Wednesday 22 November 2017

Mommeh-Sheh-Mommeh

FOLK TALE
Witch - Blacksmith - Giant

The Coach House, University of Leeds
22 November 2017

This is the story of a witch, aged about 22 to 30, called Medicor. She's a witch that doubts herself like Gollum; she doubts whether she has a good or bad character. She has two voices - a good voice and a bad voice.

The story begins one Sunday afternoon in Autumn at three in the afternoon, as Medicor is making potions in her cottage, a small, one-room cottage in the middle of a forest-jungle.

The weather is gloomy, rainy and stormy.

Medicor is making love potions, using the incantation 'Mommeh-Sheh-Mommeh'. She is making them out of jealousy and greed, and because she hasn't found love yet. She is jealous because someone took her centuries-old book of magic, and she is greedy for love.

As the story begins, there is a big flash from the cauldron she has been making the potions in, using frogs. Medicor gives an evil cackle, as something grim, spooky and ugly appears from the cauldron. It is grim and spooky because it is looming from the cauldron - a small creature that could be her spy. It is the shape of a round frog, green in colour with pink spots.

Medicor feels relieved and joyous, as she lifts up the frog creature from the cauldron. The magic frog says 'Mommeh-Sheh-Mommeh', and the witch replies, 'Mommeh-Sheh-Mommeh. My love, you will do my bidding.'

*Meanwhile, our blacksmith is a 17-year-old teenager called Jack, who is learning about being a blacksmith from his father. He is walking down the street called Brookland Avenue in a town called Old Birmingham, a dusty place just outside the forest-jungle in which Medicor lives.

Someone left a book on his doorstep a week ago, unaware that it is the magic book that was stolen from Medicor.

The magic frog creature uses its swivelling eyes to see everything in and around the forest-jungle, and sees that Jack has the magic book in his bag. Medicor can see what the frog creature sees through her cauldron.

When Medicor sees the book, she screams and she wants to know where he is going. He is on the way to work at the family smithy. Medicor gets the frog to summon up the book: they chant 'Mommeh-Sheh-Mommeh' together and the book starts shaking. Jack realises that something is following him - it is the frog creature, which was transported from the cottage - and begins to run towards the family smithy.

The book jumps out of the bag and Jack catches it. The frog creature then jumps on Jack, who then smacks it off his shoulder while trying to hide the book under his cap. The frog creature is injured, all of its legs are broken, so it says 'Mommeh-Sheh-Mommeh' and is returned to the cottage.

The weather is brightening a little.

**At the same time, in another city near the forest called Duklon City, is a giant called Mommeh. He was conceived 400 years ago, born 300 years ago, and became an adult six years ago. He is quite big for a giant, 10 metres tall.

Mommeh is in a swimming pool, sunbathing, when he hears the 'Mommeh-Sheh-Mommeh' chanting from the cottage and thinks that his name is being called. He is very clever and can turn himself into the shape of the witch and make himself invisible.

It was the giant who stole Medicor's book of magic because he was in love with the witch and wanted to get her attention. He left it on Jack's doorstep because he was shy.

When he hears his name, Mommeh's heart is pumping, and he jumps straight out of the swimming pool. He travels the distance to the cottage in one twinkle-toe step. The witch is confused when she sees Mommeh as she can only see his knees, but then she looks up at his face and thinks it is beautiful. She has never seen him before, but he knows her from saying 'Hiya' to her in the forest and then from the book of magic.

Mommeh tells her that he can help her find the book of magic. Medicor replies, 'I will marry you on the condition that I don't have to give birth to any giant babies'. Mommeh says that he will make a potion and agrees to marry her.

The sun shines at the end of the story.


Monday 30 October 2017

The Frozen Best Friend

THE DOOR
18 October 2017
The Coach House, Hilary Place, University of Leeds

Dom (questioing and acting)

This is the story of a woman in her twenties called Julia.

It begins at the end of summer and the beginning of Autumn on a Friday at 10am.

Julia is on her way to work at Trinity, which is a hospital in a village called Leeds, which is between the town and the countryside. She is travelling by bus and is still 20 minutes away from work, having only just left her house. The bus is on the main road to Leeds. Julia works in the hospital as a nurse.

The weather is windy, rainy and sunny.

As the story of The Door begins, Julia is reading a book and listening to music on her phone with her headphones. She has Alice in Wonderland on her Kindle and the music is on iPlayer. She does not notice, but underneath her feet on the floor of the bus, there is a small door, big enough for her body to fit through, wooden, round and red.

Julia hears some whispering voices and at that moment, the door opens and she falls down. The wind is blowing outside the bus. The first thing that happens is that she thinks ‘I am going to die!’ because she is worried that she has fallen under the bus. However, she somehow realises that she is now in another time and place, because there is now a totally different atmosphere.

It is completely dark there, except for a yellow torchlight, which she thinks is close by, but is actually far away. She decides to run towards the light because there is nothing else there, but after an hour, she is tired and she stops.

The moment she stops, she realises that there is another door on the right. Even though she cannot see it, she realises it is a huge stone door, because she can hear someone knocking.

*She tries to open the door because it is the only accessible way, and as it’s an automatic door, it takes her two minutes and a further ten minutes to push the door open. She finds herself in the office of the hospital where she works. She decides that she must go and tell her best friend what has happened.

Her best friend is in the Psychology Department, a person called Peter-Nick, who was frozen at the age of 13, 17 years earlier. Julia became best friends with him over the last year because she was lonely and talks to him. He was taken to the Psychology Department so that experiments could be conducted on him to find out, when he wakes up, whether he has the mind of a 13-year-old or a 30-year-old.

However, Peter-Nick is now missing. Instead, Julia finds a black hole in the mirror of the unisex washroom, a hole about the size of an adult handspan, which she finds out about because there is black smoke coming out of it and a very deep, desperate voice is calling out ‘Save me!’ Even though Peter-Nick has been frozen the whole time Julia has known him, she recognises his voice from her dreams.

Julia decides she needs to stop the smoke coming from the hole because it smells bad, like gasoline, so she puts her hand up to the hole. But the hole grows instead, now a couple of feet in diameter, and a frozen, green hand about the size of Dom’s hand pulls her into the whole. It is Peter-Nick’s hand.
Outside, there is sunshine and lightning.

**Peter-Nick is there on the other side of the black hole. Julia finds herself in Frozen, and she has become Anna from Frozen. Peter-Nick has recovered from being frozen, and he now has the appearance of Julia. She is frozen and green, like Peter-Nick was.

As the story ends, Peter-Nick goes off to find other people to freeze, so they can swap places with Julia. Julia becomes queen, but remains frozen.


The sun shines and it is snowing.

'The Rainbow Monster of Margaret Thatcher Park'

HORROR STORY (no cards)
(For Dom’s 45th birthday)

21 October 2017
Harehills Lane Baptist Church Hall, Leeds
Mick (questioning), Dom (first acting), Fay (second acting)

This is the story of a rainbow monster, a female rainbow monster, who is a monster because she shoots poisonous rainbows. She is orange with prickles on her back, and sparkly. She is 45 years old, which is middle-aged.

It is Spring on a Thursday at midnight.

The monster is in the park in a town called Grantham – the park is called Margaret Thatcher Park. She is there stealing handbags from younger women. She needs the nail varnish in their bags, so that she can drink it to change into the other rainbow colours. The woman are there for the Rainbow Festival, and Mumford & Sons are playing, a 25-piece rock band. The monster has been stealing handbags for two hours.

It is raining.

The story begins when the monster decides to pick some flowers, but when she does this, there is an earthquake and the rain turns into a hurricane. The monster tries to put the flowers back in, but that only makes the hurricane worse. She is upset and crying, but all the women at the festival are laughing, because everything has turned orange.

At that moment, capitalism falls.

When capitalism falls, everyone sneezes and there is infinite happiness, the Proleteriat are free, Brexit collapses – and Starbucks also collapses. The Starbucks coffeeshops are replaced with libraries.
Meanwhile, the monster is so upset that she involuntarily shoots out loads of poisonous rainbows – and these destroy the whole world. The monster then posts on Facebook, with the words, ‘Sorry for the world. LOL.’ She was able to use Facebook, despite the world being destroyed, because her rainbows also charged up some satellites.

The monster decides to get a seed from Jupiter, which she feeds with Moon juice, and grows a new Earth.


At the end of the story, the monster dies because her rainbows have all gone. And the Earth is repopulated with Margaret Thatchers. It is raining men.