|
|
The Frankly Rather Frightening Fairy Godmother
Cindy Cinderside was sobbing sorrowfully centre stage.
The pantomime, Cinderella, had been going so well when disaster descended upon the production - Fleur Fothergill, who was to play the Fairy Godmother, had come down with the flu and, although she had tried her best, the magical effects were somewhat downgraded by the desperate sneezing and snuffling, the moans and the groans, with with she was beset.
Garth Gringle, the show's producer, was galloping up and down the aisles, grunting and griping along with the best of them.
"How do we get Cinders to the ball if we have no Fairy Godmother?" he cried noisily.
The rest of the cast, apart from Cindy of course, were silent and shook their heads despairingly.
Through the silence though a sound could be heard in the street outside:
"hmmmm...tra la la.....deck the halls and all that....tra la la!"
They all ran out and there, trundling along, dressed in a long red coat and a bright yellow hat, his grey curls bouncing merrily and his glasses gleaming brightly on the end of his red bobbly nose was...yes you have guessed it...my friend and yours..THE STORYTELLER!
Garth glared at The Storyteller and then grinned.
"Hmm, just the right size and proportions. He can sing too. We don't have a pantomime dame either so we can kill two birds with one stone!"
He grabbed The Storyteller and hauled him heftily through the doors of the theatre.
The Storyteller blinked in astonishment and muttered:
"What the blooming heck do you think you are doing? What am I doing here? Where am I?" (the last two sentences should have been the other way around, but, hey, when did our friend do anything in the right order? As we shall find out!)
Garth explained the situation, in fact he went so far as to fall to his knees and beg!
The Storyteller looked longingly at the door, then back at Cindy still sobbing centre stage, sighed deeply, shuffled his feet a bit and said:
"Well, I could give it a go I suppose!"
The cast jumped for joy, the stage manager gave The Storyteller his script and they settled down to rehearsals.
All went well, The Storyteller tripped and trebled his way through the first two scenes, the cast were smiling and Grant was positively gamboling his way around the stage with delight.
There was a slight blip in the proceedings when The Storyteller had to try on his costume - a frothy pink strapless affair, topped with a golden crown and a fluorescent pink flashing wand - somehow his body poked out in all the wrong places and his grey, bouncy curls looked a little bizarre under the golden crown.
Out came the sellotape and a fetching strawberry blonde wig and, after a lot of pushing and shoving, squeezing and squashing he was ready for the off!
The opening night arrived and the theatre was full.
Cinderella and Buttons played their parts to perfection. The audience was spellbound. The big moment arrived, and the big moment arrived...OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE - WHERE'S THE BIG MOMENT?
The "big moment" was, at the time when he was to make his grand entrance, firmly stuck to the wing curtains and Grant was frantically trying to free him. The Storyteller had been resting gently you see, whilst awaiting his turn, and all the bits of sellotape keeping him inside the frothy pink affair had become totally stuck to the curtains.
With one huge heave, Grant unstuck The Storyteller - the ripping noise rippled around the audience but, before they could react, The Storyteller lunged onto the stage. Unfortunately, the strawberry blonde wig had nestled neatly over his eyes in the struggle to unstick himself from the curtains, he tripped over the pumpkin, smashed straight into Cinderella and they both landed in a heap in the fireplace. Button's mind was boggled as he bravely soldiered on.
Cinders and The Storyteller scrabbled and scrunched until they pulled themselves out of the fireplace (by this time the frothy pink affair was more grey than pink and bits of The Storyteller were poking out here and there - best not to think too much about that though!)
The Storyteller straightened the strawberry blonde wig, tried desperately to tuck his bits and pieces back into the frothy pink/grey affair, and waved his flashing fluorescent pink wand furiously.
"YOU SHALL GO TO THE BLOOMING BALL!" he screamed as Cinders and Buttons cowered in the corner - it was all he could remember of his lines you see.
He advanced upon the pumpkin, now squashed messily all over the stage after the initial trip, and whooshed his wand around shouting:
"I ORDER YOU TO TURN INTO A COACH!"
Unfortunately, the squashed pumpkin bits had glued up the mechanism which was to lift the coach up through the floor, thus creating a magical effect, and after some squeaking and squealing and bits of stage floor cracking and creaking, the whole thing fell apart. The centre stage was no more, it had descended into the basement below leaving Cinders, Buttons and The Storyteller clinging to the edges frozen with fear.
At this point, you will be relieved to hear, Garth took the never-before taken step of ordering the curtains to close on the devastation on stage. Unfortunately, some of the sellotape had transferred from the wing curtains to the stage curtains so quite considerable gaps were left - through which the audience had the most wonderful view of the cast and production crew hefting and hauling the three actors back onto the stage. Cinders was, by this time, hysterical and Buttons had gone into a state of shock. The Storyteller lay in a frothy pink/gray heap on the side muttering wildly to himself.
A meeting was held. Garth could hardly keep himself from grabbing The Storyteller by the gizzard and gripping him round the throat. Buttons, still in a state of shock, was waving his hands and crying:
"I wanna tell you a story...I wanna tell you a story..." - it turned out he had been brought up on Max Bygraves as a child and had regressed (ask your parents if you don't know who Max Bygraves was!)
Gradually, what Buttons was saying gave The Storyteller a glimmer of an idea.
"Look, Garth," he said gently, stepping back sharply from the claw-like fingers approaching his throat. "I think we can safely say that acting is not for me." At this point he had to retreat to the wings at a trot, since the claw-like fingers were groping wildly in the air and strange noises were coming out of Garth's mouth.
"Why don't I help out and do what I do best?" he cried from behind a rather large, sturdy, props person.
Garth stopped and listened.
"I tell stories don't I?" said The Storyteller. "I can rescue the situation by telling magical tales from near and far. I promise you it will work!"
...and it did.
It took a while for the audience to get used to the tattered and torn figure sitting on the edge of the stage, somehow a skew-whiff strawberry blonde wig and a bulging frothy pink/grey affair did not go well with their idea of a storyteller (oh, I don't know though, now I come to think of it....anyway....).
The tales The Storyteller told were magical indeed. The theatre was full of images of distant, misty mountains, dark, dank caves, stormy nights and sun-filled days, of fairies, princesses, dragons, ogres and animals who talked.
The audience went home full of dreams and fancies. Garth went home no longer grumpy but glad. The Storyteller? Well, he just went home. Just another day for him you see!