The Choosatron

Very quickly - Last night I was in the Hen and Chickens in Islingtonto see "Pekka and Strangebone's Comedy Showpiece" for a third time (it's excellent by the way, if you're doing nothing tonight get yourself along) and I ran into some friends from the Wireless Theatre Company all huddled round a guy from Minnesota called Jerry. In his hands was this:

What looked like a receipt printer was in fact printing the text of a choose-your-own adventure, and the thing that looked like a calculator was actually the number pad into which you key your choices. Written in marker on the lid after the fashion of Calvin and Hobbes was the name "The Choosatron". It was Jerry's own invention and you can out more about it here. He was not short of drinks that night.

"You Are A Shark"...?!

The bloody basics

It is, of course, the most fundamental rule of story-making-up that you work out what your characters want from the outset. I say story-making-up rather than story-telling, because if somebody else has made your story up that's a lot easier to get a handle on. As John Finnemore just tweeted "They're slippery buggers, made-up people". His hero's called Martin too. But yes, that's the thing, what if you get what they want wrong?

Two weeks ago I suggested that actually, excitingly, my Martin was juggling a double wish, to be a hero and to be a scapegoat, and while I'm very happy with that as an idea, I've realised tonight it's not THE THING. I only think this worth recording because for the last two weeks I've felt, well, powerless and I've now realised it was because I'd lost all sense that I had a right to tell this person's story, and that felt terrible. It felt terrible not least because the Real World during those two weeks was pitching Sci Fi left, right and centre: Iranian space monkeys...

Excellent work as ever, people!

Russian Meteor Showers...

Shadows! Car alarms! Wheee!

The screening on BBC4 of this superb, level-headed, Wells and Kafka-quoting documentary on Google and the World Brain...

And then there was also the sad, but happily much-commented-upon passing of The Daddy Of All Martins.

But tonight I think I've remembered now what my Martin really wants, which is not to be hero, or to be dead, but simply to go back. Around that, everything else at this hour now seems to fall into place, as it did when I was first making it up however many years ago that was, when it seemed to come so naturally. It seems there, but then that's what I said a fortnight ago. Still, I am writing.

While I'm here, and continuing my sci-fi kick, I found James Burke made an excellent (and crazy) history of the world in fifty minutes back in 1989, if you're interested here.
And John's knowledge of his onions is very much to the fore in this post on cliffhangers. I should get some post-it notes.

What I saw in "The Architects"

I was walking a little oddly yesterday, because I'd just done a photoshoot for David Rosenberg promoting his latest piece, the Glen Neath-scripted Ring. (Had David tried to call it "Ring Piece"? Of course he had.) None of which really brings me to this write up of Shunt's latest show, which ended last Saturday, but the post's late enough and at least I don't have to worry now about spoilers...

I loved "The Architects". I saw it tonight (for "tonight" read January 11th) and Keeps and I got back from Venice only yesterday, so my bar for using the word "love" is pretty high. 

 It was giddily rewarding to turn up, having felt so thrown by my non-involvement in this one, and be returned to the days when shunt was just a company I followed, and to find that they are still by far my favourite makers of pretty much anything. Critically they do themselves no favours by wearing their genius round their ankles I suppose, but good, it's still there on display, if only those without a sense of humour wouldn't be so squeamish. And still thrown, of course I come away wanting to tear off the stuff I think keeps it from being perfect, but that's what fans do, and here "perfect" doesn't mean something small and achievable, it means that thing which alerts you to what it is you should be wanting, which is massive. 

 The myth of the Labyrinth was the starting point this time, and I've long thought the labyrinth is shunt's real medium (there's a quote somewhere in Ken Campell's "Violin Time" which I can't find now, about how great it would be if the National Theatre could create works backstage). But there was also an interest in the myth of the feral child that goes back to devising of  "Money", which clearly informed the depiction of the Minotaur.

 

 

 Yes, we saw a Minotaur! And we got fed to it. Or at least in the perfect show in my head we did, as soon as it was revealed to us we'd never left the labyrinth (and the hollow cow wasn't the only commission in which people get screwed). But what do you do with an audience once you've killed them? "You kissed our children goodbye" the monitors said, and I realised that having been treated to the simulation of a cruise, only now were we really being made to feel like heroes, because now we were being sent to our deaths. Except it turns out we weren't. There was still some stage fighting and aeriel stuff simulating dying to get through, but in amongst that sudden shift in vocabulary was the glorious revelation of our killer: a child with a terrifying mask that hid an even more terrifying face, who looked lost and then lobbed a brick. 

 I remember Gemma talking about the seeds of it last year. She said the Athenians would never have seen anything like Minos' palace at Knossos. Of course it seemed like a Labyrinth. She said that "bull" meant what "wolf" meant, that "minotaur" maybe simply meant "feral", that Daedalus who designed the palace said to hold the Minotaur also, less famously, designed the cow-shaped contraption said to facilitate Queen Pasiphae's impregnation by a bull in the first place. And I knew the myth, the Athenian virgins sent by boat to be sacrificed, and I left for New Zealand imagining a pamphlet found through the letterbox entitled "Why We Eat Children". 

 So I knew all this, and maybe – maybe – this gave me the edge over the rest of the audience, but really it was all there in the show, SPOILER alert and all. Having sounded that, I must admit the spoilers I read probably helped my enjoyment, if anything, since I knew enough to time what in hindsight seems the best entrance, and to find what I suspect was the best seat. In fact, I'm pretty sure the show is unspoilable. No spoiler can prepare you for that scenery. It's no insult to go on about the scenery if your medium's a labyrinth, and Lizzie Clachan's scenery here is unbeatable (and I've just got back from Venice, remember.)

Nige?

 It was so simple, although making it that simple must have been complicated (Kudos, Louise Mari). And it was funny, really funny, and when your jokes involve two hundred and fifty moving subjects, blackouts and a live band, that too must take a while to get right, longer than any critic will give you. I hear there was only a month's rehearsal this time, an altogether more affordable working method I guess, and one that produced similarly happy results over a decade ago with the Tennis Show, my first experience of working with shunt, and again a beautifully simple idea. So this seems the way forward, and that it didn't include me I find a bit worrying. But not while I moved through it. Or sat at the back, in the corner, basking in the kind of isolated fantasy landscape Chris Goode probably finds so resistible, but for whose construction I only ever feel a child-like gratitude. And here, that construction is the subject. I mean, it's called "The Architects". It's the kernel of a myth told to us – and with us – smartly, lightly, meticulously, hilariously. Is anyone else doing this? I got it and I loved it.

Right, there's a "Sightseers" review knocking round here somewhere as well...

He too woke with his head in the toilet of an inconceivably large house he must have once commissioned, with the odd rope hanging between platforms, and walls you couldn't see, "If I was a Rich Man" playing in every wing, and his very own Nightmare Room.

Not the Full Ten Bells.

Before I sleep I just found this, talking of moving premises... Some cameras came round to record the last ever day of the Dungeon at Tooley Street, which meant that my exquisitely paced Ten Bells show, carefully honed over five years in front of the public could finally be recorded for posterity before the whole thing gets moved to County Hall never to have a male landlord again. It's a dream position if your lungs are up to it, with a steady build of tension, loads of effects and relatively sound-proof. Unfortunately my previous show had to be stopped half-way through because of a fainter and I'd forgotten when the cameras came in that I'd already pressed two of the effects buttons. Have a look at this clip now and see if you can spot what want wrong...

 Well, not quite the FULL walkthrough experience

"You can stay until the weather clears up but WILL HE STRIKE AGAIN?!!!"
My favourite bit's when I start listing the suspects.
Textbook.

Is this funny?

 I mean this whole scene... I had a meeting here, in the BBC's new offices, on Tuesday, with a TV comedy executive (see lampshade). Exciting. It's called Grafton House, maybe so that writers will think it's a pub. It's where the magic happens. The first thing I noticed was all the empty picture frames on the far wall, that you can just make out above. "Hm, it's to suggest potential," proposed Gareth Edwards, whose mere attention to this project has been one of the best compliments it's received. He was along to provide some simple and attractive answers to questions such as "So, Time Spanner; let me be blunt; what's it about?" while I ran through a list of nouns and hums. I had no real answer, but here was the conclusion – the reality's in place, but the fantasy is fudged. I wanted my hero to be given superpowers but hadn't really hit upon why.

 However, I think – I hope – I've hit upon the missing ingredient last night, while milling around the sphinxes in Crystal Palace: Danger. The tradition is that the comedy schnook is only promoted because he's going to be sacrificed (Margaret Dumont's numerous elevations of Groucho, I supposem, are the exception rather than the rule) and what I like about this tradition is, it's a two-sided fantasy: there's the child's fantasy of power, but also the uglier and funnier failed adult fantasy of victimhood, a fantasy that the world wants you dead, because secretly that's actually what you want, and now your death will have some meaning. This also makes more sense of the choice of that great burnt offering Laika as a narrator. Anyhoo, I really came here just to post, firstly, this photo of the Beeb's new premises, because everyone seems to be finding new premises these days, and secondly, this page from a Star Trek colouring book signifying the creative process:

more here

 Oh, in addition to writing children's books, and producing comedies about space, comas, string theory, swans and Napoleonic gay horses, Gareth also does a blog, and it's very funny.

31/01/13. The Dungeon's Last Day at Tooley Street

 

- to let the Shard get on with turning it all into glass and sandwiches - deserves far better than these terrible photos. But what a Night. "It's going to be black tie," we were warned, "Not what you're used to. Not cheese and pineapple and karaoke." So we got ready, popped over to turn heads at Azzuro's for Happy Hour while the managers rolled out the red carpet, and returned to check our coats and find inside D.J. Sammy, cheddar and chunks all present and correct, hurray (although he didn't have "Stars" so I couldn't do my Russell Crowe). I started working at the London Dungeon ten years ago, and stayed because the actors that pass through all work like bastards and keep their dreams, and they're mad and they're fit and I get to paint myself a chin and shout at a public drawn from every class and country. And of course Shunt was right next door once. It's unlikely I'll commute to London Bridge again now, I suppose, now the freaks have been sent packing. A five-hundred year tradition of caging drunks on Tooley Street for Public Entertainment gone, gone like shots down a luge or rats up a pipe, gone like those baffling workplace maxims now finally torn from the toilet walls. Still, Go Team! Oh... they've gone.

 

 

 

 

Adventure Time

City of Thieves

Entertaining the dream of making the show "Jonah Non Grata" a viable... money... life thing I once considered rewriting in full the book which serves Jonah as a bible, and to which I had never sought the rights - Fighting Fantasy Gamebook 5: City of Thieves. Printed below is as far as I got with this. It was too wordy, too intentionally dark (I was reading a lot of Chris Ware) and Ian Livingstone's prose style, so simple and yet so completely free of poetry, seemed impossible to imitate. Or so I thought! For last month (since when Livingstone was pleasingly awarded a CBE) the great Will Maclean - writer, well-wisher, pub quiz prodigy, proper scifi-ist and penner of the phrase "the pliant mortal before the giant portal" - released just such a pastiche: The Maze of Despair, which I downloaded like a shot, and it's a joy.

A few things occurred to me while playing Will's version: Firstly, it turns out I still find the use of the second person incredibly potent; reading that I am standing in an alley remains for some reason far more thrilling than seeing it on a screen in even the most immersive computer simulation; it's a situation I feel more responsible for, more a part of. The technology is still sound, is what I'm saying.

Secondly, I was reminded of how fiddly as a child I found the question "Do you choose to attack it?" Because no, I wouldn't, but then I'm not a barbarian. But here I am a barbarian. But I'm also the hero. And in the end I would try and do the right thing, not because I hoped for success, more because I was using my avatar as a moral guinea pig. Also I wanted a story where the hero does the right thing. The rewards in Fighting Fantasy were pleasingly arbitrary though, something perhaps unprecedented in a children's bestseller. And there was nobody to tell you what to do either, nobody to trust anyway, which was also unusual in fantasy, and exciting and it felt a bit adult (and the polar opposite - if you'll excuse the pun - of Philip Pullman's drama-dampening altheiometer).

Thirdly, pictures of monsters are always great. It was this as much as anything that originally attracted me to the books as a child, and made me steer clear of their occasional forays into science fiction whose illustrations were unfailingly ugly. However, having enjoyed "Maze of Despair" so much I decided this month to pop into Barnado's and break my duck. I bought Gamebook 15: The Rings of Kether. The cover is fantastic. The artwork within you can enjoy below. Here it is then, all I once rewrote of  "The City of Thieves":

 

1
You begin to notice fearful warnings - tiny windows, bags in trees, gutters clogged with old masks, a child on fire trying to steal a car, men hugging, and everywhere hoardings advertising Umbrella Sex. You pat the pocket of your robe, checking for the presence of your knife. On reaching the city gate a tired man dressed in metal as a dog with its head on backwards blocks your path. "Excuse me sir, Sir? Sir!" he explains "What is your business in this city? Sir?" Will you:
Tell him you are looking for Quiddity Pantibin. Turn to 202.
Tell him you just came to return a book? Turn to 33.
Stab him to death? Turn to 49.

2
You remove your piercings and hurl them at the enormous snake collective. With a sulphorous hiss it withers and shrieks. Its death throes sound almost human, like the screams of a wrongfully arrested widow. What have you done? The tunnel is now clear and you can proceed further into the sewer. You're in a sewer. The tunnel ends in a brown, grill with sewage spilling out of it. You can try and remove the grill if you like. You're in a sewer, and there's sewage coming out of it. Why not? 377
If you would rather leave the sewer the way you came in, over the body of the thing you murdered, turn to 174.

"Would you like to buy a broken owl? It is industry standard."

3
Acknowledging your interest, the stallholder starts rolling his eyes and making fish-like gaping movements with his mouth. "Mup! Mup! Sir! Friend! I can bring you wonderful luck. Mup! Mup! Three euros." he explains, "A very good trick. Won't take long. Make a beautiful trick with my mouth. Mup! Mup! If you give me 3 Euros I will bring you luck with my mouth." If you wish to pay this man for his mouth trick, turn to 37. Or you can move onto the next booth, (turn to 398).


5
You pull your knife on the mongrel bitch and vault his counter, sending a smoky bowl of tat flying across the shop. He drops the plug he was changing and attempts to defend himself with a screwdriver.

MONGREL     SKILL 8     STAMINA 5

If you win, turn to 371.

 
10
The tired man has clearly had enough of everything, and assaults you. You must try and stab him to death.

TIRED MAN     SKILL 8     STAMINA 7

If kill him in six or fewer feints turn to 212. If it takes any longer to stab him to kill him, turn to 130.


14
You reach into the concrete vat and unfurl the slice of food. As the scent of anchovies hits your nostrils there is a burst of thunder and the sky above darkens. It begins to rain offal. Do you have a butcher's parasol? If you have, turn to 237. If not, turn to191.

You head north.

17
Already lost, you proceed down the narrowest of these streets, bored with your objective and generally sullen. Unfortunately, you still encounter something. It is a sad, thin man who has tied bits of chair to his arms and legs with wet felt and is sitting, head in hands, and concentrating. Do you wish to sit on this stranger? If so turn to 331. Or you can continue walking East, ignoring everything until it stops (turn to 161.)


32
Before you can escape, the forty-year-old lady throws one of her pretentious pets at your head. It lands on your neck and lays eggs in your skull, causing the loss of 4 STAMINA points and 1 SKILL point. Now she is on the phone to a murderer. If you are not dead from the eggs, you draw your knife and go to kill her (turn to 249.)

You tell the tired man that another man whom you helped to get work in a restaurant left this book with you and that there was nothing in it but that you'd like to return it all the same... 

37

You pay the stallholder. Delighted, he produces a wire coat hanger from the folds of his robe and tries to put it in his mouth. "No, I can do this," he says. But he doesn't. "Anyway, what happens is that I tie a knot in it with my tongue. Brings you luck." You say you've paid your money and are happy to wait. You tell him you can wait all day if needs be. He tries again many times. After two and a half  hours he finally manages to get the hangery bit to twist round the neck bit, a bit. As he hands you the structure it is clear from the sounds that he is making with his face that this really is the best he can manage. Add 2 LUCK points. You accept the hanger all the same and leave him to have a rest on his side, proceeding to the next booth.  (Turn to 398)


38
You get pierced, and feel sexy. The man explains that you are sexy. You feel great. Some people are laughing. You stagger out of the bar and head North (turn to 296)

The man explains that you are sexy.

39
You look through the forty-year old lady's drawings of her boyfriend, and flick the rim of your wineglass with your thumb. She has finished whatever it was she was doing now and is clearly becoming impatient for an opinion of her work. "You don't seem to understand. You don't have to like them," she says. You spill the wine. "I'm going to call the police," she says, "Stay here." Now is your chance to make a break for it (turn to 32) or you can try and kill her (turn to 249)


48
The strong smell of sewage hits your nostrils. A ladder leads down into the darkness. This clearly is a sewer. Do you want to climb into a sewer? (turn to 10). Or you can replace the manhole, and do something else, although you are not yet sure what that is, turn to 205

The car alarm no longer sounds.

75
The car alarm no longer sounds. The snow has settled. You wash the couple's blood from off your hands in some sleet, and head North (turn to 31)


153
Swinging the broken owl above your head, gobbets of phosphorous illumine the otherwise pitch-black room. It was industry standard after all! You can now make out clearly standing with its back to the far wall a nameless horror. There is absolutely nothing else of interest in the room. You head back out and up the stairs (turn to 65)


165
You can turn right down Street number Four (turn to 139), or head back and take the turning down Eleven Street (turn to 91)

You head North.

166
You throw yourself into the snake collective, both hands about your knife, jabbing furiously at the dry writhing mass in an attempt to protect your face.

SNAKE COLLECTIVE     SKILL 10     STAMINA 5

If you win turn to 272

"You head north."

211
You continue west, eating on the move. The pie is sweet and savoury in equal measure, Apple and kidney slip down your tubes, restoring 1 Stamina point to your animal constitution (turn to 307).

Its death throes are strangely human.

249
The forty year old lady defends herself with an unexpected ferocity and her thumbs.

FORTY YEAR OLD LADY     SKILL 9     STAMINA 7

If you kill her turn to 295


253
The Happy Couple are scarcely a match for your skill with a knife. You must treat them as one flesh. However for every wound that they successfully inflict upon your body deduct 4 points from your Stamina score, as their teeth break off and become dislodged in your shoulder.

HAPPY COUPLE Skill 5 Stamina 5

If you win, you may leave their home by the front door (turn to 75.)


255
You and the tired men clearly hate each other, and would do so even if you got to know each other. You have nothing in common, but they let you pass. You head north (turn to 227).

You head north.

283
You find nothing of any use on the body of the creature you have stabbed to death, and so continue North (turn to 217)

... And that's it. Will's book however is finished, and playable, and great and it's his birthday today so, once again, you can get it here.
Thanks to Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone for introducing so many children to the word "stamina". Thanks also to whatever this is for reproducing Nik Spender's "Rings of Kether" illustrations, so I could post them here. Anyone wanting more drawings of monsters because drawings of monsters are great should try this.
And finally:

The admirable Limmy. I admire Limmy.