FALLEN FRUIT
Music by Jeremy Avis and OG
with 300 local singers, The Shout and an army of percussionists, led by Giles Perring
Directed by Strange Cargo
A plea for the apple in all its 2000-odd varieties.
The sculptor Andrew Baldwin created a sinister apple crusher which churned through tonnes of slightly misshapen fruit. The smell was unbelievable.
​
Possible:
O O
O Nodhead O
O Loop Wealthy O
O Withington Fillbasket O
O Black Mickey O Black Mac O
O Hog’s Snout O Lawyer Nutmeg O
O Lady’s Finger of Hereford O Flame O
O Gilliflower of Gloucester O Jennifer Wastie O
O Allington Pippin O Hagloe Crab O Bloody Turk O
O Acklam Russet O Alnarp Favourite O Stark Earliblaze O
O Handsome Norman O Ramping Taurus O Slack-My-Girdle O
O Bastard Foxwhelp O Upright Redstreak O Faversham Creek O
O Bascombe Mystery O Maidstone Favourite O Gascoyne’s Scarlet O
O Beauty of Kent O Greasy Pippin O Pig’s Nose Pippin O Bottlestopper O
O Bloody Butcher O Sussex Mother O Conkle Jonathan O Rival O Climax O
O Hoary Morning O Gascoyne’s Scarlet O Fred Webb O Sunset O South Park O
O Tydeman’s Early O Golden Knob O Mabbott’s Pearmain O Wanstall Pippin O
O Lobo Arkansas O Minnehaha Kandilé O Reinette du Pluvignac O Murasaki O
O Fenouillet de la Chine O Kapai Red Jonathan O Dubele du Belle Fleur O
O Mela Carla Korobovka O Violetta Zhigulevsko O
Gene Pitney
Crimson Cox
Peggy’s Pride
Polly Prosser
Scotch Bridget
Eggleton Styre
Tinsley Quince
Yellow Redstreak
Eisdener Klumpke
Bastard Rough Coat
Chenango Strawberry
Probable:
Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Royal Gala Royal Gala Royal Gala Royal Gala
Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Royal Gala Royal Gala Royal Gala Royal Gala
Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Royal Gala Royal Gala Royal Gala Royal Gala
Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz Royal Gala Royal Gala Royal Gala Royal Gala
Braeburn Braeburn Braeburn Braeburn Golden Delicious Golden Delicious
Braeburn Braeburn Braeburn Braeburn Golden Delicious Golden Delicious
Braeburn Braeburn Braeburn Braeburn Golden Delicious Golden Delicious
Braeburn Braeburn Braeburn Braeburn Golden Delicious Golden Delicious
Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink
Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink
Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink Lady Pink
BLACKBIRD
Commissioned in bizarre circumstances for a choir created on the Blackbird Leys estate outside Oxford for a Channel 5 reality TV programme The Singing Estate. The series revelled in the tension between members of the choir and its arrogant upper middle-class music director. I was very cynical about the set-up, and I probably should have said no to the job. I visited the choir for the first time on a dismal November evening. Out of the 40-odd choristers who had appeared on TV, 12 were in the room. The rest of them, and the music director, had absconded with the cameras.
But to my amazement the choir regrouped with an excellent new music director Andrew Stewart, and made a very good job of the rather challenging piece I wrote them.
WE TURNED ON THE LIGHT
Two performances on one day at the Proms.
In the afternoon The Shout, a glorious rabble of amateur singers from London and Glasgow, the National Youth Choir of Scotland, the BBC Scottish Symphony, conducted by Martyn Brabbins
In the evening, The Shout, the rabble, The Huddersfield Choral Society, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson.
Lincoln Abbotts, Mr. Outreach for the Proms and the BBCSO, rings me: There’s a pair of choral proms planned for 29 July. The idea is to assemble a large rabble of amateur singers and make an intervention in each Prom. Am I interested in writing a piece for them? And why not let’s add a pair of posh amateur choirs, an orchestra and The Shout? I say yes of course fab wonderful what a privilege and am immediately overwhelmed with terror.
For comfort, I ring Caryl Churchill and ask her to write the lyrics. We have collaborated on several projects including a chamber opera Hotel for the dance company Second Stride. We talk about a poem we both like, a mysterious (medieval?) lyric that begins ‘There was a man of double deed / Who sowed his garden full of seed…’ and ends ‘…and when my heart began to bleed / ‘Twas death and death and death indeed.’ (I’ve deployed it in Sleeping With Audrey, for Ashley Page and the Royal Ballet.) So: catastrophic consequences from apparently innocent actions.
And Caryl comes back very rapidly with a lyric about climate change. It’s a whole lot more interesting than Al Gore on the same subject.
A further conversation with Caryl leads to the idea for the structure:
Part 1 – all the good news.
Refrain – ‘My granddaughter’s granddaughter….’ (an idea that first appears in Caryl’s extraordinary play The Skriker).
Part 2 – the good news + the bad news.
Refrain – ‘My granddaughter’s granddaughter….’
Part 3 – all the bad news, ending with a kind of typhoon of bad news.
Coda – the wonderfully sinister and ambivalent ‘The flowers are growing higher up the mountain.’
Three groups of singers: the posh amateur choirs, the rabbles, The Shout. Different parts, reflecting the character of each group. A relentlessly urgent piece, 160 beats per minute, no let-up.
A few hours after I finish writing the piece, I’m up in Glasgow doing a workshop with our immensely frisky Glasgow rabble, and beginning to teach them their part. Breathless.
We turned on the light
And flooded the city
We drove the car faster
And saw the dust blowing
We bought a new tee shirt
And turned the grass yellow
We ate cherries in winter
And heard the gale howling
We wrapped food in plastic
And saw the bears starving
We chopped down a forest
And heard a child choking
We doubled our output
And killed to get water
We flew to the sunshine
And saw the ice falling
My granddaughter’s granddaughter says to my ghost: I hate you.
My ghost says: Sorry, I’m sorry now.
My granddaughter’s granddaughter says to my ghost: Didn’t you love me?
My ghost says: Not enough. It’s hard to love people far away in time.
The flowers are growing higher up the mountain.
*
THE DEATH OF BUDDY HOLLY
Commissioned by David Temple for the Crouch End Festival Chorus
I’m very iffy about choral arrangements of pop music. You tend to forfeit everything that was good about the original. This was a reckless attempt to defy the rule – a version of Buddy Holly’s It Doesn’t Matter Anymore. It was written in commemoration of his death in an air crash on February 3rd 1959.
OPEN PORT
The closing event of Stavanger2008.
The choral invasion, directed by Roland Bréand, begins Saturday afternoon December 6th 2008 at 2pm. For the next three and a half hours, singing spreads through the city like a rumour.
There is a network of indoor choral performances throughout the city by all the thirty-five choirs involved, local and national. Each choir includes in its performance something it's never done before, something radical, unexpected, surprising.
Twenty messengers carry recorded choral music through the city, using boom boxes, customized luggage trolleys, speakers hidden in supermarket trolleys, speakers hidden in rucksacks, small speakers hidden in jackets…….travelling if necessary by car, bus, ferry, bicycle, skateboard, stopping in a café, on a bench, in a house, in a museum, in a shopping centre, making a journey which is perhaps very direct, perhaps very devious and playful. One messenger travels via the airport, leaving the boom box on the luggage carousel. One infiltrates a shop by bringing in a speaker hidden in a shopping basket. Dude messengers cruise the city in fancy cars, a mixture of choral music and hiphop pouring out of the car stereo. The aim of each messenger is to reach the harbour by 5.45pm.
Recorded choral music replaces musak in shopping centres and supermarkets and cafés, comes between the announcements at the train station.
A song is sent to hundreds of people by mobile phone.
Every hour, twenty singers with megaphones sing a call lasting about a minute. Every singer has the same material but they sing independently. They're like muezzins. They start spread out round the outskirts of the city and move gradually to the centre.
Waitresses sing. Bus drivers sing. Policemen sing. City cleaners sing. Cab drivers sing. Butchers sing. The absurd invades everyday life.
Gradually the singing builds in the city, moves towards the harbour.
At 5.30pm the messengers and the megaphone singers arrive at the harbour. There is a glorious cacophony of choral sound. The choirs have arrived and take their places on the stands.
At 6pm the event in the harbour begins. The Shout on two scissor lifts, the thirty-five choirs, the Stavanger Brass Band, conducted by Ragnar Rasmussen. Music by Jeremy Avis and OG. Amazing visuals by Phase 7, directed by Sven Beyer.
​
ICE
Performed by the Hertfordshire Chorus and Mike Henry
Conducted by David Temple
After making many forays into the Arctic, Captain Robert Peary finally reached the North Pole in 1909. On his final push to the Pole from Cape Columbia, he was accompanied by a black man Matthew Henson, four Esquimos - Ootah, Ooqueah, Egingwah and Seegloo – and thirty-eight dogs.
Peary wrote in his diary of his arrival at the Pole: ‘I have today hoisted the national ensign of the USA at this place, which my observations indicate to be the North Pole axis of the Earth, and have formally taken possession of the entire region, and adjacent, for and in the name of the President of the USA.’
The ownership of the Arctic region has recently become a matter of ferocious diplomacy. The ice is melting, and it seems possible that in the near future the Northwest Passage will open up to year-round shipping and that the oil and gas beneath the polar seabed will become available. Russia has already planted a flag, housed in a titanium tube, on the seabed directly beneath the Pole. Canada has assigned a post code to the Pole: H0H 0H0.
The lyrics of Ice are taken from Henson’s book The Conquest of the North Pole. Henson wrote of his time in the Arctic ‘I have been to all intents and purposes an Esquimo.’ This remark was the inspiration for this piece, which is little more than an elaboration of a traditional Esquimo (Inuit) style of singing, katajjak. Katajjak is a two-person conversational game in which extraordinary, sometimes dog-like sounds are exchanged with increasing intensity and speed until one person gives up.
The song Hold On was sung by Negro slaves escaping to Canada via the ‘Underground Railroad’ in the first half of the nineteenth century.
​
RAKETENSYMPHONIE
A love affair between voices and fireworks.
For a large amateur chorus and The Shout, with fireworks by Steyrfire.
Music by Mike Henry and OG.
Directed by Tom Ryser
The relationship between the voices and the fireworks is much more varied and playful than usual – the voices lead, the fireworks lead, they flirt, they dance, they ignore each other, the fireworks terrify the voices, declare war on them, cheer them up……
Performed to a vast, drunken, benevolent crowd on the banks of the River Danube in Linz, at midnight on New Year’s Eve 2008-9.
​
DEAD HEAD
An oratorio about death
MC, vocal soloists, children’s chorus, community chorus, wind and brass band
with Rebecca Askew, Keel Watson
Conducted by John Hancorn
1 Before
MC: So. Death. Let’s start at the beginning.
Can you remember the moment when you first realised you were mortal?
Imagine. You’re seven years old. You’re eating an ice cream.
An elf comes to you.
He says There’s going to come a moment when you don’t exist.
And you say Come off it.
And he says Yes really. But I am in a position to make you an offer. I will give you eternal life in return for the rest of your ice cream.
And you say No way. I’ve only just started it. Don’t be ridiculous.
And you take another bite.
Seven
I’m only seven
Sweet sweet seven
I have no thoughts
Of hell or heaven
Grown-ups say
I’m in cuckoo-land
But I say
I’m like Peter Pan
I’m gonna live for ever
Here’s my never-never
Don’t mean to be clever-clever
But I’m gonna live for ever
Grandma died today
I’m sorry about that
(John Agard)
(The sound of a ghetto-blaster in the foyer, getting louder. It’s Terry by Twinkle. There is someone singing along, badly.)
MC: You’re twenty-one. The elf comes to you………
(noticing the sound from the foyer) Hang on, I just need to deal with this.
(to the rogue singer) Can I help you?
RS: What?
MC: There’s a concert going on there.
RS: There’s a concert going on out here.
MC: Well can you take your concert somewhere else? Thank you.
RS leaves.
MC: Sorry about that……
Anyway, the elf comes to you, and the elf says, what in the world do you want most?
A motor bike.
No problem. Big or small?
Huge.
No problem. This is a Norton Commando.
It’s a beast.
Hop on. By the way, you’ll need some insurance. Now, you’re twenty-one, graduate, unemployed of course……..er, it’ll be about £15K a year, you can get it slightly cheaper on the internet…….
But you’ve already ridden away…..
My Generation
I hope I die before I get old
Children shouting:
ena mena mora vitch
kissa nara vora vitch
eggs butter cheese bread
stick stock stone dead
MC: You’re forty-two years old. You’re not so sure if you know what’s what.
The elf comes to you.
He says You know, it’s going to be tough getting older. But you don’t have to. For just £36 a month, basic tariff, you can stay being forty-two till you die. I think you’ll agree it’s not a bad age to be…… and you’re in pretty good shape.
And you think, £36 a month, that’s really not bad….
And then you think Oh no, how about when my partner’s 90, and looking it, and there I’ll be looking forty-two. That’s sick.
And you say to the elf, Thanks but no, I can’t take it.
And the elf says, Good decision, moral decision, generous decision. I saw your partner the other day actually, looking very good, not a day older…….
Internal Wrinkling
I drunk
of the springs
of immortality
I ate
of the fruit
of longevity
Longevity longevity
Just my kind of remedy
O what can be better
Than living for ever and ever
I sat
in a bubble
of eternal youth
Determined
never to be
an old wrinklie
The clock’s
ticking. So what?
Here’s to Botox.
Death’s a place
I don’t intend
to show my face
But what’s the good
of smooth skin
and eyes that twinkle
when you’re a hundred and fifty-eight
if inside your head
your dreams have passed their sell-by date?
You should have read
the fine print carefully.
What were you thinking?
No spring no fruit no bubble
can be held responsible
for internal wrinkling
(John Agard)
MC: You’re sixty-three years old. Your parents are dead, your friends are getting nasty diseases, and you haven’t been feeling that great yourself. It’s like being under sniper fire.
You’re in hospital. No one seems to be quite sure what the problem is.
The elf comes to visit, bringing magazines, Men’s Health….
And you’re pleased to see him, optimistic.
And you say Please get me out of here.
And he says Of course. I’ll try. But you know how it is…the cuts…..
No More Flowers
Here in this hospital ward
Taking things easy’s kinda hard
So much toing and froing
Who can say where who’s going?
Always someone groaning
‘Nurse! Nurse!
Always someone moaning
‘Life’s a curse!’
You feel you want to flip
But you can’t flip when you’re on a drip
Please please no more flowers
What you want’s your fading powers
Don’t mean to sound fiddly
But trust they got the right kidney
Please please not grapes again
It’s raining grapes and you’re in pain
Here everybody’s so busy
The pace of life is a hospital trolley
And you’re under no delusion
This could be your last transfusion
Who invited that priest I wonder
I’m not yet done, I’m not six foot under
But mustn’t complain, mustn’t complain
Good God, not grapes again!
(John Agard)
Children, whispering:
ena mena mora vitch
kissa nara vora vitch
eggs butter cheese bread
stick stock stone dead
MC: You’re eighty four.
You say to the elf Could I take advantage of one of your rejuvenating offers?
And the elf says Sorry, too late. I can offer you a lift to Switzerland………
And you say Hey, hang on.
And the elf says Come on, let’s talk about dying.
And you say Do we have to?
Pushing Daisies
Pushing daisies when I pass on
Pushing daisies from Beyond
Trust me, I’ll not cease from toil
When I shove off this mortal coil
I’ll be pushing daisies to the sky
Pushing daisies grandpa’s style
What’s that, did you say die?
I’ll pop me clogs
I’ll croak with the frogs
I’ll kick the bucket
Yes, I’ll snuff it.
I’ll cash in me chips
I’ll cross the River Styx
I’ll go Boothill, if I must,
Yes, I’ll bite the dust.
I’ll sing me a swan song
I’ll ring the curtain down
I’ll meet me Reaper
Yes, I’ll meet me Maker.
(John Agard)
(Sometime around here, the rogue singer barges in to the auditorium, apologises, and goes out again.)
MC: First celebrity death of the evening. 400BC. Athens. The philosopher Socrates has been on trial for sedition and corrupting the city’s youth - and sentenced to death by the poison hemlock. He is on his deathbed. And he says:
The Death of Socrates
Now it is time we were going, I to die and you to live.
Which of us has the happier prospect is not known.
(Socrates)
Competitive Haiku
Skylark
sings all day,
but all day not long enough
(Basho)
Moon in a barrel:
you never know just when
the bottom will fall out.
(Mabutsu)
Life is scary
death is scarier:
sing wei-a-la wei-a-la
sing
Cock Robin
Who killed Cock Robin?
I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin.
Who saw him die?
I, said the fly, with my little eye, I saw him die.
Who’ll make the shroud?
I, said the beetle, with my thread and needle, I’ll make the shroud.
Who’ll dig his grave?
I, said the owl, with my pick and shovel, I’ll dig his grave.
All the birds of the air
Fell a-sighing and a-sobbing
When they heard of the death
Of poor Cock Robin
Who’ll be the clerk?
I, said the lark, if it’s not in the dark, I’ll be the clerk.
Who’ll be the chief mourner?
I, said the dove, I mourn for my love, I’ll be chief mourner.
Who’ll carry the coffin?
I, said the kite, if it’s not through the night, I’ll carry the coffin.
Who’ll toll the bell?
I, said the bull, because I can pull, I’ll toll the bell.
All the birds of the air
Fell a-sighing and a-sobbing
When they heard the bell toll
For poor Cock Robin.
2 Mourning
MC: Second celebrity death of the evening. It’s 1959. February 3rd. The day the music died. The singers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper have been killed in an air crash. We imagine the Buddy Holly fan club gathering for a vigil round the great man’s coffin. And singing this version of his final hit song It Doesn’t Matter Any More.
The Death of Buddy Holly
There you go and baby here am I
Oh well you left me here so I could sit and cry
Well golly gee what have you done to me?
Well I guess it doesn’t matter any more
Do you remember baby last September
How you held me tight each and every night
Well oops-a-daisy how you drove me crazy
But I guess it doesn’t matter any more
There’s no use in me a-crying
I’ve done everything and now I’m sick of trying
I’ve thrown away my nights
And wasted all my days over you
Well you go your way and I’ll go mine
Now and forever till the end of time
I’ll find somebody new and baby we’ll say we’re through
And you won’t matter any more
(Paul Anka)
(The end of the song is interrupted by the rogue singer singing along to Nice To Be Dead by Iggy Pop. O goes to remonstrate.)
MC: Please turn this off!
RS turns off the music.
RS: Thank you. What was that by the way?
Jo: Iggy Pop and the Stooges. It’s off Preliminaries. The bass player was….etc etc.
Yes, ok. Thank you.
To audience: Sorry.
Now.
Coffins.
Oak, mahogany, willow, or cardboard?
(Rhythmic ditty, which provides backing for the first part of the Undertakers’ Song)
The Undertakers’ Song
We prepare you to meet your Maker
You might be Atheist or Quaker
But we’re Your Friendly Undertaker
Our website’s open to everyone
Your Friendly Undertaker. Com
Give us a call before it’s too late
Why wait until you disintegrate?
You’ll be in hands that you can trust.
We value your ashes and your dust.
Our guarantee is for eternity
And it’s Buy One Casket Get One Free
Two’s company for a long journey
Our demeanour may be sober
But when old rigor mortis takes over
Give us a shout, we’ll do a makeover
We care for fading flesh as much as bone
We promise to restore your natural skin tone
We lay you out for your final rest
We ensure that you look your best
Well-preserved, well-groomed, well-dressed
Yes, final departures are big business
Someone’s got to do it, that’s how it is.
(John Agard)
MC: So, you’re dead, lying in your coffin. And the elf comes to see you.
He says Good news. I can offer you a very nice Viking funeral. Fantastic wooden longboat, really beautiful. You’re on it, in your coffin, nice and snug. We set fire to it, flames twenty metres high, and we float you out to sea. What a way to go eh? Glamorous or what?
Sounds good, you say.
Unfortunately health and safety are going to be all over us– improper disposal of a corpse, fire regs, hygiene, pollution, littering…… What we’ll do is to make a big deal of the fact that we’re recreating a longboat for a cultural history project, I think we might even get some heritage lottery money. Actually we could go for some Arts Council money too, put in a bit of Viking music, whatever that may be, do as part of the Brighton Early Music Festival.
Then I think we can take a leaf out of the Noble Brothers book, we’ll claim there was an accident, the boat sort of set itself on fire…….
And you say, Well, I don’t really like making Arts Council applications. I think I’ll just go for a simple New Orleans funeral if you don’t mind.
As Befits A Man
I don’t mind dying –
But I’d hate to die all alone!
I want a dozen pretty women
To holler, cry and moan.
I don’t mind dying
But I want my funeral to be fine:
A row of long tall mamas
Fainting, fanning and crying.
I want a fish-tail hearse
And sixteen fish-tail cars,
A big brass band
And a whole truck load of flowers.
When they let me down,
Down into the clay,
I want the women to holler:
Please don’t take him away!
Ow-ooo-oo-o!
Don’t take daddy away!
(Langston Hughes)
MC: Third celebrity death of the evening. It’s 1997. A Labour government has just been swept to power on a wave of misplaced optimism.Lady Diana Spencer has been through a disastrous liaison with Prince Charles with whom she has had a son William, a disastrous liaison with James Hewitt with whom…… and a disastrous liaison with Dodi Fayed which has ended in a totally unnecessary car accident in a tunnel in Paris. The nation is in shock. Tony Blair, the new prime minister, is asked for his reaction to the news. And he says:
The Death of Princess Diana
Tony Blair: I feel, like everyone else in this country today, utterly devastated. Our thoughts and prayers are with Princess Diana’s family – in particular her two sons, her two boys – our hearts go out to them. We are today a nation in a state of shock.
Her own life was often sadly touched by tragedy. She touched the lives of so many others in Britain and throughout the world with joy and comfort. How many times shall we remember her in how many different ways, with the sick, the dying, with children, with the needy? With just a look or a gesture that spoke so much more than words, she would reveal to all of us the depth of her compassion and her humanity.
People everywhere, not just here in Britain, kept faith with Princess Diana. They liked her, they loved her, they regarded her as one of the people. She was – the People’s Princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever.
(The singers gradually start to join in. When he reaches the words The People’s Princess, they take it up as a refrain, repeating it in an increasing agitated and finally demented way.)
MC: Now, another way of mourning.
1570. Perthshire, Scotland. The widow of Gregor MacGregor, beheaded by the Campbells, his head on a pole, laments his death.
Grioghal Cridhe
(in Gaelic)
Many’s the night, wet or dry
And in the fiercest storms
Gregor would find a nook for me
Where I could take shelter
I would rather be with my darling Gregor
Herding cattle down the glen
Than with the Great Laird of Dalach
And white silk about my head
When the young women of the village
Are sleeping soundly tonight
I will be at the edge of your grave
Beating my palms in sorrow
Obhan iri
Great is my sorrow
Jenny Jones
gp1: We’ve come to seek for Jenny Jones
Is Jenny Jones at home?
gp2: Jenny Jones is washing clothes
You can’t see her now
drying / ironing / folding
ill / worse / dying / dead
Jenny Jones is dead, is dead…….
gp1 What shall we dress her in?
Dress her in red?
gp2 Red is what the soldiers wear
And that won’t do.
Blue? / sailors
Pink? / babies
Black? / mourners
What shall we dress her in?
Dress her in white?
White is what the dead wear
And that will do.
MC: The elf’s reporting back from your funeral.
It’s been really great. Gorgeous ceremony….touching….dignified. Very moving speeches. People were really nice about you. No one mentioned how manipulative you were, how aggressive you were at table football, etc
There’s a great spread, gallons of drink, terrific live band. And now we’re dancing, everyone’s having a really good time. It’s cathartic, it’s celebratory, it’s somehow life-affirming.
And you say: Stop! Stop having fun! Turn the music off! Now!
Dancing and Wailing
(The rogue singer has come in to the auditorium with the ghetto blaster.)
Jo: Listen to this.
(It’s the end of Knocking on Heaven’s Door by Guns n Roses. The conductor and the MC are, despite themselves, impressed. They gradually join in, encourage the audience to do so too……The song finishes.)
MC: Yes, well, thank you.
(Ushers RS out.)
So, the funeral’s over. Tricky time.
And the elf’s back.
Good news. I think I’ve managed to get you interviews for heaven and hell. The heaven one should be fine. Very informal, workshop day – singing, harp playing, adoration……. The hell one is tough. You have to eat slugs and stuff….If you could just write a personal statement…… But don’t big up your good deeds, or your bad deeds for that matter, you’ll be rumbled, they’re really hot on that kind of thing…..
3 After
Coffee in Heaven
You’ll be greeted
by a nice cup of coffee
when you get to heaven
and strains of angelic harmony.
But wouldn’t you be devastated
if they only serve decaffeinated
while from the percolators of hell
your soul was assaulted
by Satan’s fresh espresso smell?
(John Agard)
Die Pussy Die (swinging game)
(Bolivia, All Souls’ Day:
‘They erect high swings, and old and young swing all day long, in the hope that while they swing they may approach the spirits of their departed friends as they fly from purgatory to paradise’ or
‘They swing as high as they can so as to reach the topmost branches of the trees, and whenever they are thereby able to pull off a branch they release a soul from purgatory’)
(Trying to touch a beam or high branch with the feet)
One to earth and one to heaven
And this to carry my soul to heaven
I went down the garden
And there I found a farthing
I gave it to my mother
To buy a little brother
The brother was so cross
I sat him on a horse
The horse was so brandy
I gave him a glass of brandy
The brandy was so strong
I set him on the pond
The pond was so deep
I sent him off to sleep
The sleep was so sound
I set him on the ground
The ground was so flat
I set him on the cat
The cat ran away
With the boy on his back
And a good bounce
Over the high gate wall
Die pussy die
Shut your little eye
When you wake
Find a cake
Die pussy die
Wingy wongy
Days are longy
Cuckoo and the sparrow
Little dog has lost his tail
And he shall be hung tomorrow
MC: So you’ve been lying there, underground, for a few days, or a thousand years, or something, and the elf appears. And he says: How’s it going? Did you get into heaven?
And you say: I don’t know really. It’s hard to tell. There’s not a lot going on here. I gave in my personal statement. I had a medical. They took my blood pressure, it was really low. In fact it was nought…….
What If
What if the afterlife
Is fiction, not fact?
You pass on and that’s that.
No Over Yonder.
No Afterlife to ponder.
Only six feet Under.
No soul to be weighed
Against the feather of truth.
No Judgment Day.
But what if there is an Elysium
Yes, what if those Greeks got it right?
Elysium - where the asphodels blossom
As you dance in eternal light?
But what if there is an Avalon
Yes, what if those Celts were spot on?
Avalon- where the paths are apple-blessed
And enchantment is all around?
But what if death is the end?
No eternity to spend?
No fire and brimstone.
No heavenly throne.
Only mortal flesh
Saying goodbye to bone.
But what if there is a Valhalla?
Yes, what if those Norse were on song?
Valhalla – where the roasting boars sizzle
And the mead keeps on flowing and flowing.
But what if there is a Rohutu
Yes, what if those Polynesians knew?
Rohutu - where the air is clothed in perfume
As you row your divine canoe?
Rohutu..Valhalla…Avalaon…Elysium…Happy Hunting Ground…Ancestral Sky-Place…Promised Land….
Fiction…fiction…fiction….
Paradise, Paradise, do you exist?
Paradise, Paradise, where do you hide your bliss?
Hell, Hell, can you show us a sign?
Hell, Hell, are you fire or ice?
And so we walk the thin line
Between virtue and vice
Balancing the risks
Between what if and what if.
(John Agard)
MC: And the elf, whose name by the way is Donald, the elf says:
The Unknown Knowns
As we know, there are the known knowns. There are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. That is to say, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
(Donald Rumsfeld)
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