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wintersoulwitch · 16 days ago

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Stage/Fright report

Spoilers spoilers spoilers

Here are my observations and impressions and as many details as I can remember after my first viewing of Stage/Fright. All written up while waiting for my train home, so pardon any inconsistent grammar etc etc

Right holy shit that was so For The Fans it’s not even funny - yet also entertaining enough for people who had never watched the show which is a hard balance to pull off (but if anyone can rise to a challenge like that, it’s Pembersmith)

First of all I was so chuffed that they started with material from the ‘theatre audience’ unfilmed episode (whoo, one of my predictions!) And the fact that it was Hamlet - nice TLOG nod.

Reece and Steve both looked amazing in this first section. Reece didn’t have a wig and was in an unfussy shirt/jumper/blazer combo. I was in the front row so I was taking the opportunity to soak it up.

And Steve looked great as well! Like, I personally think Steve’s best IN9 looks are Sphinx & Trolley Problem so what I’m saying is: Silver Fox. And in this section he has a thick white wig and a blue jacket that sets off his colouring very nicely indeed.

The story was great - some classic Pembersmith comedy dialogue with malapropisms (“I don’t want him to have a prophylactic shock”) and the whole Reece-as-uptight-Englishman-growing-increasingly-irate-at-ill-mannered-people-around-him

(Also, descriptions of the two actors on stage: “One of them’s rather pudgy, like Uncle Gerald. The other one looks like a homosexual” 🤔)

Steve was so funny as a loud, boorish businessman talking on the phone, texting and using his laptop during the play. There was a nice visual gag where Steve was using speech-to-text and the text messages were projected on a mesh at the front of the stage, but everything was mangled eg “Hope that’s OK” being rendered as “Ho that’s so gay.”

And then - murder!

Reece goes on a little murder spree - poisoning an old man with peanuts (his deathly allergy having already been seeded), pouring water over Steve’s laptop charger so he’s electrocuted, and smashing a noisy woman round the head with a metal canteen.

The sketch ends with Reece saying “Ladies and gentlemen may I remind you you’re in a theatre - no coughing, no eating and no mobile phones.”

Omg the violinists! There were live violinists playing an extended version of the IN9 theme song - each standing in a box either side of the stage. They were dramatically lit so that they cast long shadows which melded with shadows and dust projected onto the stage curtain.

After that, Reece and Steve came to the front of the stage as themselves and welcomed us to the show with some banter

Reece: The beautiful Wyndham’s Theatre which we believe is haunted

Steve: Well - YOU believe it’s haunted. I think it’s bollocks.

Ok so we set up the tension of Team Believer vs Team Skeptic. Reece explains that the scene we’ve just watched was a true story. During a production of Hamlet the theatregoer Mr Dowling had been taken over by ‘a strange presence.’

Steve: He then ran into the grand circle and tried to toss himself off. Another thing which is forbidden by the theatre management

(Ushers hold up “no masturbating” signs)

Steve says that grief can do funny things to the brain and make you see things that aren’t there…

Reece talks about ‘la Terreur de l’asile’ Terror at the Asylum. The lead actress was accidentally killed on stage, and her ghost - Bloody Belle - haunts the stage and so Wyndham’s is a cursed theatre, where terrible people things happen.

Steve: And anyone who saw Kenneth Branagh’s King Lear here a couple of years ago will know exactly what we mean.

They introduce ‘the ghost light’ - which you keep on stage when the theatre is empty. Either to appease the spirits or to keep them away.

Steve suggests that maybe Mr Dowling saw his late wife’s ghost on stage instead of Hamlet’s father. “For what is a ghost but a memory? A way of keeping a loved one’s memory alive? Maybe every ghost story is really just a love story.”

Reece then tries to sneak off stage for a costume change, Steve was supposed to have ‘written something funny’ to cover it and not draw attention to him leaving.

Steve vamps for a bit and gets the audience to chant “Bloody Belle” three times to summon her to prove that the superstition is bollocks. He then says that seat F9 in the stalls is haunted and a spotlight appears (poor member of the public in that seat, ha)

I thought BCDR would be referenced and I actually rewatched it the night before the show so that it was fresh in my memory. Well. What I didn’t expect was that they would PERFORM THE WHOLE FREAKING EPISODE LIVE IN FRONT OF ME. WTF LADS.

As soon as the opening music started I recognised it instantly and was like “Ohhhh!” I thought we would get a short scene but it just kept going!

It was an interesting experience to see the episode played out live - the whole communal thing, the way jokes are funnier in a crowd. Normally I watch IN9 on my laptop sitting on my bed all by myself so it was nice to share it!

I won’t go over the whole thing beat by beat. But some things I noticed…

- The cups! They had the blue and yellow cups!

- When Len makes the tea I don’t think he put whiskey in his cup, he drank from a hip flask and Tommy didn’t see

- Len’s mime bit with his arm in the coat was more developed. Early on Len holds up his hand and points to a (n imaginary) wedding ring. The fake figure is much more aggressive with Len, grabbing his face for a snog

- I noticed the mime arm was wearing a big sparkly ring, which reappears later in the show

- The “Drake and Shelby” / “Shelby and Drake” bit goes on longer, which definitely made it funnier.

- When Len did the spit take at the end of the vent sketch I was really worried that I was going to get sprayed. (I did not get sprayed)

- Joe Pasquale ‘he’s 63!’

- The wall for Brown Bottles has ‘Thatcher Out!’ graffiti’d on it

- The Brown Bottles music is different from the one in the TV show - it’s the traditional 10 brown bottles song rather than the similar-but-distinct version, which I’m assuming was some sort of rights issue?

- They didn’t reinstate the cut dialogue (i’ve always loved you…)

- Bernie Clifton’s dressing room is retconned to have taken place at the Wyndham’s rather than the Glasgow Pavilion

- Omg the ‘you nearly died Len’ was absolutely heartstopping, and the way Reece delivered Tommy’s rant was quite different but so passionate

- When Tommy’s talking about Angry Tomato and says he has 100 people working under him, Len says ‘doesn’t that tickle?’ And fucking gooses him! Like full on slap on the arse.

- They had the same Cheese and Crackers playbill and flyer as in the episode.

- On the back of the order of service for Len’s funeral there’s the photo from Steve’s graduation from Bretton Hall.

Then there was a play-within-a-play moment, with ‘Len’ and ‘Tommy’ acting out a sketch about kidnappers that Len had written… but when it started some familiar music played… Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerti No. 2? It’s A Quiet Night In! (Except I have watched Dead Line way more times than A Quiet Night In, so my brain was adding in the distortion and ghosts)

Tommy reads out the stage directions, which are projected onto the curtain as the set is changed, and we get a sketch that is… A Quiet Night In, the Cheese and Crackers version! Ish. So we have Steve-as-Len-as-Eddie and Reece-as-Tommy-as-Ray, in the black burglar outfits.

So cool to see more of Cheese and Crackers in action! Maybe this is the kind of thing that they had in their TV series? It was really interesting to see Tommy get to be a comedic force in his own right, delivering jokes rather than just setting them up for Len as the straight man. Len did much more clowning (and was definitely sliding into Barry Baggs - to the point where I wondered if we were going to get a Lisgoe-belt-whipping moment)

They brought on their kidnap victim… someone in a paisley dressing gown and a pillowcase on his head. And they were doing charades for the person’s name… Cave-in… Held on… Kevin… wait, what? The Actor Kevin Eldon!!!! My hands flew to my mouth and I let out a scream I was SO delighted. And even more delighted that Steve continuously referred to him as The Actor Kevin Eldon (as is only right and proper! And namedropped Fist of Fun. Only thing that would have made the cook’d and bomb’d forum of my soul happier would have been a reference to a weak lemon drink.) And then I realised that another of my predictions had come true - the kidnap victim is played by a different celebrity each show. Surely a Mark Gatiss appearance is on the cards???

There were references to other episodes scattered throughout… there was a hare statue at the side of the stage, the wardrobe from Sardines, which contained a single black man’s shoe (Diddle Diddle Dumpling), a bit with the number 6 turning upside down to show a number 9 (Once Removed), the use of cockney rhyming slang (Mother’s Ruin), and the house itself is on Mulberry Close.

Something that stood out to me was the different tone of the ending. When Miranda Hennessy came in I didn’t realise she was meant to be Leanne - she seemed like a stranger to Tommy. And the hug at the end was more distant than the hug between Sian and Reece in the ep. You know - the way Tommy holds back at first and then closes his eyes and leans into the hug, and you get this sense of the connection between them? At the end of the ep I felt like Leanne and Tommy might stay in touch and (re)build a relationship, but this time I felt like Tommy was gonna disappear back to France and never look back.

Then instead of ending on Tears of Laughter it goes spoOoOoky, with the lights cutting out and the ghost light appearing on stage, some eerie crackling noises and Tommy looking into the dark calling “Len?”

Then there was a jumpscare and time for the interval.

I stood in a ridiculously slow moving queue and talked to/eavesdropped on conversations - some people were hardcore fans and some had been brought along by partners (“I’ve only watched two episodes of Inside Number 9 and they were both very scary, so I wasn’t expecting it to be so funny” and “I’ve never watched it, I don’t like the League of Gentlemen but my boyfriend does”). Limmy was in the audience tonight and I think I spotted Helen Zaltzmann as well.

The violinists were back for the start of the second half. This time there was a projection of an imposing pair of gates and a 1920s style black and white horror film titles of ‘La Terreur de l’asile / Terror at the Asylum.

Ok so this is the story that Reece and Steve mentioned at the top of the show! Miranda Hennessy and Anna Francolini are a prospective patient (Suzette) and a nurse at Dr Goudron’s asylum. Suzette is dressed in a flapper-ish style with bobbed hair and carries a large green hatbox. She’s wearing the large sparkly ring that the mime was wearing in BCDR.

The nurse has that vintage creepy nun-style nurse uniform with a big white headdress, and strangely pink skin all around her eyes and cheeks. The set has a barber’s chair covered in a sheet (which twitched as if to suggest someone was already sitting in it), there was a bloody saw on the wall and shelves with jars containing various fluids and lumps (Love is a Stranger ref?)

Reece comes on playing a mad scientist type, with a mallen streak and a twirly moustache. He was obviously revelling in it, doing some scenery chewing with lines like “What’s to be gained if they won’t stay awake while I operate on them?” and “I ate them! I ate them up! He sees inside me! He sees everything inside me!”

Reece also performed some of The Elements Song! So random but I loved it.

Turns out that Reece’s character Hugo is an inmate at the asylum, not Dr Goudron at all! The real Dr Goudron - Steve in a white lab coat, coiffed brown wig, and painted on eyebags - appears and Hugo is taken away.

Steve does a turn as a slimy, predatory doctor (Trolley Problem and indeed Sphinx echoes) and recommends trepanation to fix the young woman’s migraines.

Steve: With my methods you won’t feel a thing…

He reveals a bit more detail about his wife’s Unfortunate Demise. (“Her head was never found…” dramatic spotlight on the hatbox)

Then Reece returns, this time being pushed in an old-fashioned wheelchair. Dr Goudron explains that he conducts anaesthesia free surgery through deep hypnosis. He hypnotises Hugo (“I have complete control over his mind and body”), and states that while he’s in the trance he can feel no pain. He demonstrates this by taking a scalpel and slicing Hugo’s face, making it bleed (like Devil of Winter- no, wait, that’s not Inside No 9)

Goudron then asks the nurse to fetch the bonesaw, and asks Hugo to amputate his own left leg below the knee. We’re then treated to the sight of Reece hacking through his own leg and removing it. (I could see his real leg within the chair but it I imagine the illusion looked quite convincing for people further back). He’s then brought out of the trance and we get some patented Reece-in-agonising-pain screams and he’s wheeled away to have the wound cauterised.

Suzette tries to leave and Evil Steve is unleashed.

Suzette: If i could just change back into my clothes…

Steve: No. I’m afraid that won’t be possible.

Suzette: You ravaged her???

Steve: Well as much as one can ever ravage a creature in such a catatonic state… As you will soon find out my dear, after your own surgery has been completed

Things begin to escalate, Dr Goudron reveals he murdered his wife after she caught him ‘in a compromising position’ with a catatonic inmate. Suzette threatens to douse her own face in acid, instead throwing it at the nurse’s face. There’s some nicely gory sfx makeup as half the nurse’s face melts and her eyeball sticks to her hand and comes away, still attached to the optic nerve.

But then! Gaby French appears in an usher’s uniform bearing a coffee order.

Turns out everything we’ve just seen is a rehearsal for a stage play - a performance of Terror at the Asylum to be held at the Wyndham’s. Reece’s character is Markus the Director who berates Gaby’s character Abbie from Front of House for destroying all the tension they’ve built up.

Turns out that the lead is a pop star, Sherry. Steve’s character is Vince, the leading man and a classically trained actor (who likes to do the Guardian Cryptic - Sphinx). He’s frustrated that a leading role in the West End has gone to Sherry, “some bimbo from a girl band”

Reece: It’s not about your CV any more, it’s about how many followers you have on Instagram

Sherry and Abbie have a chat. Sherry has an upcoming audition for series 2 of ‘that Divine Comedy Thing on Amazon’ and if she gets it she’ll have some good scenes with Tim Key (Simon Says/Plodding On).

Abbie reveals that she doesn’t get many auditions - Sherry thinks that’s weird cos she gets “loads” and she’s “not even an actress! Haha!” Some of R&S’s feelings about stunt casting coming through, hmm? Sherry recommends Abbie asks Markus if she can understudy her.

Markus goes through his notes for the actors. There’s some funny bits about bad acting and method acting and fragile egos (Markus’ notes to himself are simply ‘two ticks.’)

The stage is then deconstructed, the naturalistic doctor’s office breaking into modular units and a huge LED screen lifting up. One of the actors comes on with a Steadicam. We’ve gone from early 20th century horror to the cutting edge of digital tech.

Reece: We illuminate the present as well as the past

Steve: But it’s so hackneyed now, you can’t walk down Shaftesbury Avenue without bumping into some cunt with a camcorder filming actors mincing out of the stage door

The steadicam gives a closeup of Sherry, her face is shown in greyscale on the huge screen. They’re going to rehearse the trepanning scene. Everyone acts even more expressionistically and hammy than before with maniacal devilish laughter etc etc. Eventually Markus halts the proceedings and says they need “a gear shift.”

Markus: Let’s make them wonder if Sherry herself has died!

Sherry lies motionless in the chair… is she dead? There’s a long pause… no she was just practicing her dead face.

Then Steve starts talking in his own voice (not the plummy accent he uses for Vince) about Daniel Day Lewis playing Hamlet and walking off stage because he thought he saw his (dead) father on the stage. And then he gives Reece a long, lingering hug, and walks off stage. There’s a moment… huh, what was that about?… and then we’re back in the fiction of the play.

Abbie tells the ensemble about the legend of Bloody Belle - she was playing the role of Suzette 100 years ago and died on this very stage. The prop drill malfunctioned and a six inch spike was drive into her brain. At this point Abbie is standing in the stalls, leaning on the stage, with the camera pointed at her. The scene is bathed in red now, and some of the faces of people in the front row can be seen (including mine during this performance, whoo)

The theatre is now haunted and if someone sees the ghost they become possessed and someone in the company dies. Sherry is appalled that no one warned her about this and storms off.

(Also the offstage tech is called Kevin - I’m guessing this changes with the name of the celebrity guest?)

Later, Sherry is backstage practicing her audition lines for Ninth Circle. Abbie comes to help her with the self tape. The big screen is used again, this time displaying the view through Abby’s camera. Sherry goes through her lines and suddenly there’s A SHAPE AND MOVEMENT in the background. Abbie freaks out and goes to investigate. They rewind the tape to see if they can spot anything. The sound design during this section is lovely and atmospheric, and reminiscent of Dead Line’s musique concrète chorus of electrical hums and sinister drones.

Abbie disappears and Sherry picks up the camera and goes offstage, down the stairs and into the bowels of the theatre. This whole bit is very Dead Line, with human-like shadows/ghostly apparitions, a POV camera with heavy breathing, and a wander through a server room with metal fences etc etc. I was half expecting Steve to scream “jumpscare!” while wearing a rubber mask. That doesn’t happen - but Sherry finds The Hat Box from earlier. It’s illuminated in a spotlight. She opens the box and inside is… the hare!

Suddenly a severed head is dropped from the rafters and lands on stage. Sherry returns, finds the head, and says “Fuck this shit! I’m not putting up with this!” The tension and the spooky atmosphere continues as Sherry protests that she’s not afraid. But suddenly… here comes Bloody Belle!

Markus’ voice comes over the PA “Well done. Great performance. No notes.”

Bloody Belle is revealed to be Abbie. Markus had cooked up a plan to scare Sherry away and force her to quit the play. Abbie says that Markus is “getting off on this,” he says yeah, this is real drama. And it’s “scarier than the actual play.” Abbie asks why doesn’t he “just stage this”?

Reece: What - a Ghost Story with a pop star in the cast? That’ll never work!

Markus thinks the social media chatter about Sherry quitting the “haunted play” will guarantee a sellout show and an extension to the summer. And he plans to recast her with a “proper actress.” Anyone in mind? Yes… Sheridan Smith!

He offers Abbie the opportunity to understudy for Madame Goudron’s ghost. “A bit of skin work… Speaking of which…”

Oh no, he’s a sleazy predator too. Markus starts stroking Abbie’s arms and suggests she comes back to his place. Abbie snaps his neck and he dies. She looks up to the box and whispers ‘thank you.’ Bloody Belle appears and lets out a shriek!

The end!

The company come out to take their bows. There’s a standing ovation. But hang on. When Reece stood up… he’s not Reece anymore? It’s some other guy in the Markus wig and costume? Huh?

Steve says he wants to apologise for walking out of the scene earlier.

Steve: As you can imagine it’s been a very difficult few days and weeks for us as a company. And for me in particular. You probably know that I recently lost my writing partner - the cheese to my crackers. But also my best friend. We’d written this play together, me and Reece. And it said so much about our love of comedy, our love of ghosts and horror stories, and I suppose the difficulty of saying goodbye to someone. So I wanted to honour him with this production. Toby stepped in, who is Reece’s understudy-

(After scattered laughter throughout the speech, there was a big laugh here as any remaining pennies dropped.)

Steve praises Toby’s performance and reveals that sometimes he looked at Toby on stage and “I just saw Reece.”

Then they project Reece’s favourite photo of himself with the text “Reece Shearsmith 1969-2025” on the LED screen

(A missed opportunity to use Paddington Bear Man Dies.)

OK NOW it’s the end.

The cast leave the stage… but the mics are still on. We can hear Steve talking with some of the cast and crew. He says he’s going back on stage to get his mic pack off. The stage manager tells him not to because they’re moving the lighting rig.

“I just need some space, alright?!” cries Steve, heading back onto the stage as the curtain comes down.

Then there’s a crash and a smash! A scream and worried cries of “Steve!” An ambulance siren…

The curtain comes up, Steve is lying on the stage with a theatre light on the ground by his head. Reece appears, all dressed in white, holding two paper cups of coffee. (Two lattes from Planet Organic?) Steve wakes up.

Reece: Here he is! I got you a coffee. Just like old times, you lying on the floor, pretending to be dead. And now you are dead.

Steve:…Toby?

Reece: No, it’s not fucking Toby!

Steve is dead because he summoned Bloody Belle, and Reece fell through the trapdoor in rehearsals and broke his neck.

(And then i was like - is this why Reece hasn’t posted on BlueSky for a while?? Committing to the bit, will he keep it going for the whole run?)

Steve: I can’t believe the twist is that you were a ghost all along!

Reece: Pathetic. Finally ran out of ideas!

Steve wonders if he’s just had a bump on the head and is hallucinating seeing Reece because he missed him so much.

Reece: Maybe. Like you said - what is a ghost but a memory? Maybe every ghost story is really just a love story.

Now they’re going to spend eternity together haunting the Wyndham’s Theatre!

They have some classic bickering banter, Reece suggests that Jason Manford could play Steve’s part in Stage/Fright. Steve isn’t happy about this but Reece snaps back “at least he’s a name! Who’ve I got? Fucking little Toby!

And they have unfinished business… Bernie Clifton’s Dressing Room. Steve cut Tears of Laughter because he couldn’t perform it without Reece.

Reece: One last stop…

Steve: It’s not a bus is it???

And then… the boys leave the stage, some beautiful scenery with painted clouds come down from the rafters, a painted number 9, tinkly chimey music plays, the rest of the ensemble cast appear dressed in white satin and sparkles and maribou. It’s like a Golden Age of Hollywood song and dance number. Reece and Steve return dressed in matching white top hats and tails, and perform a fully choreographed big band version of Tears of Laughter, with new lyrics like:

“Come and dance with us on Cloud Nine”

The other actors leave, they say they’ll leave the ghost light on for Reece and Steve so they don’t get lonely (Til Death ref?), and then it’s just the two of them left to finish the song. For the final “laughter is my memory of YOU” they point at the audience instead of each other.

And that’s REALLY the end. You have been watching… a memorial service for Inside Number 9, and a celebration of the love between Reece and Steve transcending lifetimes and planes of existence. I wish them a very happy eternity together.

#inside no 9 #stage/fright #spoilers

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hannahssimblr · 10 months ago

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The crying is relentless. All morning and well into the afternoon. It's not constant, but it is consistent, a cycle of heavy, self pitying sobs followed by these silences where I imagine she forgets what she's so sad about, or curses Evan out instead, which, if it were me, is what I would be doing. I can't understand why any person is really worth this much anguish, especially ones that don't wash their hair.

“Ah, Shell,” Jen mutters under her breath, “he’s just a stupid fucking boy, enough already.”

The brilliant sunlight of early May streaks through the windows and over the pages of our textbooks and notebooks strewn all over the carpet. With the summer exams approaching I have accepted that it’s going to be like this all month, study, revising, shovelling snacks into our mouths and then studying some more until our eyes feel like shrivelled little raisins in their sockets. But I have nowhere else to be these days, so I am happy to spend them on my stomach in the sun with Jen, writing flashcards and highlighting entire pages about chemical erosion and igneous rock.

“Did you see him at school this week?” I ask around the pen jammed between my teeth.

“Who? Evan?”

“Yep.”

“Unfortunately. With Carlie.”

“Oh, crazy. He moved on quickly.”

She tuts and shakes her head in disgust, “He’s horrible. He has no shame, full on knowing that Michelle can see him shoving his foul slug tongue into Carlie’s mouth, in broad daylight.”

“Mm, nothing good ever happens in broad daylight, does it?”

There is a bang, crash and wallop as Michelle comes down the stairs and straight into the room. I steel myself defensively, waiting for, I don't know what, maybe for her to start giving out to me or screaming that I need to get the hell out, not that she’s done that yet, but there’s always a chance. I bet she would if she was feeling crazy enough.

But maybe we've caught her at a good time, because instead she looks startled to see me, while also appearing different, more vulnerable than I'm used to seeing her now that the makeup she usually rings her eyes with is absent for the first time since she was about fourteen. It feels risky to look directly in her eyes, but I can't really help myself. It's like some layer has been peeled away, and she's the girl who used to be my friend.

“Um,” she utters, voice cracked and hoarse from crying, and drags the heel of her hand beneath her still dripping nose, “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I can go.”

She hesitates.

“Let him stay,” Jen grumbles, “He’s just studying, he’s not going to bite you, is he?”

“Okay,” Michelle says in a voice just above a whisper, and hovers there for another few moments as Jen goes back to flipping through her geography book, no doubt taking nothing in.

“Did you need something?”

“Not really.”

“Alright.”

Flip.

Michelle gently clears her throat, “Is it… is it for the summer exams? All the study, like.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll probably fail mine,” a feeble laugh, “and dad will be thrilled with me.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand, given the circumstances.”

“I don’t think so,” she comes a bit closer, her stockinged feet padding over the carpet, and I don’t move a muscle as she approaches us, afraid to make a nuisance of myself. She perches on the edge of the sofa and folds her hands in her lap. “I think I should probably study,” she comments absently.

“If you want to,” Jen says.

“I have so much work to catch up on…”

“Well,” Jen spreads out her fingers and gestures to the mess of paper and books on the floor like she’s presenting a gourmet meal, “you’re welcome to join us any time, babe.”

I sense Michelle’s eyes on me but I deliberately keep mine fixed on my book. The last thing I want to do is put her off the idea and then, God knows, get blamed for any and all fail grades she ends up getting.

“Hm, maybe,” she says, and leans to pluck at the corner of one of the English book covers, “I honestly know nothing, I can’t remember any of King Lear, never mind the poetry…”

“All that Shakespeare stuff is Jude’s domain, actually all of it is his, I'm clearly the idiot in the room…”

I pipe up sheepishly, “If you need help going through stuff, you know, I can, but if not it’s obviously fine too.”

“Hm,” she says, and slides to the floor with us, “Maybe. I’ll see.”

Jen gives me a secret smirk. “She'll see,” she mouths, and just like the sneaky wink she follows it with, I have absolutely no idea what she means.

Beginning // Prev // Next

#lucky boy 2009 #SHE WILL SEE #ch: Jen #ch: Michelle

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crymeariveronceagain · 2 years ago

Note

Au where Keefe is a theater boy and Sophie signs up to be stage crew in order to earn extra credit

okay but literally yes

i love this headcanon with all my soul.

Like imagine, spotlights on this kid, bright eyes, blonde hair. He's giving his monologue in King Lear, his gaze about as fierce as his voice, villainy and righteous rage, "Now, Gods," he says, and his voice echoes, "Stand up for bastards!"

There's a brief moment of silence in the theatre. And Sophie in the light box dims the lights. She swallows hard.

Curses to herself. He's beautiful, she thinks.

#thanks for the ask!#kotlc #kotlc keefe #keefe sencen #kotlc sophie #sophie foster #kotlc headcanons #kotlc sokeefe #sokeefe #iris!!!

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rillabrooke · 1 year ago

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2024 Reading List

The Curse of Pietro Houdini - Derek B. Miller

Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriot

The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

Just Stab Me Now - Jill Bearup

The Words and Music of Paul Simon - James Bennighof**

The Paul Simon Companion: Four Decades of Commentary - Stacey Luftig**

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War - J.W. Mohnhaupt

The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan

The Screaming Staircase - Jonathan Stroud

Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson

The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo

The Whispering Skull - Jonathan Stroud

King Lear - William Shakespeare

The Duke and I - Julia Quinn

Macbeth - William Shakespeare

Siege and Storm - Leigh Bardugo

Redeeming Love - Francine Rivers

The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan

Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

The Battle of the Labyrinth - Rick Riordan

The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson

The Queen's Gambit - Walter Tevis

The Hollow Boy - Jonathan Stroud

Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus

Dracula - Bram Stoker*

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

* reread ** for school

#reading list #⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐#very good. as this is an arc yet to be published i feel it deserves a proper review #one more cohesively put together than something in the tags of a tumblr post. so review to come shortly ig.

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crazylittlejester · 9 months ago

Note

The other swan transformation Irish myth that I grew up reading (and my personal favourite of the two), is called the Children of Lir.

Now, I know this myth off by heart as it is genuinely my favourite Irish myth ever and means a lot to me so I'll be a little looser with how I describe its story.

It starts with a king (more like a noble lord than a monarchy king, as mentioned in the last myth and something I forgot to elaborate on, the High King is the King of Kings, or an equivalent to the prime minister/president).

This king, was a man named Lir (who was also the God of the sea but that's not important because he wasn't technically a god yet). And much like the Shakespeare play of the anglicised name, King Lear (though the play is based on a different myth) this too is a tragedy around a king and his children.

King Lir failed to become the High King, and due to the various politics and relationships between those vying for the title of High King of the time, the new High King offered him the hand in marriage of one of his daughters. King Lir accepted this and the High King sent him one of his daughters. She gave Lir four healthy and happy children: Fionnghuala (pronounced Fin-oo-lah) the eldest (and only) daughter, Aodh (pronounced Ay), and twins Fiachra (pronounced Fee-ack-rah) and Conn.

However, shortly after the twins are born, their mother dies. This brought Lir great grief but fortunately he's an actually good father and the loss of his wife only makes him treasure and adore his children even more. To Lir, his children are the light of his life. There's nothing and no one he cherishes more than his children, and his children adore him back. Their grandfather, the High King also greatly treasures and adores his grandchildren.

Upon hearing news of the death of his daughter, the High King sends another of his daughters to marry Lir, Aoife (pronounced Ee-fah). Lir happily accepts since his last marriage to one of the high king's daughters was a resounding success!

Unfortunately, Aoife grows bitterly jealous of all the love and affection both her husband and father give to the four children. She feigns illness and gets to plotting their murders. Firstly by trying to murder them with a chariot and her entourage of knights (her knights refuse to harm the children, however). Aoife decides to take a sword and slay them herself but ends up unable to go through with the act.

Deciding brute force wasn't the answer, Aoife takes the children down to the lake that they love playing in and once they're in the water, casts a curse. Transforming them into Swans. She tells them the curse will only break once nine hundred years have passed, in which they'll be forced to spend three hundred years at this lake, three hundred years in one part of the sea, and three hundred years in another lake. She allows them to keep their voices in the cursed form but only so they can sing mournful songs like no other.

With the curse done, Aoife returns to her father's castle, where he asks her why she had not brought the children with her, she responds that Lir did not trust her with them. Worried that she had done something to his precious grandchildren, he sends a message to king Lir. Lir, devastated that his wife would do something to endanger his children, he rushes to the last place he knew they'd been, the lake.

And there he finds four beautiful swans, singing with human voices. He immediately recognises their voices as his childrens' and kneels by the shore, allowing them to swim up to him so he can pull them all into a tearful hug. They tell him what Aoife did, and so her father curses her with a druid's wand, into taking on the form of a demon of the air (which is not as cool as it sounds because demons of the air in Irish mythology are genuinely just moths. Your average common moth).

The high King, Lir, and their people regularly visited the lake to listen to the swans sing and keep them company. (Also the killing of all swans is banned in the area.)

However, soon the three hundred years on the lake were up and they were forced to swim to the sea to the north. Where bitter cold, fierce storms, and rough waves tormented the swan children. At one point a particularly wretched storm split the children up. Though luckily they were eventually able to reunite with none of them too worse for wear. They would spend these three hundred years completely and utterly miserable.

Finally, the years were up and they travelled to the final lake. Here they met a scribe who recorded their tragic tale. At one point the cold and harsh weather got so bad that their feet became frozen in ice and they pleaded to king of heavens to grant all birds the gift of protect from the dangers of rough weather. Their pleas were heard and from then on they were granted that protection.

However, once the final three hundred years were up, they immediately returned to their father's home. Only to find their childhood home in ruins and heavily overgrown. Devasted, they returned to the final lake they had spent the last three hundred years at.

Until finally, christianity came to Ireland and the swans came across a Catholic monk ringing a bell. They asked him what the ringing was for and he explained it was to call people to come to morning prayer at the church. (So technically upon hearing that the siblings are like "oh perfect a Christian bell, it shall free us of the curse" but firstly that's because the story has been christianised, and secondly Aoife never said christianity would save them (so how do they know it will 900yrs later), and thirdly these swans are 900yrs old they'd have no clue what christianity is and would not have believed in it even once told!)

(For context, christianity arrived in Ireland around the 5th century so they lived as humans around 500bce, so during the height of the Irish iron age!)

Anyway back to the story, the swans tell the monk of their tale and stricken by their plight, he blesses them, using silver chains. Which magically transforms them back into humans (I would like to state that I disagree with the ending because if you can't tell yet I have my gripes with the christianisation of Irish mythology). However depending on the translation/telling, some say that the children upon becoming human stay the same age as they were when cursed and began dancing and singing in joy. Whereas others say that they immediately aged before the monks eyes and became extremely elderly, asked the monk to baptise them, he did so, and then they immediately keeled over and died. Which is certainly an ending.

Anyway as I mentioned in the first ask, this doesn't translate into an au as well but also if we go by the elderly ending, it's kinda funny to imagine that poor Warriors, finally free of being cursed to be a swan for nine hundred years, only to immediately become an old man and die. At least the other ending gives them time to celebrate breaking the curse.

The children could be Wars, Wild, and the twins could be Mask and Wind (since they're the Links who've all been in the hw games).

I would say Dink, or even Zant since he's in hw and the twilight causes the animal forms, could be Aoife but then that brings to mind the hilarious and awkward concept of either of them failing to be Warriors, Wild, Mask, and Wind's stepdad.

Time however is usually the one who's assigned Dad vibes however but he's already Mask so he can't be the father in this au. Unless we have Fierce deity as Lir instead but I can't see him letting dink/zant off that easily for hurting his boys? Or we steal Wild's royal guard dad but he doesn't have a name canonically or much personality (although he would fit the nobility part of hyrule follows medieval accuracy that knights are part of the nobility but the one piece of art we have of him doesn't scream noble. So we might as well just make up a father instead since it's not like he'll be around long after the hw siblings get turned into swans anyway.

(Perhaps Wild loses his memories during the storm that separates them all and even though it's not his fault, as the oldest, Warriors blames himself)

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble about the myths and a rough idea of what au versions could look like! I'm going to sleep now since it definitely isn't almost 4am whoops.

— Shams-of-the-Wild

‘She feigns illness and gets to plotting their murders’ <- not sure why this caught me so off guard but I feel bad for laughing because i was like ‘oh this is such a sweet story we love a loving father OH SHES DOING MURDERS.’

The idea of Swan Wars being like ‘IM FREE’ and then IMMEDIATELY ageing to 900+ and falling over dead is hilarious and so so tragic

I can for sure just make up a father, and like the other one, I’ll probably make another little fic that follows closer to this, or like, mention it IN the swan au (maybe it’s a story Legend knows (?)) because this is really cool and I like it a lot :)

thank you so much for sharing these!! I hope you got good eep last night :)

#jes talks #jes ask #shams of the wild

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lizardrosen · 9 months ago

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@glintglimmergleam the play that's near and dear to my heart and very hard to cast with eight bridgertons is king lear, partly because so many of the characters would suit multiple siblings, mostly because i can count twelve fairly important characters - lear, kent, gloucester, three lear daughters, two duke husbands, two gloucester sons, oswald, and the fool - which. oof, that's a lot to distribute!

as i've discussed, i would love to see cordelia, the fool, and edmund all played by the same person, though i'm flexible on edmund. if we're going just by Type, daphne would be the obvious cordelia, but would honestly rock it as goneril, so as with ophelia, eloise is going to steal the role. is this also because i desperately want to see eloise as edmund? obviously. i was going to have her battle it out with benedict, but my own triple casting convinced me

daphne is goneril, francesca is regan, and they each play each other's husbands (albany and cornwall). in the first scene when everyone's together they link arms and have their hands wear little hats. daphne getting to play the oldest sister who has to lock all her emotions down tight because she cannot afford to make a slip and the guy who pulls out someone's eye is beautiful to me; and francesca is both the husband who's afraid to make a move for fear of disrupting the extremely delicate political balance and the woman who will literally kill the servant who just stabbed her husband. i am gnawing on the parallels between these two marriages like a chew toy at all times.

that's seven characters handled by three actors, now for the rest!

at the beginning of the play edgar is the exact character profile you'd expect colin to play - legitimate, trusting, unobjectionable - but then he gets forced out of his home by edmund's maneuvering and is forced into a radical transformation, pretending to be a madman who calls himself poor tom, speaking in riddles and hiding knives under his pillow, and then he slowly comes out the other side, saving his blinded father from throwing himself off a cliff and from a guy paid to kill him, and watching him die anyway. but he finally returns to civilization and successfully challenges his brother, and is one of the last characters left standing!

do we think he can do it? more importantly does his family think he can do it? before everything happened with marina thompson and he conveniently took his Grand Tour, i don't think even colin would think he's up to the role, but after his travels, getting to know himself better, he gets a new set to his shoulders and thinks about how he can be better than he is. and then the additional journey of playing edgar makes him think differently about the things and people he's taken for granted and he begins to treat penelope like a person.

now, there's another character in this play who gets banished from his home and comes back in disguise, and that's kent. everything he does is driven by loyalty to his king; sometimes that means telling the king who he loves "thou dost evil", and sometimes that means returning to his side even though being revealed would mean his death. he's a fascinating character, and i really want to see anthony play him, with a balance of duty and protectiveness - impulsive anger when lear is attacked, but good humor when he's threatened.

so that means benedict gets to be king lear! sorry, gregory and hyacinth, but this is a challenging role, and even benedict can get wiped out by the end of rehearsals, because the old man has so many conflicting emotions and impulses At All Times. benedict is goofy and patient, but damn, he can be scary in the scenes where lear is cursing his daughters and possibly threatening to throw furniture at them (violet and anthony both veto the actual throwing of furniture). but what really makes lear tick as a character is that he can see his mental health deteriorating and can't figure out how to stop it, so he's terrified of it, and benedict taps into that very well. he also kicks ass in the scenes where lear remembers that other people exist and that the world has been unfair and he helped make it that way.

gregory is oswald, goneril's steward and designated punching bag of the play - kent beats him up twice, he gets caught in a power play between the two sisters, he tries to kill gloucester for a reward and gets killed by edgar and then buried ignominiously by the side of the road. he's a fun role with lots of opportunity for physical comedy, which fits in with what we've been giving him in other plays!

and hyacinth is gloucester. i don't have much justification for this one, but i do think it's funny for the youngest kid to play the father of two of her older siblings (plus she was a really good horatio to anthony's hamlet, so there's precedent). she really plays up the earnest and well-meaning side of him but doesn't shy away from the ways he's a sort of terrible dad. maybe while edgar is leading gloucester around colin gives her a piggyback ride, that would actually be adorable!

there are sundry other characters - burgundy and france, lear's soldiers, curran (edmund's informant), the servant who kills cornwall, an old man who helps gloucester, the captain who hangs cordelia and makes it look like an accident, etc but most of those people don't show up in more than one scene, so they can figure it out themselves

#bridgerton #the viscount's men #king lear #shakespeare #my writing #goneril #regan #cordelia #edmund #edgar #kent

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lifblogs · 1 month ago

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A Year in Reading: 2024

Bolded titles are favorites of mine.

January 1. The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson 2. Every Last Breath by Jennifer L. Armentrout 3. The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu 4. Arcanum Unbounded by Brandon Sanderson 5. Starter Villain by John Scalzi 6. Pulling the Wings Off Angels by K. J. Parker 7. The Rise of Kyoshi by F. C. Yee 8. The Shadow of Kyoshi by F. C. Yee

February 1. Richard III by William Shakespeare 2. Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch 3. The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal 4. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan 5. The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan 6. The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan 7. The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare 8. The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan 9. The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan 10. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare 11. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan 12. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare 13. The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan 14. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

March 1. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 2. Habibi by Craig Thompson 3. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare 4. The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien 5. The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare 6. The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan 7. King John by William Shakespeare 8. Richard II by William Shakespeare

April 1. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan 2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 3. Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare 4. The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare 5. The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan 6. The Chalice of the Gods by Rick Riordan 7. Othello by William Shakespeare 8. The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan 9. The Dark Prophecy by Rick Riordan 10. Life By Pumpkin: A Cat's Tale by Leslie Popp

May 1. Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare 2. The Burning Maze by Rick Riordan 3. Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare 4. The Tyrant's Tomb by Rick Riordan 5. Pericles by William Shakespeare 6. The Tower of Nero by Rick Riordan 7. Sonnets 1-154 by William Shakespeare 8. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien 9. System Collapse by Martha Wells 10. The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal 11. Cymbeline by William Shakespeare

June 1. King Lear by William Shakespeare 2. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare 3. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson 4. The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson 5. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare 6. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

July 1. The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson 2. House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas 3. As You Like It by William Shakespeare 4. Macbeth by William Shakespeare 5. House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas

August 1. Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare 2. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 3. Coriolanus by William Shakespeare 4. All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare 5. Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare 6. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas 7. The Children of Húrin by J. R. R. Tolkien 8. The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare

September 1. The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien 2. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas 3. A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas 4. King Henry IV, Part I by William Shakespeare 5. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville 6. King Henry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare 7. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien 8. Henry V by William Shakespeare

October 1. A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas 2. Henry VIII by William Shakespeare 3. Edward III by William Shakespeare 4. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien 5. Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare 6. The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

November 1. The Tempest by William Shakespeare 2. The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien 3. Dracula by Bram Stoker 4. The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare 5. House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas 6. The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare 7. A Funeral Elegy by William Shakespeare 8. Enemy of the Empire by Marshall J. Moore 9. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare 10. Henry VI, Part I by William Shakespeare 11. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

December 1. Henry VI, Part II by William Shakespeare 2. Henry VI, Part III by William Shakespeare 3. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon 4. A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare 5. The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare 6. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music by William Shakespeare 7. Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Books Read: 102 Favorite Books: 58 Currently Reading: Firefight by Brandon Sanderson Notable Achievements:

Completed The Lord of the Rings twice.

Read Dracula through Dracula Daily for the third time.

Finished The Lord of the Rings through the LOTR newsletter for the second time.

Participating in the LOTR newsletter for the third time.

Read all of Tolkien's work for the second time.

Read all of Shakespeare's work.

Read from 8 new authors.

Finished Moby-Dick through Whale Weekly.

#books #reading #lif reads #2024

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