ladyblackendgame

[ladyblackendgame]

Tito Hartmann

TITO – Bring all the women to Tito. The women they love Tito.

FAÇADE

Tito Hartmann. Spanish heartthrob. One-time crooner, cabaret star, panty-magnet. At one time, all the women in the world were clawing at his crisp, crisp shirts and comfortable cardigans.

Nevertheless he turned his back on them all to be with his true love, Lady Black. Their tale has been a show-business success story, and he’s given up the bright lights of the city to enjoy the rural life out at Black End: fishing, hunting, sitting with his faithful hound as he watches the sunset. Could life be any better…

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Evangeline Black

EVANGELINE - “When I was young I said 'I want to grow up and be like my mother'. This was of course, before I realised what a contradiction in terms was.”

FAÇADE

The eldest child and the spitting image of Black, Evangeline has been kept tightly under her mother’s control, to the detriment of friends and potential suitors. After a life stuck in Black End, Evangeline has recently taken to disappearing for weeks at a time.

She had famously said that she doesn’t want anything to do with her mother, or her empire, and stays out of the public spotlight…

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Madame Flippitski

FLIPPITSKI – When Flippitski she tells people she read minds, they all think the same thing- I really should not be thinking what it is I’m thinking.

FAÇADE

BEHOLD the mysterious powers of Madame Flippitski. WITNESS the psychic prowess of this medium, clairvoyant and psychic. THRILL to the tale of how she fled the shadowy and lore-laden land of Novoya Zemlya as a child when found to be the living embodiment of Baba Yaga.

REST for a bit.

THEN FEEL the trouser-shitting terror of this strange gypsy woman, who some whisper has Lady Black under her spell, as she turns to you and uses her exotic juju to snuff out your life from afar…

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Kitty Ling Chi

FORTUNE COOKIE - “The cat catches every mouse that wants to be caught. Tip your waiter.”

FAÇADE

Roderick Black brought back a lot of things from the war: medals, stockings, five kinds of arse-shrapnel, biscuits, enough shell shock to slap the knees out from under a rhino, and Kitty.

Kitty’s a Chinese lass fleeing the communists- her family were nationalists (the non-commie side), now she’s the only one left. Carved out of gristle, sinew and spite, there is still an oriental allure around Kitty, which has not escaped Lady Black’s eye. The rascist old bird unable to understand why her son brought home a “nip” (or apparently what a “nip” is), she is prepared to suffer her as a maid, as she too hates the Communists…

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Mildred Phlegm

LADY BLACK- Not many people know Mildred, but that’s mostly because she’s so dull people keep nodding off during the introduction.

FAÇADE

Drab, dowdy, mousy, zzzz… Mildred is Lady Black’s oldest and therefore most patient friend. She frequently accompanies Lady Black but like a shadow or persistent stain, she’s rarely noted. That said, if not for her organisational prowess and dedication, the moody artiste Black would quickly fall to pieces…

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Heimlich Jones

JONES - Ya, I ist Herr Jones. Ein from Scotsland, och. Oh das bonny days as a wee lad skipping through the heather in my cultural man-skirt… [incredulous silence] JONES - Hoots mon

FACADE

Perhaps it’s just post-war paranoia, but something doesn’t seem quite right about the new Scottish footman. He spends his time innocently enough - eating sauerkraut, listening to Wagner, spewing anti-Zionist rhetoric, not understanding sarcasm-  but there’s just something off about the highland lad…

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Montgomery Plinth

LADY BLACK- more than any one else, I trust every word that comes out of Monty’s mouth.

FACADE

Bright, bubbly, mute as a post, Monty Plinth communicates solely through the bicycle horn he holds in his hand and the chalkboard he keeps around his neck.

An idle rich, with a weakness for Saville Row suits, silent movies and deaf girls, he is the agent, somehow, of Lady Black, taking care of her rights and payments and with a handy little side business in merchandising 

He seems to be fairly happy with the arrangement but really, who the fuck can tell…

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Elise Bastinado

LADY BLACK- she’s so sharp, shiny and twisted, you could use her to pull the cork out of a bottle

FAÇADE

A successful painter and nightclub owner in Zurich, Bastinado is known for her uncanny knack in finding lost paintings in estate sales and auctions and bringing them to light. She is connected to Black through their love of old masters, and she has sold her several paintings over the last few years. In fact, she has recently brought a new painting that she fancies Black will enjoy.

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Roderick Black

RODERICK- Some days you just get up on the wrong side of the bottle. The outside.

FAÇADE

Lady Black’s little boy gone away to war. So distraught was Black that she didn’t write a word in the years Rodrick was at war.

She need not have worried. Roderick came home a war hero, in both the European and Pacific theatres of war. Despite being wounded, he has acquitted himself admirably, and brought back with him a young Chinese maid, Kitty Ling Chi, who is fleeing the communists. While he enjoyed doing his bit for England against the Hun, he is delighted to finally be home in his mother’s loving embrace...

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Lawrence Thwaites

LAWRENCE – A murder mystery onstage? That will never work.  This is the theatre madam, rigid, unbending and traditional.  Those who desire change should seek their entertainment from a parking meter.

FACADE

Lawrence Thwaites -  servant of that last great bastion of real art - the country amateur repertory society. He has regularly derided Lady Black for the low art that she displays in her work. She, for her part, regularly derided his high-falutin’ ways. Perhaps her invitation to him, and his acceptance with trademark wide brimmed hat and cloak, is the first olive branch.   Could a Black play be far behind?

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Gwendolyn Choke

“I wouldn’t want to be a celebrity, there’s to many weirdos out there.”

FACADE

 “I’m just like her biggest fan, ever. Ever. Do you like her? Black. Guess what. I love her. Just love her. She’s the cat’s meow.  We’ve so much in common. You know what it’s like when you’re just watching someone sleep, and they’re sleeping and you just think wow- so much in common. No, I wasn’t in the room with her... I was looking in through a window�� standing on a trash can…Still, you can tell.”

 Segment of police report, 1938

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Norman Bumf  

BUMF - News is only something someone’s willing to sue over- everything else is advertising.

FACADE

Norman Bumf claims to be the most sued man in British journalism, and if you argue that with him he’ll say it’s because you’re a homosexual, kid-fiddling communist high on the reefer you use to quell that case of “pants measels” you picked up while discussing “Ethopian politics” with the Italian ambassador’s wife in Hitler’s Teutonic love-chateau, y’cunt.

The creator, head writer and editor in chief of the satirical rag Jammy Keyholes, Norman takes aim at the world with his inky venom, sweaty underarms and damp, bent cigarette. What he’s doing at this party is a bit a mystery, given that he’s printed some none-to-well received stuff about Black in the past…

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Ruthless Lucy Scratch

LADY BLACK -  “I’d tell Ruthless Lucy to go to hell but she’d just end up running the place.”

FACADE

Fragment of an obituary, The Times, 1966:

“If she hadn’t been in publishing, Scratch would have been locked up most of her adult life. Powered by ego, rage, rat-cunning and reportedly the blood of unbaptised children, she burned through the industry like a blow-torch. She dangled writers out of windows, bit competitors in the face, and knew ‘no’ only as that strange sound employees made before she strangled the life out of them. 

Ruthless Lucy is dead. Pray for God, gentle reader, because he’s got his hands full now.”

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Therese “Threads” Reard

THREADS – Clothes maketh the man, I maketh the clothes

FAÇADE

Younger sister of infamous designer Louis Reard, and a spot of glitter in the ball of pubic drabness pulled of the fashion plughole that is post-war Europe.

A fashion-firebrand, Threads’ Sans Khaki fashion show thrilled audiences, even if her use of surplus artillery was considered in poor taste 3 weeks after VE Day. And her Blitzkreig line wasn’t received overly well in Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and areas of the Soviet Union. However, there are whispers that her latest great creation is around the corner.

She is assumed to be one of the random glitterati Lady Black invites around to her soirees to add colour and je ne sais quoi, as the two have never been in contact before.

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Albert, Lord Innuendo

INNUENDO – Give me an entendre and make it a double. I sure could use a stiff one.

FAÇADE

Ahh, the perils of inbreeding. Years of keeping it in the family have developed an odd speech impediment in Lord Innuendo- the endless dribble of double entendres that now bare his name.

The only thing greater than his shock at learning that he’s been speaking sexually suggestive statements, is his shock that no one’s taken him up on any of them.

He has taken to isolate himself away in his resplendent manor, with his wife, the only one who cannot understand the concept.

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Lady Innuendo

L INNUENDO – Yes, and I’ll have a large… cock.

FAÇADE

God love her, she tries. Lady Innuendo (originally of the family Obtuse) doesn’t quite have her husband’s grasp of saucy insinuation. To all outward appearances a senescent bimbo, she’s always dreamed of finding a man who would marry her for her money.

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Elsa Moist

MOIST- You want home cooking, fuck off home.

FACADE

Swedish by birth, French by training, English by habitation, Elsa was an exuberant and larger-than-life figure on the Parisian culinary scene with her famous little cafe Au Grand Cochon.

Tiring of teaching rubbish Americans how to cook and wary of war on the horizon, she was only too happy to meet with Lady Black while the authoress was researching the latest novel in her never tedious nursery rhyme phase: Hokey Pokey Winkey Wum. Intrigued by her and her cooking she bought Elsa back to England, where she’s kept Black End fed with resplendent dishes. With rationing going on, all the guests are asking behind their napkins, how does she do it?