IDV's Wonderful* Winterval Panto! (Part 1**)

* lit. full of wonder at how this travesty of cliches, assumptions, and lazy writing came into being.

** Fortunately for you, there are only two parts to this.

 

Continued from A Pink Prelude...

 

... And for that 'Grotbags' comment I can do the narrating

reclined on my fainting chaise in the wings?

For the last time: Yes!

Good.  I can't be arsed with navigating shoddily constructed scenery while flouncing about in ridiculous costumes - I've seen what's in store for Jon in wardrobe.

I just want a bit of a lie down with a drink.  Or twelve.

There's a barrel of Jameson's and a straw all set out back.

Now, if you would kindly take your place?

Script!  Where's my script?

Christ!  It's on the chaise!

Please, Very Mistress, the cast - your Infomaniac Drinking Team - and audience are getting restless.

All right.  Keep your knickers on, IDV!

Just remember who you're talking to.

Yes, Very Mistress.

Right.  The narrator is all set.  Places everyone!

Curtain up in five, four, three...

 

In a lightly thronged rural village marketplace-

 

Can half a dozen people be classified as a 'throng'?

Some of them don't even appear to be real people.  Are they cardboard cut-outs?

Of course they're made of cardboard, Very Mistress.

You know the budgets for these things are practically non-existent.

Well, we did have the budget for Savvy to appear in person here,

but she's late as usual, so that's 25 quid down the drain...

We haven't got time for that now!

Very Mistress, if you could continue narrating, please?

Oh.  Yes.  Where was I?  Ah, yes:

In a lightly thronged marketplace we find a young woman- 

Man!

Man?  Is he?  [squints]  Oh, yes, of course.

I forgot that in panto the principle boy is usually played by a female actor.

If we can get on, please?

Just before I do, the script says "a young man" - how young is that then?  20s?  30s?

I only ask because - and I'm not saying that I think she's too...

experienced for the role - isn't that Ms Scarlet?

[sigh] Yes.  It is.  Fortunately, as I'm sure you remember, Ms Scarlet is at least ten years younger here over the Cusp than her birth certificate would have you believe, thanks to that time-travel nincompoopery that occurred over her birthday earlier this year.

Now, if you please?

Of course.  Of course.  Where were we?

Oh, yes, 'thronged marketplace', 'young man':

Anyway, his name is Jack and he's here with his overbearing - and rather garishly dressed, if you ask me - mother, a Dame of some repute, to sell various mud-based artisinal products and some dubious beauty treatments made from butter...

 

The Pantomime Dame having almost

successfully extricated herself from

a liaison behind Tesco's. [via]

 "Oh, mother, no one is looking twice at my calligraphy!"

 "Well, dear, one look is enough to ascertain that the ink is actually mud and that you did it with your fingers."

 "If only someone would buy something!  Then I'd have money to buy some proper ink and nibs and do some proper calligraphy!"

 "Oh, no.  Any proceeds are going on food and the gas bill.  Essentials only, my lad - or have you forgotten how poor we are?  Speaking of essentials I also need another four-pack of Tetley's, a packet of fags, and two more Galias as I seem to have lost my comedy bosom - as well as my frock - somewhere behind the trolley bay at Tesco's.  Oh, and a night out at Polari."

 "But I don't want to go to Polari!"

 "Then it's just as well I won't be taking you.  Someone's got to stay at home and look after the cow.  Right.  The morning's nearly over and we haven't sold a thing - you'd better try hawking those butter sticks."

 

After the third potential customer in a row had slapped him around the face and stormed off following Jack's demonstration of how the 'stick-of-butter-treatment' worked, with stinging cheeks our young protagonist spied the object of his affection, the 30 to 38 year old- 

What, still?!

If I may?  IDV already looks pretty testy about the earlier hold-up.

Oh, don't worry, Witchface always looks like that.  Carry on.

 

Our young protagonist spied the object of his affection, the 30 to 38 year old one-time Miss Benidorm (2008) entering the marketplace...

Red pom-pom fascinator by

Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

Not pictured: "Nice podgy fingers" [via]

 "Jill!  Jill!"

 "Oh, fer fooksakes...  Hello, Jack.  Blimey, you're looking a bit red in the face.  Thinking salacious thoughts about me again, eh?"

 "Oh, Jill!  You're looking beautiful this morning!  Even with that red pom-pom on your head!  Are those nipple clamps new?!"

 "Yeah, I picked them up for a five finger discount at Carl's Car Parts yesterday.  They're connected to a little battery so I don't need you to try and turn me on anymore - I can do it myself."

 "A five finger discount?!  You shoplifted them, Jill?!?"

 "What?  Of course not!  I'd never steal from Carl.  No, I let him put his fing-  Uh, oh.  Here comes my father!"

Struggling with an enormous comedy moustache, Jill's father, the Baron, appeared, flanked by a retinue consisting of a singular guard/lackey/minion pushing a wheelbarrow full of empty bottles.

Hey, doesn't the Baron look like Dinah?

That's because it is Dinah.  Didn't you read the cast list?

Just shush and let her get on with it before she notices the lackey is Carmen.

 

The young(ish) couple were pushed aside by the Dame as she rounded their stall to intercept the Baron, batting her eyelashes and hoisting her phantom bosom up as she closed in...

The Baron's beautiful, bog-brush bristle moustache [via]

 "Ah, Baron!  How lovely to see you."

 "What?  Um.  Yes.  Lovely.  Is my moustache on straight?  The damn thing keeps threatening to fall off."

 "Why, yes, Baron.  And very fetching you look with it, too."

 "Don't try and butter me up - I've heard about your treatments.  I'm here for the rent.  You're three months in arrears now!"

 "Oh, Baron.  I'm sure we can come to some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement...?"

 "What?!  Oh, look, I'm sorry - I thought this was just supposed to be a cameo.  I didn't realise that I'd have more than that line about the rent and then acting stuff to do as well.  I suppose the script was updated while I wasn't paying attention.  Bloody IDV!"

 "Don't worry, Dinah.  Just make a horrified-looking face and exit stage left.  I don't think you're in the rest of part one, so you can go and relax with a drink.  Oh, I see you've already found the wine cellar?"

 "Thanks, Jon.  Right.  Come on Jill - let's go.  And you, Carmen, the bottle bin's over there - get rid of those empties!"

Back at their run-down hovel for which - because of its idyllic woodland location complete with running water (a dirty stream), expansive grounds (the Baron was too miserly to pay for an enclosing fence to keep the wildlife out), and copious supplies of rejuvenatory material (surrounded by mud) - the Baron was charging an absolute fortune in rent, Jack and his mother argued not about money, but where they were going to get some from so they could then argue about it.

Dobbin the Pantomime Horse Cow

hoping for some of the Dame's

non-dairy breakfast [via]

 "There's no choice.  We'll have to sell the horse - I mean cow."

 "MUUUH!"

 "Oh, mother, no!  Dobbin is my only friend!  Besides, what will we do for milk, and cheese, and that mud-flavoured yogurt we both detest!?  Not to mention the butter!"

 "I've made up my mind.  As the Baron, for some inexplicable reason, has not been tempted by my feminine allure, proffered his hand in marriage and whisked me off to a life of luxury, complete with a swimming pool, holidays in Spain and Amsterdam, and no need to buy another bloody lottery ticket ever again, the cow has got to go.  And when was the last time we actually made money from the 'stick-of-butter-treatment'?  The last time you did it we were sued!  Besides, its eaten all my salvias and I'm fed up with it scraping its arse across the carpet like a dog!"

 "Oh, mother!"

 "Don't you 'oh, mother' me.  Go and sell the cow!  And don't accept less than two gold pieces!"

 "MUUUH."

 

A little while later at the edge of the woods, and benefiting from some post-production dubbing, Jack and his cow wandered slowly towards the local branch of Happy Cow Fortune Joy Luck Rendering Plant™ and were about to have an unexpected encounter...

 

Unwitting future 'guests' of the Happy Cow Fortune

Joy Luck Rendering Plant™ (on the horizon, top left) [via]

 "Oh, Dobbin!  I wish I didn't have to sell you!"

 "Mööööh."

 I know!  It's just not fair!  But mother said you'd have a great time at the Happy Cow Fortune Joy Luck Rendering Plant tee emm and meet lots of new cow friends that you'll spend the rest of your life with!  Won't that be fun!? Oh, and I like your new accent, by the way!"

 "Mööööh."

 "It's a shame I won't be able to come and see you as visiting isn't allowed for some reason!"

 

Glingle  Glingle 

 

* P O O F *

Fairy Twinkletits [via]

 "Oh!  Who are you?!"

 "I'm your fairy godmother."

 "Oh, how exciting!  I didn't know I had a fairy godmother?!"

 "Well you do now, Tootes.  A little bird - backed up by the rest of the Usual Suspects - told me that you were upset about selling your cow, so I've come to make it all better."

 "You're going to grant me a wish?!"

 "Heavens, no.  I'm not that kind of fairy.  Besides, wishes never tend to turn out the way one hoped for.  No, I've come with a little advice.  Well, a suggestion, really.  And one that you ought to heed if you ever want to see your cow again.  Alive, that is, rather than in a can of cheapo dog food or tube of glue."

 "Gulp!  Okay!  What do I have to do?!"

Which is how Jack and Dobbin found themselves outside a curious little flower shop in the next village over, face to face with the proprietor, Witch Greenfingers...

Glamour shot of Dobbin to

prove he's not mangy [via]

 "Now, me dears, I'll be happy to take in your cow.  Where is it, by the way?"

 "Um.  Right here!"

 "Mööööh."

 "Oh!  That's your cow?  Really?  My spectacles must need cleaning as that looks like a horse to me.  And a particularly mangy one at that!"

 "Mööööh!"

 "Okay, okay!  Fine.  It's a cow.  Although, that's a funny looking udder."

 "I'm a funny looking cow, Bab."

 "Scheiße!  You're not supposed to talk, Hound - you're the hinterteil!  Now I'll have to try und ad-lib something: MUUUH!"

 "Oh, uh... um...  Dobbin!  What strange noises you're making!"

 "Ack!  Ptpbpt!  If you stop it from squirting milk in my face - at least I hope that's only milk - I'll give you five for it.  Bleeeurgh!"

 

Jack couldn't believe his luck.  Five gold pieces!  As much as he loved Dobbin, that much gold would change his and his mother's lives, and he held out his hand for the payment.  Into his palm the shop owner dropped five large, green and purple speckled seed pods...

 

 "Beans?!"

 "Well, of course they're not beans - Look at them!  They're Cobaea scandens seed pods - what were you expecting?  What did that fairy tell you?"

 "Um.  Well.  Gold!  I thought you were going to give me five gold pieces?!" 

 "Mwah hah hah hah hah haaa!  Gold?!  I was expecting a cow, not two men in a pantomime horse costume painted to look like a cow.  Look where expectations get you!  Anyway, gold is a mere trifle compared to what I've given you, for those are no ordinary Cobaea seeds.  They are magic Cobaeas!"

 "Magic co-beans?!  Wow!  What do they do?!  Hang on a mo, what did you mean by that 'men-in-a-horse-costume' stuff?!"

 "Merely a slip of the tongue.  Pay me no heed, young Jack.  Now, leave me in peace as I have leaves to sweep up and a Wine Time Corner to make use of while Dobbin gets settled in up at the Top Field.  Shoo!"

As you can imagine, upon his return home Jack's mother was just thrilled when he let her know of the sweet deal he got for their cow...

 "Beans?!?  You sold our cow for beans???"

 "Co-beans.  They're magic co-beans, mother!"

 "Magic, my eye!  You've been had.  You know what I'm going to do now, don't you?"

 "Juggle with them?!"

 "You stupid boy!"

 "No, mother!  Don't chuck them out!"

But that's exactly what Jack's mother did do.  The magic 'co-beans' sailed out of the window and into the mud that passed for their garden, plopping down into the ooze and sinking without a trace...

 

Intermission...