Bloody Scotland; Carry On Sleuthing

It has been a very busy week, two groups to visit, words of wisdom to give out (?), one church ladies' group wanting to know how to kill their husbands, one two hour workshop on novel writing and tomorrow night the mighty players of Carry On Sleuthing  tread the boards for the third time in a month.

That will be the Crime Writers Amalgamated Players. CWAP. It was suggested it should be the Crime Riters Amalgamated Players. 

Maybe not.

Here is Letitia Luvibod and her wart  treading the boards at the intro of Carry On Sleuthing; Murder at the Knickerage. Now Agatha may have written Murder at the Vicarage but ours has more jokes about pants. It's about the death of a man who made his fortune in undergarments.

He left it to his kids in a truss fund.

This is my round of applause after my tongue twister  was enunciated correctly.

Everytime we do the play, Douglas Skelton adds in another word.

This was 'the fiendishly fantastic phantom knicker filcher of Finchly.'

Trumps get a hand onto the stage!

Trump the panto horse fell up the steps onto stage R, so had to climb the stairs on stage L,  which placed the cart before the horse.

All aboard the pony and trap to the Knickerage.

Trump, Phil McCavity the plasterer, Letitia and Bunny Sprocket ( He's all ears, terrible gossip) 

The body comes on at high speed for comedy effect.

It wasn't supposed to skid off the stage into the audience.

They crowdsurfed it for a few minute before I warned them that interfering with a corpse was a criminal offence.

Letita and Anthony Adverse Camber- the famous racing driver.

Fi Fi the french maid was looking a bit hairy,

The identical twins  Tom and Tim Tomtim. 

They nearly invented the sat nav,

 The wonderful writer (and Bunny, and Farqhuar the butler) Mr Douglas Skelton and Mr Michael Malone,  a man of a thousand accents, all of them from Yorkshire.

Farquhar channelling Sir Alec Guinness.

Here we have just said the line about the (better) Fi Fi's ex husband who got drunk in Paris and fell in the river. You can fill the line in for yourselves.

We are at a proper theatre a week later, missing a member of the cast but nobody noticed.

Ah, here we have a real french Fi fi to allow the previous Fi Fi to play Tim or Tom Timtom.

Farqhuar and Letitia. Everytime we say 'Cashew'

 the audience shout 'bless you!'

And another set of twins! 

Who corpsed so much I went and sat in the audience until they got themselves together. 

                                   

Farquhar, Emily and Letitia find out what happened to the gas mask.

We survived to the end, nearly! 

And so it ends.

The plays, the Letitia Luvibod Head Scratchers are all written by Douglas. Well he takes the blame. The first play was more or less written when I first laid eyes on it but all the cast members add jokes (usually on the night when nobody else is expecting it). If the joke works, it gets written in.  Even  if the audience don't laugh but we do, the joke is in. Death On The Ocean Wave was the first one. The murder and the plot is more complex in Carry On Sleuthing 2, Death  At The Knickerage.  The third one is being premiered this year at Grantown On Spey; The Mysterious Affair at Pyles.  It's about the death of a proctologist  by the name of Dr Emma Roid.

Just remember that Shakespeare wrote for the common people.

Pushpin is as good as poetry,

Letitia Luvibod 

12 10 2018