Behind that stage at dawn

The Riddled Amateur Dramatic Society's plan to stage Beckett's Happy Days has been stymied by the barstaff, who were concerned about the scene where Winnie's umbrella bursts into flame. They cited the rigid health and safety regulations* and would not relent even when we showed them our emergency fire plan. Also the scene might be construed as a clarion call to action about Global Warning, and under Clause 17 b(ii) of the Hoteliers and Publicans Act of 1957 their license does not allow them to house theatrical productions of a controversial or political nature -- especially if clarions are involved -- which is a bugger and a half.

Memo to self: Check with tigris what a clarion is.

A quick poll of the Riddled readership about possible substitutes revealed a preference for bedroom farce. Many of you cannot pronounce stuff properly and the word actually used was 'fark', but that is not our problem. Anyway, we have decided to put on a revival of O. G. Feydhouse's classic farce "Point The Icy Plunger".

Here in Scene IIII of Act 2, Alphonse returns ruefully to his bedchamber after the hallway broom-closet (where he thought he had an assignation with the pulchritudinous Davina) in fact turned out to contain Mrs Cat. Had he been paying more attention during Act 1 he would have realised that the hallway contains more than one broom. In his absence, his bed has been occupied by Cuthbert (wearing a false beard and posing as Abdul al-Hazmat, itinerant pedlar of unspeakable secrets, in order to avoid his tafl gambling debts) who believes it to be the room of Widow Flange, heiress to the Flange sheep-scunning fortune.

This is a family production but rest assured that while we were revising the script for presentability, we left in as much as we could of the comic misapprehensions about each other's 'icy plonger'. We have also shifted the action from a chateau in the Loire Valley to a Wairarapa shearing quarters.

* Imposed on pub-based theatre in 1968 during the public outcry after 8 people drowned during a disastrous production of Dunsany's The Queen's Enemies.