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7.2 AND A
WEEKEND OF WEIRDNESS... A scene from "The Persecution And Witchcraft Trial Of Howard The Dummy As Portrayed By The Members Of The Charles And Magic Moments A.T.T." L to R: Howard The Dummy (as himself), Count Five (The Priest), Tarquin Experiment? (The Court Usher), Jacob (Judge Edgar G. Hoover) and myself (Witchfinder General McCarthy). I can only apologise for my jumper. Saturday 25th July 1987... THE GRAIN MIDNIGHT PICNIC, The Obelisk, Camberley. Sunday 26th July 1987... MAGIC MOMENTS A.T.T. live, The White Hart, Frimley. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What can one say about the weekend just passed at the time of writing (13:09, Mon. 27th July)? Different? Interesting? Arthur Negus? Not only does the mind boggle, it also curls up in bed with a piece of lemon rind every Wednesday evening. Scenario; a car park in Camberley, just adjacent to the library, a few minutes before midnight on Saturday. A few cars are parked in the far corner, a dozen or so people gathered round them... waiting. A flash of torchlight from the woods and Count Five and the masked Mick Magic appear to lead the revellers up through the wooded pitch black hills to the old Obelisk, eerily lit by lamps and candles, and filled with strangely garbed personages. Play: "The Persecution And Witchcraft Trial Of Howard The Dummy As Portrayed By The Members Of The Charles And Magic Moments A.T.T.", a bit of a mouthful (as Nick Morgan would have us believe a part of his anatomy is). Our cast as follows; Judge Edgar G. Hoover (Jacob), The Priest (Count Five), Witchfinder General McCarthy (Mick Magic), Defence Counsellor Harvey "Spanker" Proctor (Benedik Charles), The Court Usher (Tarquin Experiment?), Torturous Bastardos (J.A.T.T.), The Whore/The Pope (Kate Twilight) and a guest performer, Wiss/Chris/His Honourable Self as The Good Truthfinder Witch. Slowly, the case against Howard The Dummy unravelled, Howard stood in stony silence throughout, unflinching, a giant amongst showroom dummies. The audience, around two dozen folk whose mums didn't mind them being out after midnight!) gradually heard how Howard had cast wicked spells that had changed The Priest's best friend into a large jar of peanut butter, some of which had been eaten by his son, Pat (abuse on a postcard to Mick Magic, etc. etc.), and how more magic had enlarged the unwitting Court Usher's knob (just thought we'd slip in a song title) to over three feet in length, though he refused to share his grief with the court, and how The Pope had been transformed into a lowly whore by more wickedness. The Truthfinder Witch used some hi-tech hocus pocus followed by Torturous Bastardos definitely not enjoying stabbing Howard (with a real knife as proved when he murdered The Whore, who was a bit surprised, she only took the part because we had told her the dagger was cardboard... sorry!) and burning her with lit reefers. Harvey Proctor put up no real defence, but then he wasn't really supposed to. Can you live with your conscience, Uncle Sam? Howard The Dummy was executed by hanging from a nearby tree, and Jamie "I Love Vicky" Paterson was nearly topped too (then somebody mentioned we could all go to prison and we didn't fancy a life worrying about bending over in the showers). In the shadow of the dangling corpse, the picnic was enjoyed until finally, at 1:50 a.m., guess who appeared and said "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's all this then?" It had to happen, didn't it. Still, no-one was arrested (another missed chance for publicity), though to his credit, Nick Morgan mouthed off very hard trying to get nicked. The Bill combed the ground around The Obelisk for evidence of drugs and took away a small bottle of washing up water for analysis. Such is life? |
Policeman at 1:50 a.m. - "What's going on here then?" Me - "We're having a picnic, what the fuck else would we be doing?" L to R: Nick 'Morgan' Lewis, Countess Elaine, me in that horrendous jumper, Kate Twilight, J.A.T.T. and Jamie "I Love Vicky Lennon" Paterson.
Best Loudmouth Award; to Nick Morgan, for his stand-up comedy routine. Best Scaredyshit Award; to Sarah, for believing Mick Magic was a werewolf. Thanks for coming, and those who didn't... better luck next time. Right: Jason Hall and that utterly cool cloak. Sadly, his street cred took something of a tumble that night when his mum found out where he was and turned up to take him home. Below: Some of the Charles-ier members of the cast relaxing with friends after the show. The back row consists of Jacob (minus his judge's wig), his good lady, Sarah (a-wooooo!) and Benedik Charles. Front row - probably just some poor unloved attention seeker, desperately striving to get himself noticed. Try loud jumpers...
THE CAMBERLEY OBELISK
At the time we staged our Midnight Picnic,
back in the Summer of 1987, the land on which the Obelisk stood was in
private ownership, hence the unwelcome (though not entirely unexpected,
it's also not far from the back of Camberley Police Station!) attention of
"our friends in blue". Most people didn't even know it was there, being on
a hill that was completely overgrown with trees and without any public
right of way, a very sorry state of affairs for a part of Camberley's
history.
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These
days, the situation has changed for the better, it finally became fully
accessible to the public as part of the Camberley Park project in 2000, so
if you ever fancy peeking into a part of our history, do pay it a visit.
Hell, take a picnic! If you'd like to know more about its history, there's
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