I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it. - Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"
Wednesday 24 December 2008
Mash not....
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The Doctor will soon be upon us.
So all should be good.
Fair enough, the students are gone and the drag-racers outside trail tinsel, and all in all it's a pretty cheery time of the year. Did we wish you all a happy Sadeh by the way?
But there's a problem. There's hassles and stresses and geoff's to be dealt with. I mean, who carries a tape measure and the dimensions of the oven when they go shopping? Turns out you should. Our turkey is going to need surgery before it fits in the oven, and we can't take a bath because it's going to take 48 hours to defrost. There's blood all over the shower curtain. It's like living on the Psycho set.
And the shopping arrangements are all over the place. We've got most of the basics, like meat and tea and flour, but the nice bits are proving tricky. You know the nice bits, roasting potatoes, cheeses, port, beer.....the nice bits. Now mull this over in your mind and stir in the fact that only Gerry can get to the shops tomorrow.
MarsHQ discussed what we needed, put forward ideas and suggestions.
Gerry wrote a list....
The rest of us just found it.
Smash Pizza Pie Cheesy sauce Pork Stuffing Mix 2 Bottles Guinness 1 Can Guinness Big Mac Gerkhin Donuts Cheddar Pizza A New Computer Game
So it's that odd time of year again, the Festival glut. Dong zhi, Modranect, Diwali, Eid......or, as we Martians call it, Kryzmaz. It really is a tedious time of the year, so we don't blame you for having a bit of a laugh, and the lights will come in useful down the Mines. But call it what you will, it's always odd.
Oh - John says "Merry ChrisTmas, and a Happy New Year!". And yes, for those that are wondering, yes, he did actually pronounce the T in ChrisTmas and you can hear every single capital letter in all its dreadfulness.
Speaking of John, he's back at Mars HQ. Briefly. He's jetted in from twenty six different hotel rooms and has singularly failed to make a decent cup of tea since he arrived. Mars HQ is now cluttered, to the tune of one John. And his plans. John's plans are myriad, and begin with the construction of a tree which is then covered in electrical circuits and plugged into the mains.
But we'll be rid of him soon enough, he's off to Hong Kong to "Get away from you lot and your incessant unfestiveness". And to appear in Macbeth. Is that unlucky on the interweb? We don't know...but we hope so.
Macbeth. Macbeth. Macbeth.
We're whistling as we type too, if we get enough bad luck on the go then none of the new scripts will get anywhere and we won't have to do anything. Not the ghost thing, not the sci-fi thing, nor the three Sundowe sequels or the sketch show/s.
We are The Martians, the greatest and most feared street buskers on your pointless and overly-moist space rock. There are no other troubadours who can come close to matching our sheer magnificence and fearitude.
Except, perhaps, one.
Allow us to introduce Pocket Fox. For those who haven't seen us busk, or were too busy hiding, Pocket Fox busk next to us on the Mile every Festival and are masters of the ancient art of Ukulele Rock Covers. Not only ukuleles, but also kazoos. Which is copying us really, but we'll let that slide on the grounds of their own invention, the KazooKeylele:
The truly terrifying thing is the fact that they've managed to tot up (at the time of writing), well over 1.2 million hits on Youtube, and we're pretty sure we've just seen them on the BBC's "Web This Week". It's gratifying to see that at least some of you are taking the whole world domination thing seriously. Well done Pockets. (Yes, that's who the new user is.)
We Martians have a healthy fear of the past. Everything bad happened in the past. The invention of cats? Years ago. That time we ran out of tea? Last week. A slightly disasterous invasion attempt that led to the extinction of 99% of the Martian Race? Closing years of the 19th Century. The past is bad...we'd rather remember the future, it's shinier.
And yet we keep being drawn to the past, like moths to a flamethrower. We thought London was still in the past, sitting there guarding the memories of Top of the Pops and Sneddon and Horsell Common, but it turns out it's also here, now, and won't let us forget it.
So there's only one thing to do: one of our infamous one-off impromptu busking sessions followed by an exclusive and altogether unique staging of our award winning, five-star musical "Greyfriar's Twisted Tales" - yes, that's right, the show that just won't die is leaving Auld Reekie and heading for the Big Smoke. Just the once, mind you, we aren't planning on it becoming a habit.
Just had a call from John - for those who don't know, he's working with the Reduced Shakespeare Company at the moment, and he'll be live on Radio 2 tonight from around midnight.
Apparently he'll be the one doing the dreadful American accent.
Posted by:
geoff
on
Monday 22 September 2008 - 22:08:40
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comments: 0
Wednesday 10 September 2008
Post Fringe Trauma
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We've got a bad case of the tassles. The Fringe is gone and there is a lingering smell of gunpowder. The streets are deserted and the nights are falling in quickly enough to bruise.
It's our favourite time of year.
It's that wonderful glowing tail end of summer when John is in London instead of bugging Gerry and beating geoff, when Edinburgh looks like the embarassing morning-after-a-party just (and only just) pre-rising-of-the-undead. A truly magical time.
And we may relax.
Relaxing is all the easier when you've got a Ewan. Ewans are great. They save up your talent and drip feed it back, letting you concentrate on the important things in interlanetary invasions, like sleep and pizza and apologising to girlfriends for being "a bit odd".
This is our Ewan:
[ image disabled ]
He's very good, really. He's the guy who does the Fringe Podcast and old mate of Martians, mainly because of his TPN Rock show.
Recently he's featured your Glorious Masters (us) a couple of times - all the shows are free mp3 downloads:
Following hot on the heels of many lovely reviews (including a four-star from the Herald for an improvised show we had to do when Houston was unavailable), your Overlords and future rulers of this damp rock are proud...nay, chuffed....to announce that the winners of the 2008 "Spirit Of The Fringe" award are....
Stop crying at the back, it didn't work for Paltrow and it won't work for you. In keeping with tradition however, and to emphasise something that was ommitted by the press reports, we would like to thank the following, who also won it. Seriously. If it wasn't for them the entire show would be two brothers tearing each other's skin off on stage.
Houston, also a Martian but not a Kielty.
Marianne Sellar andDerek Elsby, our plants, performers, horse, wench and general script tinkerers.
Carol Metcalfe and The Bridewell Theatre Company for general organisation, editing, production and funding.
Jan Andrew Henderson and City of the Dead Walking Tours for funding, publicity and giving us the time off to do something completely different about the kirkyard.
Chris Grady and the rest at Musical Theatre @ George Square for setting up a brand new and highly successful venue within table-carrying distance of MarsHQ.
Ewan Spence of TPN Rock and the TPN Fringe Show for picking up on Martian Genius so early....several years ago in fact. (See below)
And last, but by no means least, all of the people who came to see an hour of our brains spilling out onto the floor of a small portakabin...thank you all.
Oh...and our landlord, who came to see the show and got told off for putting his feet on a table he owns. Sorry. We'll fix it.
Evening News report here Original press release here
Mars HQ. Sunday. 4pm. As John prepares to leave the flat to appease his Invisible Sky God for another week, Houston interviews the surprise guest star of our show - our living room table.
"It's weird, you know..." it says, in its pallid, wooden tone; "I don't remember ever being outside before. As long as I can remember I've been in the living room being eaten and smoked on... and then, only a few weeks ago, people began standing and singing on me."
"And how did that feel?"
"I'm not sure... I was surprised.. I felt edgy, you know? I mean, lots of things were going through my wood... I was worried for a start, that I might break under the weight of John who has returned from the USA rather fat and pasty. I resent being put on peoples back and carried to the venue, but I must say I enjoy the rush of the performance. It's new, you know? It's a real thrill."
"And what do you do in the show?"
"Well, lots of things really... I'm a table, obviously... a few different tables actually... I worry a little about type casting, but I do more than that. At one stage I'm a coffin... and then I'm the slab of Dr Knox the famous anatomist. They move me around quite alot, and sometimes I'm off stage catching my breath. It's fun."
"And what are you up to next?"
"Well, I think its back to the flat for me. Where else will they eat their food and put their ashtrays. I just hope that they fix my frayed end soon."
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