Time for some laughs.

Well, the legacy of Ian Smith will be debated for years to come. Listening to some views from non-Rhodesians, I saw a common pattern. They accused Smith of being the one who created Mugabe. A comparison would be that retributions imposed on Germany after the WW1 created Adolf Hitler. It’s a lot more complicated than that!

It was very interesting to read the condolences and comments written by loads of people on the Bush Telegraph forum site. A few people I recognised. Quite moving to read them all.
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Well, the show must go on! Oddly enough, Ian Smiths death coincided with my first exam for my latest course, Writing Plays! Yup, I am going to be a playwright. (Why it isn’t spelled playwrite, is beyond me.)

Well, not really. I thought it would be a good idea to give it a go, because it might help me polishing up dialogue and force me to use more precise descriptions.

Here is the exam –

You should present an outline idea for a short play based on ‘The Three Little Pigs’.
A complete cast list (max 200 words)
The outline scenario for the whole play, dividing the action up into scenes and writing briefly what happens in each one. (max 300 words)
A complete scene, using 2 main characters and no more than 2 subsidiary characters. The scene should incorporate a longer speech or monologue (70 -100 words) for one of the characters. The scene should be a maximum of 3 minutes in length

First problem, there are many versions of the three little pigs. So I did some research like all good writers do.

Hard to believe, but I came across a version, with exactly the same illustrations as the one I used to read to my baby brother in early ‘70s. This is the version I remember.
In this one, all the pigs get the building materials donated by local NGO’s.

Two pigs get eaten and the wolf gets boiled to death, whilst the third pig watches grinning his head off! It was a Ladybird book. They were the best, with really well drawn, detailed pictures. Now that’s the version I like. Clear, precise, to the point and prepares kids for the outside world.

The moral of the story is very clear – Either get a job as a brickie, or stay at school and qualify for a job so you can pay for one, otherwise…

your fucked!

But we have to look for other examples…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/tweenies/storytime/stories/3littlepigs/

The BBC kiddies web site has an animated active version. In it, no one gets hurt, the pigs suffer from xenophobia. (Having not been told by mother pig to watch out for the wolf who might want to eat them, therefore, they simply refuse the wolf entry to their houses because he looks strange. The wolf at no time says he wants to eat them.) The first two pigs are promoted as being lazy, idiots and cowards. The building materials are conveniently ‘found’. I.E. the story promotes theft as being a way of life.
Finally, in a pathetic showdown, the three pigs (who are ludicrously called Tom, Dick and Harry), join forces and blow the wolf away. Total load of brainless waffle. I was gob smacked after watching it. The characters were completely characterless; the animations couldn’t animate attention even from a liberal in solitary confinement in Mugabes’ cells for the last 20 years.

This is political correctness at the extreme. At the end of the story, the only thing you ponder over is, if you would get caught blowing up the BBC. The moral of this story, is to leave school at 14, become a cowardly thief and blow away, with your mates, anyone not in your sphere of understanding beyond having unprotected sex and binge drinking.

I didn’t dare go and look if they have raped any more classic tales. I can see it –

The 3 Goats William and the Asylum Seeker under the bridge.

In this up-to date scenario, two goats apologise for not understanding the asylum seekers plight, are short of a few quid, but the biggest Willie will sort him out. He duly arrives with a truck full of U.N. aid relief. The asylum seeker is eternally grateful, becomes a vegetarian and spends his life helping the handicapped cross the bridge, when he aint signing-on.

With my blood really boiling, I wrote my play.

It contains everything I could think of for getting failed. Rampant violence, blasphemy, racism, petty childish quips and quirks, pathetic innuendos and drunken acting! I couldn’t fit in any incest or homosexuality because I ran out of words, BUT I did get some rape in! The play only took 7 minutes to write, as there is very little dialogue besides squeals and howls. Most of the page is taken up with stage directions, things like –

PIG 1 is now bludgeoned to death with baseball bat by WOLF, who is pissed and stoned out of his head. When finished WOLF takes a line of coke and picks up chain-saw and walks over to PIG 2 whilst fondling his penis, which now has a huge erection.

I entitled my masterpiece –

I’m a Celebrity Wolf, Get the Pigs Out of Here.

I based it on a T.V. program.

Nah, not really, but Ian’s passing did add extra, emotionally inspired dramatics, to my play. The idea had been formulated already.

So here is MY version of the three little pigs. It is just a coincidence that my pigs are white and the wolf is black. There are black pigs. That’s where we get black puddings from, right! And of course, there are white wolves because Jack London tells us so. But I tried to stick to the classic tale. You are more than welcome to read this out to your children and even maybe act out the last scene. They will learn lots!

I think I should get at least 55% for this effort!

4th December 2007 - this has been removed as it was contravening Open University regulations.