The Residents Meetings: A Radio Play

Fictional Residents Meeting – The Animals & Police Issue

The following play is inspired by the structure and content of the Balsall Heath residents meetings that are organised by the Balsall Heath Forum.

We want to offer a more radical and comical interpretation of life in Balsall Heath that highlights the potential of creative thinking by people to change the world around them. The script it only a starting point and we would like you, the actors, to feel free to ad-lib around this starting point.

(General conversation, laughter and debate rumbling in the background.)

Chair: Order, order, and quieten down please Balsall Heathens! Lets bring this meeting to order and make a start on tonight’s agenda – as usual we’ve a lot to get through.

(Groan.)

Before we start, I would like to welcome a visitor to our meeting and to Balsall Heath, here on vacation from…………Mr…..? has travelled the globe extensively and I’m very interested to see what you make of our set up here.

Tourist: Hello everyone.

(General hellos and how do you dos.)

Chair: Now the first item is RATS! These creatures are an on-going, pesky, messy, a problem across the local area for many residents. Does anyone have any ideas as to how we can tackle these blighters once and for all?!?

Resident 1: Kill ‘em and eat ‘em!

(General laughter.)

Tourist: It’s not a bad idea – eating rats is common in many countries.

Resident 2: Euughhh!

Resident 3: If you’ve got rats then what you need is a Pied Piper to get rid of them.

Chair: Does anyone know where we can hire the services of a Pied Piper?

(Mumbling.)

Resident 4: With all due respect, I don’t think you get many Pied Pipers in these parts anymore…..

Tourist: But my guidebook assured me that Pied Pipers were still a common sight in the British countryside.

Resident 1: Someone’s having you on.

Resident 3: Well maybe there is someone else who could be trained up to lead a ‘Rat Dance’ and take all of the rats out of Balsall Heath. Some community spirited individual who wants to prove their worth in society and make a difference in the world. Someone who is dedicated to improving the lot of his or her fellow man!

Resident 2: Or we could just ask our local councillors to do it.

Chair: Here, here! They are the people for the job. Now what do we need?

Resident 1: Chicken bones and old pairs of tights.

Chair: For the costumes I presume? Perfect! Anything else…..?

Resident 4: They are going to need someone with experience of dance or free movement to offer them some training.

Resident 2: A choreographer.

Chair: Yes quite. I imagine it will require many, long, arduous hours of practice to perfect a ‘Rat Dance.’

Resident 1: Let’s get in touch with old Bruce Forsythe and the Strictly team! They can help us out training up the councillors.

Chair: Great! This is just the sort of feature they will love for their prime time Saturday night crowd pleaser.

Resident 3: You know if this ‘Rat Dance’ turns out to be a success we can do a ‘Cockroach Disco’ next!

Tourist: Ahhh - a common site in the forests of Borneo. The cockroaches are lured out into the open by the hundred when hearing the funky disco beats. Then they are scooped up straight into the frying pan. Packed full of protein you know.

(Much excited chattering.)

Chair: Steady on there – one vermin busting innovation at a time please!

Now, if you are all ready, let’s move onto our next item: the Stray Cat Fur Trade.

(Much excited chattering.)

Chair: Order Heathens! Listen to this – reports have emerged that fur traders are illegally sourcing fur from Balsall Heath’s large stray cat population. Apparently, the ginger ones are going for £50 a pelt.

Resident 1: I don’t believe it!

Tourist: In Germany it is common for people to turn their dearly loved and recently deceased pets into ready to wear items. I once saw a man in a pair of Dalmatian hunting boots in the Black Forest.

Chair: That’s all well and good but the items produced from the Balsall Heath stray cat fur are being sold in boutiques in Sutton Coldfield and Harborne.

Resident 3: It’s true – I saw a man in the refrigerated section of Waitrose yesterday sporting a very fine and unmistakably tabby hat. He was buying some organic asparagus.

Resident 2: Typical! A prime example of the ‘Harborne Factor’ – our precious resources being creamed off by well to do neighbourhoods!

(General grumbles and noises of assent.)

Resident 4: We must form a task group to investigate why local people aren’t taking advantage of this lucrative business opportunity.

Resident 1: Here, here!

Resident 3: We can canvas local businesses to see if they would support a start-up fund for entrepreneurial local youngsters who want to develop a legitimate fur business.

Chair: Very good. If there is money in stray cat fur, it needs to be kept in Balsall Heath.

Resident 1: The cat lovers aren’t going to like this. There will be protests!

Chair: Please bear in mind that this is a fictional meeting. As such none of us even exist!

Resident 1: Oh yeah – sorry it’s so easy to forget in the heat of the moment.

Chair: Now then, moving swiftly on, we have another cat related item but this time it involves a case of mistaken identity. Apparently, University students are mistaking quat – Q-U-A-T, the plant chewed for it’s stimulant properties and actual cats (of the furry variety.) Subsequently, they are munching on the animals rather than the leaves leading to all sorts of problems.

Resident 2: So in their quest to get high students are getting nothing but hairballs?

Chair: Precisely.

Resident 3: Fish oil would help to dislodge those hairballs.

Tourist: In California it is common for seekers of the doors to alternative perception to lick the skin of hallucinogenic toads.

(General excited chatter.)

Chair: As fascinating as your insight is, can I ask that we please stick to one narcotic animal at a time or I might pull a whitey.

Resident 4: I think some complaints need to be lodged with the university about falling standards in student literacy.

Resident 3: Perhaps we can set up some spelling sessions for these misguided young people?

Resident 2: Or invite a local Quat house to run an open day to educate the next generation?

Chair: All good suggestions. Let’s move on to the next animal related concern in Balsall Heath: perhaps you have already heard rumours about the ‘Super’ pigeon?

Resident 1: What a mighty bird with special powers that will save the planet from the forces of evil? And it comes from Balsall Heath? This is going to transform the neighbourhood! Get on the phone to Marvel Comics – there is a multi million pound deal to be had here!

Tourist: Many cultures ascribe special powers to birds, like the mythological phoenix believed to have the power to rise from the ashes of destruction.

Chair: Well, we are talking about a pigeon, not a phoenix and this one is ‘super’ in terms of being super sized not having super powers. Apparently, it recently crashed through the roof of a house on Cheddar Road due to its weight.

Resident 3: Crickey!

Resident 2: That must be one big bird!

Resident 1: Let’s catch it, kill it and eat it! Pigeon Pie for all!

Resident 3: How has it come to be so obese?

Tourist: Many religious groups, including Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, feed pigeons for religious reasons. Many older Sikhs feed pigeons ceremoniously to honour the high priest and warrior Guru Gobind Singh who was a known friend of the pigeon. Some Sikhs feed pigeons because they believe that when they are reincarnated they will never go hungry if they have fed pigeons in their previous life. Muslims consider feeding pigeons a way to earn blessings and Hindus believe that feeding many different kinds of animals including pigeons is part of their religious obligation.

Resident 4: And one particular bird has been hoovering up all of the spiritual offerings to become so big it can make holes in roofs! It isn’t possible! It must be a mutant!

Resident 1: There might be more than one – flocks of mutant super sized pigeons poised to take over Balsall Heath – and then the world………….!

Resident 3: We need an outsize net to capture this bird and a cage to put it in.

Resident 2: Surely the Nature Centre would be interested in this beast as part of their collection of animals? That’s if NASA doesn’t get wind of it first – imagine the possibilities for space travel if you had super sized pigeons at your disposal.

Resident 4: Perhaps they are the people behind this in the first place…..or MI5…..

Tourist: This bird could be the Roswell of the West Midlands.

Chair: Enough of these conspiracy theories. We need practical solutions.

Resident 4: We can capture and house this bird quickly enough. It just seems to me there is more to this than meets the eye and perhaps we need some help in finding out what has caused the bird to get so big in the first place.

Resident 1: And if there are any more of them.

Resident 3: We need to get David Attenborough on the case. I can see the documentary now, ‘The big bird of Balsall Heath – mutant avian, extraterrestrial or feathered obesity epidemic ’ Chair: I’ll make a note of it. This kind of support from the BBC is what we are paying our license fee for after all. For now, let’s leave our animal related concerns behind for a moment and move on to the next item: police presence on the streets of Balsall Heath. Now residents have been asking for more police visibility in the area but due to increased pressure on police time and resources there is a shortage of uniformed officers. Subsequently, Balsall Heath is to be a pilot area for the latest innovation to put police presence back on our streets: inflatable police officers.

(The sound of complaining and chatter.)

Resident 1: Inflatable police! I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous.

Resident 2: I thought the super-sized pigeon was far more far fetched myself.

Resident 4: It sounds like a recipe for disaster. There will be all kinds of vandalism – malicious puncturing, over inflation to bursting point, the drawing on of moustaches and other additions with permanent marker pens……

Chair: Well, there have already been a few teething problems.

Apparently, several inflatable police officers have been stolen with reports of them being used by people to body board along the river Rea. Resident 1: Ahh, ‘Bacon Rafting’ – the new late night elicit sport.

Tourist: Once global warning really kicks in these inflatable police officers are going to be prime currency as we all try to find a way to stay afloat.

Resident 3: This new sporting activity sounds like the perfect antidote to tackle Balsall Heath’s problems with teenage obesity and early onset diabetes.

Chair: A great suggestion. I will get onto the sergeant straight away about setting up some sessions! Now our next and final item also relates to some problems the police are having, this time with something our residents group suggested - the new ‘No Dumping’ signs.

Resident 2: Do you mean our pioneering approach to the psychology of signage isn’t working?

Chair: Perhaps we should have seen this coming but our new signs with the slogan– “No Dumping: £10,000 Reward” are running up against a few

issues. Apparently, there was a queue of 500 people at Balsall Heath police station suggesting that they hadn’t dumped rubbish at several sites.

Tourist: Ahh, does a tree in a forest make a noise if it falls down and nobody is there?

(12 seconds of complete silence.)

Resident 1: What is he going on about?

Resident 2: It’s the answer to our signage problems!

Resident 4: People who want to claim their £10,000 reward have to answer the falling tree philosophical conundrum.

Resident 3: If they can figure that one out then maybe their non-dumping really did happen.

Chair: Another successful residents meeting in Balsall Heath! Now is there any other business?

Tourist: Well, now seems the time to tell you why I am here tonight………..(Long pause.)

Resident 1: Well go on then!

Tourist: I have been sent as a representative of the government in Rio De Janerio!

(Excited chatter.)

Tourist: They have heard about the carnival in Balsall Heath and want to propose that we are twinned. If you were in agreement, they would like to send 50 representatives to Balsall Heath to visit the carnival here and take home tips on how to improve their own carnival event.

Chair: We must begin preparing a welcoming committee immediately!

Resident 1: A balti samba dance along the Ladypool Road!

(Much shouting and laughter.)