Arts and Shit >Book Reviews >Procrastination results of creatively minded students > the sleepdeprived lay-out attempts of the section editor and not much more... When Candy Parfitt offered to write something on the theme of challenging modernity she had no idea she would be challenged to use her imagination...
Recent release:
2009. A group of aged actors sit in a circle on red plastic chairs in a cold, clinically lit school hall. They are handed scripts by a young woman dressed in black, with what looked like a leather swimming cap on her head. They flip through the scripts, growing more and more indignant with each page turn. Ilona: (coming to the last page) What does it even mean? I don’t understand. Antony: I suppose that this is what the theatre’s like these days. A lot has changed since our heyday. Lisa: It has been a long time… Antony: I didn’t think it would come to this though. Virginia: Do you really expect us to climb inside stretchy cloth bags and wail maniacally? Lucy: Look, Ginny. This is a post-modern exploration of what it means to be trapped by your fast approaching death. Come on ladies and gentlemen! This is surely an issue you have to come to terms with on a daily basis. That’s why I wrote this play! That is why I cast YOU in the roles! Lisa: (sighing) I know you write this play for us Lucy, but I don’t really think that lying on the floor whilst my colleagues stroke me with pages from a smouldering bible best conveys my feelings of impending death. Ilona: I am only sixty-bloody-five for God’s sake! I don’t have a feeling that death is fast approaching at all! And even if I did, I don’t see how the so-called “erotic fondue scene” at the end will best show this to the audience… Lucy: Of course it does. The erotic fondue scene is the climactic point, both in the play, and in your character’s life, Ilona. You have to play this bit with a sort of passionate desperation so that in the end, you aren’t just making love to the tender Swiss farmhand, you are in fact, making love to death itself… Antony: But – no offence Ilona – that scene really isn’t going to be that sexy, is it? Will the schoolchildren really want to watch what is essentially an elderly woman, weeping as she has awkward sex with a yokel? Lucy: Exactly, Antony. It isn’t meant to be sexy. It is meant to be disgusting in the most erotically grotesque sense of the word. Ilona: Well, that’s just rude. And also, why does this scene take place in space? Surely it would make more sense for it to happen in a Swiss barn, what with him being a farmhand… Lucy: (getting angry) I was simply channelling and sculpting my creative flow, Ilona, and if you have a problem with that, then – Virginia: Oh don’t worry about that, Ilona. I just want to know which young hunk will be playing the farmhand! Lucy: My Russian lover, Andrey will be playing the farmhand. He is a method actor. He is currently at a nudist pottery course in the outer Hebrides, preparing for his debut. Don’t you worry Ilona, he is more than equipped for the nude scenes. Virginia: Good lord. (has a hot flush) Lisa: I really don’t think this is going to be an appropriate replacement for the Nativity, Lucy… What will the parents say? V
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The Bible. Edited by Christians.
This week I’ve been looking at a book that has apparently gained some measure of fame. You might have heard of it: it’s called the ‘Bible’. According to the blurb, it is the ‘Good Book’. I beg to differ. It’s a turgid romp, following the adventures of a man called Jesus, an insultingly obvious Christ-figure. All too often The Bible falls into the trap of becoming preachy. Also objectionable is the book’s tawdry over-reliance on sex: ‘And Judas begat Phares of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram’ If these people had begat any more, they would’ve gone blind. But what really makes the Bible unbearable is its unoriginality. For instance, in naming the first chapter ‘Genesis’, the author is blatantly trying to cash in on the success of the 70s Prog Rock band. Also, ‘Revelations’? The only thing it reveals is what the author was smoking at the time. But if all that doesn’t put you off, check out the competition below. To win a signed copy of the Bible, just answer this simple question: according to the Bible, God is a) good b) rubbish
QUICK REVIEW: Oxford English Dictionary Far too wordy.