the cloudy future, waist-deep in entrails and chicken hearts? Long, long time to long for loose-limbed lovers, wasting away in the prison cage of Llaregyb [sighs like an aged cat]
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5
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- Yaaargh! Is it the pig?
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Reverse Squeak Piggy Squeak!
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New furcation
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Mr Waldo: In Pembroke City ere I was big/ My work was poor and meek/ I had to climb on top of a pig/ And force it then to squeak/ And when it squoke the other boys/ All tried to guess if I/ Would guess who, by the horrible noise,/ Had stuck his thumb in its eye
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6
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King Syze: Whoss your game! Get that bastard bear out my bastard castle!
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Meediam: Gerrit yersen then! I'm pregnant aren't I! I could eat a scabby orse!
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Peugeot: Bloody ell grandad, it's rippin up yer paper!
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King Syze: Bloody paper. Have to go down and get some more. From Sidcup
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Graziela: It's the fly what's drivin it mad. Open a window someone
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King Syze: Whatchoo doin ere anyway ye daft bint? Got one girl up the duff, now you're goin to tell me you're married or summin?
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Graziela: Yer! Thassit! I'm married to, um, Peugeot!
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Peugeot: Yeah!
Pause -
King Syze: You must be pissed [reads paper]
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Pinter
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Pinterian section of 2
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Sinbad Sailors: Here's to me, Sinbad, resting his sea-weary legs in the Sailors Arms, the clock stopped at half-past eleven, the cock stopped from crowing by Gossamer Beynon. Thinking of flies attacking bears attacking people down in England where these things happen as all the fishermen say. Time I had a jar
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7
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This is a concept of breathtaking simplicity, so what happens is this. Imagine you're in a car travelling at the speed of light, and out of the window you see a footballer
breaking the offside rule because the Higgs Boson is between him and the opposing team's goal. Well, obviously you'd slam on the brakes, which in this case can be referred
to as Tune 1(a), the car representing Song 1 in its entirety. Then, and this is the clever bit...
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Describing One Song to the Tune of Another
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New furcation
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Captain Cat: My blind eyes look out on a scene of confusion and fright, but never such confusion and fright as the floods that swamped the decks of the SS Kidwelly, the roaring seas that robbed and dismasted me, stole away young Jonah Jarvis, Curly Bevan, and Alfred Pomeroy Jones...
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8
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Ionesco
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Bastard offspring of Pinter
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Mary Ann Sailors: Call me Dolores like they do in the stories. Seems everyone gets married but me, I care for sailors up in my room but I can't pin em down like old Rosie Probert. 34 Duck Lane in the spring of my old age. Come on up boys, I'm dead
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9
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Row, paddle, scull your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily happily jovially laughingly
Life is but a dream
I dreamt a hallucination of two fine mousies,
Tall they were and true
Both of them lived in one of thine stately housies
In jackets of blue and braided trousers
And glad as gleeful as ever a rodent is
Though there were only a couple, a duo,
Although merely a brace existed
Cut water, pull, run rapids in thy craft
Softly along the brook
Gaily amusingly blithely mirthfully
Being alive is nothing more than a reverie
Nevertheless, a single mus musculus said, "Let's leave these shores
Shall you and I not sail away dear please,
This shoe will do, if us lads hold the oars
And propel it from here with our delicate paws
Me and thee will drive it across the mahogany floors
Till the Stilton cheese, the fromage, is ours
Until the dairy product of that region is found
Punt, stir the waters, attack the waves with the vessel belonging to yourself,
Insouciantly through the thin river,
Cheerfully, unconcernedly, buoyantly, effervescently
Living be such a phantasm!
Those creatures drove and pulled without a care
Unfortunately didn't look where themselves were going
Well, the listener may ask how he or she would fare
Travelling backwards carelessly
When aforementioned hearer came to the top of the stair
Hey, over the staircase the Muridae went
Round the peak of the riser the proverbially quiet fauna fell
Bing, bang, bongle, bump
Heavily to the bottom of the flight,
Bingledy, bangledy, bongledy, bumpety
To the foot of the apples and pears
The tiny mammals picked up their bodies from the awful fall
And dusted off the knees belonging to their own persons
Then progressing out of the hall by the kitchen wall
The rodentiae schoonered their skiff and called, loudly enough to be heard by humans,
At least if the Hesperomys hadn't been quite so small
"In what place is the Cambridgeshire curdled milk fat, the acidified cow extract?
Whereabouts can be the erstwhile Huntingdonshire specialist produce?"
Heave, drag, draw the canoe belonging to the second person grammatically
On the canteen ground
Wriggly wruggly into the tunnely
Under the larder door
The traditional laboratory experiments searched the dishes and tried to spot em,
"Find me a nice bit if you'd be so kind!"
Twas slippery in the pantry but the house-pests had forgotten
The hole-dwellers tripped and slipped in something rotten
And covered their entire beings from head to toe
With stinking East Anglian acerbated lactic curd, fermented milk containing red surface bacteria,
Revolting rennet-assisted congealed glycerol ester of the type which rhymes with Hilton
Close, shut, stop one's nose,
what a dreadful pong!
Pickily, pockily, pickily, pockily
Isn't it a foul song!
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Just a Minim meets Bagpuss
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Portions of 5 meet an all-new nostalgic feline
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Ocky Milkman: Pouring out the gallons of curdified milk into the river Stream, think of the mice chewing poor old Mrs Cherry Owen's sheets to ribbons, where's that pink tortoiseshell cat got to, saw it lapping up the guts outside Butcher Beynon's one evening, never seen him since
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10
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Orton
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Ortonesque continuation of 2
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Rosie Probert: What man did you see / Tom Cat, Tom Cat / When you looked at the King / Long long ago? / What manner was he / Tom Cat, Tom Cat / Was he able to sing / With lute and bow? / Was he small as a pea / Tom Cat, Tom Cat / Did he marry a queen / Or don't you know?
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11
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And the next word is *DING* - Bollocks. Three definitions, only one of which is correct...
[1.] Come with me if you will to the 17th century, when the cotton industry was in its infancy. Whole communities grew up and died depending on the yearly cotton crop,
and superstitions were rife thoughout those villages. Often nothing could be gleaned from a whole field but a few useless strands, and the culprit was universally claimed to
be the boll weevil - in fact the strands he left behind were taken to be his hairs. Hence the expression "we haven't got
any cotton mate, all we've got is a load of boll-locks."
[2.] Curiously, an American term adopted by English soldiers during the Revolution. They were given the task of imposing curfew within their captured territories to
prevent the formation of militias, and were obliged to clear the parks, lock up the theatres and close the pubs. They did this last of all, as the villagers' billards matches, darts
tournaments etc. could go on for ever, and they always got violent if they were broken up already. Which gave rise to the expression - "close all the theatres etc. but never mind the bar-larks"
[3.] Early in the 20th century, Hilaire Belloc teamed up with Jackson Pollock to paint pictures of bullocks, and one or two molluscs. Along with little-known Austrian painter Paul Ochs,
they played cricket with wooden balls, known as Bowl-Oaks, which led to the extinction of the Giant Auk - the last were called Ball-Auks. When these events were first reported, someone said
"Oi! What a load of bollocks!" and the name stuck, mainly because there isn't a punchline
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Call My Bluff
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New furcation meets game 8
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Jack Black: Ach y fi! Ach y fi! Oh I dream of picking the boll weevils out the cotton rows with Myfanwy Price at my side, then chasing her through the gooseberried double bed of the wood, dragging mw from the spitpenny hops of my nightmares...
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12
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Ibsen
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Sprung like a wild duck from the loins of Orton
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Bessie Bighead: I am a footnote to the great irony of life, born in a pauper's grave, milking the cows with brown, oaky hands, burning old muxical instruments to keep myself from death each night, waiting, waiting for the Reverend Eli Jenkins to notice me one night at the back of the pew, where I have a blanket and Bible out ready for him
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13
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[Brendan] 3 words out of 4 right, very good! (This was much easier when I set it last year - you just need a synonym for "children" really). Is yours "Shaun of the Dead"?
[Tuj] I thought Reloaded sucked, but then I wasn't too impressed with the first film either. Revolutions is a complete waste of time all round. If you want a good war film, go see Troy while it's still here. (And I know matt's likely to play next...)
TV, 4 words
[Purser's office, on a slow boat to China]-
Purser: Yes sir, can I help you?
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Passenger: Well I hope so, I simply have to know. Why does a ship carry cargo but a car doesn't carry shipgo? How can you get up the creek without a paddle if you need a paddle to get there?
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Did Schrodinger's cat have 18 half lives? Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard? Is there another word for Thesaurus?
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Purser: Anything specifically about the voyage, sir?
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Passenger: Yeah! I just shot an Albatross, does that make it an Albat Memorial? Do fish get thirsty? What possessed you to show Titanic as the movie last night? If a seagull swims over the bay, is it a bagel? Why is there a massive hole in the bottom of the ship?
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Purser: I'll have to look into it
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Passenger: If a synchronised swimmer drowns, do the rest of them have to drown? Can a cross-eyed dyslexic read? What if there were no hypothetical situations?
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Purser: Wait - I do believe we're coming up to your stop. Yes, there it is, right out of the window. Hooray. Leave me alone. Get lost
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Passenger: What, you mean, this is... ?
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Stupid questions, but sound charades
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Continuation of 13 and 9
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Mrs Pugh: What's that you're reading Mr Pugh? Are you reading at table again? Is that not what a pig does? Are you a pig Mr Pugh? Did you know Willy Nilly brought you a parcel this morning? Was it a trough? Will you go to Heaven if you read at table Mr Pugh?
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14
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- Kirsty Wark: Lady Thick, I assume you were disappointed with the sound charade?
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Lady Thick: Merciful hobgoblins on me, Mistress Wark, I was utterly laminated by the intermediary quintessence of it!
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Poor John Lovelie: Notwithstanding the supreme extravagance with which the author penned the divertissement, 'twas edification itself to scrutinise the confabulation between passenger and purser
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Kirsty Wark: So, a seal of approval from this side, but let's go over to our senior dramatic critic...
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King Syze: Odds my life egad! Grotesque immorality, a convocation of dissemblers, rogues and perjurers, destitute of propriety, filled with calumny, I mean dash it!
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Poor John Lovelie: A plague upon your sentiments, Majesty, I submit this unwarranted attack is merely on account of this contributor's aspirations to marry your daughter Meediam!
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King Syze: Odds fish! Your intentions towards my daughter are as your efforts to play Mornington Crescent - spirited, cunning, and wholly without success!
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Lady Thick: Cor lummee, this is a tagliatelli dimetrodon!
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Kirsty Wark: And now a look at tomorrow's front pages, The Sun has "Princess Meediam: I will never marry John Lovelie as long as I live", the Mirror leads with "John Lovelie is the worst person I've ever set eyes on - Meediam" and the Star's gone for "I wouldn't marry John Lovelie if he were the last man on earth"
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Poor John Lovelie: Oh buggeration!
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King Syze: Zounds!
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Sheridanian Review of Sound Charades
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Dash of 2, squeeze of 5
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Mr Pugh: I will go to Heaven Mrs Pugh, as I'm reading the Lives of the Great Saints. I will shortly be adding my name to the book, as I intend to slaughter Tom Paulin with a meat cleaver. I would do the same to Mark Lawson but he's cameoing in some other game at present. And pigs can't read, my dear
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