Mummery at a V Festival
I was once part of a Mummers troupe called The Amazing Ayiwhabda and His Automatic Apes, who specialised in performing Shakespeare plays dressed as farmyard fowl, such as Hamlet the Goose, King Duck Lear, Macbeth the Hen, Othello the Turkey and Coriolanus the Lobster (not a farmyard fowl, I know, but there was a reason for this which I cannot now remember).

In 1999 we performed at the V Festival, in a tiny tent theatre in the furthest, muddiest corner of the field. At this point in his career The Amazing Ayiwhabda was in the advanced stages of alcoholism and was never sober, and suffered from almost continuous diarrhoea, so it was us, his Automatic Apes, that carried the show, which, that year, was Richard the Third the Goose. 'Now is the winter of our HONK! discontent. HISSS! Made glorious HONK! summer by this sun of HISSS! York.' It was dreadfully unfunny, painful stuff, boring even when smashed out of your skull on drugs. At the time, though, I thought it was important art - but then, I was smashed out of my skull on drugs.

I had another, more basic motive for remaining with the troupe - I was having a torrid affair with another of the Automatic Apes, a young woman with blue hair and only three fingers on her right hand, who went by the name of Hepzibah. She suffered from vast, insurmountable mental health issues, having been sexually abused when she was a little girl by her father, her mother, her brothers, her uncles - in fact, her entire family. Pretty normal for some parts of Dorset, but it messed up poor Hepzibah's head, and she ended up throwing herself off the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol shortly after she left the relatively safe 'family' of The Amazing Ayiwhabda and His Automatic Apes, where she was looked after well enough. My affair with her was stimulating if rather disturbing, as she would call me 'Daddy' or 'Uncle Sid' during the throes of our lust. Sometimes she would ingest vast quantities of magic mushrooms and strip naked and run around tearing out great wads of her blue hair, shrieking, 'I'm Horny Hepzibah! Do me up the bum, you cunts!' She was a great cook and could knock up a fantastic chickpea balti. I never found out how she lost the fingers, the secret died with her.

Richard the Third the Goose turned out to be disastrous for The Amazing Ayiwhabda and His Automatic Apes. Though we performed it well, as far as I can recall through the haze of mind-bending drugs, hardly anyone came to see us, and those that did were too drunk and/or stoned to appreciate our 'art.' Not that it was art, though as I said I did think so at the time. The Amazing Ayiwhabda was by now a recluse who spent all his time in a hole he had digged with his bare hands, in which he would crouch shitting, drinking, and shrieking. Sometimes he would gather up handfuls of his faeces and fling it out of his pit onto the faces of any unfortunates who happened to be passing by. Again, pretty normal for some parts of Dorset, and Devon, and indeed the whole South West of England, but not in the South East, where the V Festival took place, but I don't think The Amazing Ayiwhabda knew or cared about that.

One incident that particularly stands out in my memory involves bread rolls. I was then and am now very particular about my toilet habits, and could not bring myself to use the on-site festival facilities, let alone squat shitting in a pit like The Amazing Ayiwhabda. I would betake myself into the woods with my trusty bog roll, find somewhere nice and secluded, and there go about my business. One day, however, I ran out of bog roll, and, finding myself in urgent need of an evacuation, in my desperation I grabbed a packet of bread rolls from the food zone. I then used these in lieu of bog roll, and I have to say, the cheap white bread was more than an adequate substitute; very absorbent, though crumbs were a problem. The next day, I overheard one stoner hippie type saying to another stoner hippie type how he had found some bread rolls 'covered with peanut butter' in the woods, and eaten them, and they had tasted 'amazing, man'. The look on the poor chap's face when I collapsed in front of him in fits of hysterical laughter was quite a picture!

The highlight of the festival was during Act 2 of a particularly woeful performance of Richard the Third the Goose, when Paul Heaton out of The Beautiful South wandered into our tent, and watched us for a few minutes with a look of amused disgust on his face, and then wandered back out, bumping into Paul Weller, who was on his way in. 'Tory cunt,' sneered Heaton, upon which Weller kicked him in the bollocks. Weller then stood watching us for a few minutes, smoking a fag, with a look of dim and angry incomprehension on his face, then chucked his fag on the floor and stomped off. The lit cigarette ignited the dry grass inside the tent - but luckily I was able to stamp the conflagration out before it spread. Perhaps it would have been better if I'd left it, as then I would have... da da daaaa! Died in a fire!*

LAIGHTERZ SWEEETIESZ!

XXXXXXXXXXX

_{*Not really, as I am a Time Lord, and would have regenerated, etc.}
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sun 28 Jun 2015, 12:23, 12 replies)

No one will read this,
yet I've commented anyway, giving you the validation you so desperately crave.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Sun 28 Jun 2015, 13:41, closed)

Thanks sweetie!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sun 28 Jun 2015, 14:40, closed)

Thanks
Great story. Well written. Sad.
(GeoffreyPinecones that's what I'm talking about, Sun 28 Jun 2015, 20:19, closed)

Thankx sweetie!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sun 28 Jun 2015, 22:36, closed)

if you take the first letter of each paragraph it reads
III ROT

which I guess is true.
(Guy Debord cette mauvaise réputation..., Sun 28 Jun 2015, 20:21, closed)

too long couldnt be arsed

(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Mon 29 Jun 2015, 12:32, closed)

I can't even be bothered to complain about this.

(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Mon 29 Jun 2015, 15:37, closed)

And then
Tom Baker came on my back.
(SlantedScience, Wed 1 Jul 2015, 4:19, closed)

NEEDS MORE
DOCTOR WHO!
(yeswehavenopasties, Thu 2 Jul 2015, 0:00, closed)