Coming Soon...
http://portableresidency.com
Sign up to the mailing list for all the info first...
James Hamilton does thingscomedy writing, producing, performing, reviewing, script-reading, copywriting & other things, I do other things too sometimesWriting Tidbit: Toby Whitehouse on Doctor Who"Personally, I think Doctor Who should be complicated. Not despite but because it's a children's show. It's fantastic that the next generation of storytellers are being told such rich and dark and intricate stories. When did having to concentrate become mutually exclusive to enjoyment?"Toby Whitehouse, in The Guardian
Short Story: Tufty & TouloulaTufty and Touloula were the best of friends, and always had been. They knew each other inside out. Tufty was a strange little fellow who never, ever wore hats. Most people thought it was because hats just didn’t suit him, but those people were wrong. For Tufty, his refusal to wear hats was less an aesthetic choice and more a philosophy. “Why wear a hat”, he used to say, “if you can wear a smile?”. Tufty would often come out with stupid things like that He was well below average height, but made up for it with big shoes, and big, toothy smiles to match. Even his shoes had big, toothy smiles on them. He was by far the more cheerful of the pair, but sadly, he was also the simpler one. Tufty had his troubles, just like you and me, but he took them all in his tiny little strides and rarely thought them through. - - - Touloula was a very different sort of creature, but equally worth knowing. She was far easier on the eye than queer old Tufty, with his big shoes and no hats, but she was strange in her own, special ways. For example, she never, ever spoke a word – ever - for Touloula was a thinker, not a talker. She did have a mouth, but she hadn’t used it for years. Instead, she had one pair of gigantic, deep blue eyes, and in those eyes, you could see absolutely everything, like great French windows into her soul. Touloula was older, wiser and slightly taller than Tufty, but she never told him that. - - - Tufty and Touloula always brought out the very best of each other. Tufty would play the fool – which, for him, was hardly a stretch – and dance in the mornings and make Touloula smile with those enormous eyes of hers. She had her own, special way of smiling that didn’t need a mouth, and that smile filled Tufty with warmth from hatless head to shoe-clad toe. Tufty’s daft behaviour would encourage Touloula to join in, and when she did, they would be silly together for hours at a time. - - - In return, Touloula would teach Tufty about absolutely everything. Whenever they weren’t being silly, the two of them would sit together in the rain and listen to the world revolve around them. Wise Touloula would explain how everything worked without ever saying a word (she was very talented like that), and little Tufty would always listen, and often take notes, because he knew Touloula was right about most things. Their friendship was a rare and important one, there’s no doubt about that. Each had a piece of the other’s puzzle. - - - They grew up together and grew old together. One day, they even bought a tiny house to share, with a great big wooden door and a little goat, which they named “Jeremy”. Because they were both very small and light, Touloula and Tufty would take it in turns to ride Jeremy to the shops and back. Sometimes they didn’t even need to buy anything – they just fancied having a ride on the goat. But Jeremy didn’t mind very much, because he was just a goat - and secretly he liked the attention. - - - One day, while Touloula was eating some honey on toast, she was overcome with a peculiar and unpleasant sensation, a bit like what happens when you’ve eaten something rotten. At first she thought it might be indigestion, but honey on toast had been a staple of her diet for quite some time, so she ruled it out. She went to find Tufty to see if he had any ideas, but Tufty, predictably, didn’t know. (Tufty was an excellent friend, but he wasn’t a doctor. Tufty’s parents had wanted him to be a doctor, but Tufty wasn’t of the medical persuasion, so he said no.) - - - Touloula sat upstairs and thought about it for a long time. Occasionally, Tufty would come upstairs and sit next to her, because that’s what friends do, but it didn’t really help. Touloula soon became very profoundly sad, and began to climb back into herself. Tufty had a go at making her smile with a little dance, but it didn’t work. Tufty was getting quite old now, and his dance was not as silly, nor as exciting as it used to be. After a while, Tufty got a bit tired, and went off to feed the goat. Touloula fell asleep. - - - For days and weeks, this strange sadness continued, and began to envelope poor Touloula. She spent all her time tucked away upstairs, and nothing – not even a ride on Jeremy – gave her more than a moment’s fleeting happiness. This sorry state of affairs went on until Touloula woke up one day and realised that she was uncomfortably comfortable. The rest of her life had left her behind, and she needed to catch up. - - - Tufty, meanwhile, was downstairs, planning to buy another goat. He reasoned that Jeremy could use the company, and that if they had a second goat, then both Tufty and Touloula would be able to ride into town together. He was debating the merits of grey goats as opposed to brown goats when Touloula came downstairs. Touloula came into the kitchen, and through his little beard, Tufty grinned his daft old grin. Touloula held open her arms. Tufty scurried over and wrapped himself in her embrace, just like he always did. They held each other very tightly for a moment, and Tufty stretched up to kiss her forehead. He looked up into those gigantic blue eyes of hers, and for a moment, he thought he saw nothing. “I’m going to buy another goat”, he said. - - - Touloula left not long after that. Tufty wasn’t sure when she’d be coming back, but, he reasoned, it wouldn’t be long before she did. He bought the second goat, which, in hindsight, was probably a mistake. He went with a grey one in the end. This one was called “Martin”, even though it was a girl. He thought this was fair, since Touloula had chosen the name of the last one. He kept their tiny house looking spick and span, so that when she did return, everything would be nice and clean, and she wouldn’t have to come back to any washing up. He took the goats out for regular exercise, but had to ride them alternately, because he couldn’t ride them both at the same time - especially not at his age. Somewhere in the distance, Touloula spared a thought for her friend, and carried on. - - - It was raining. Tufty wanted to sit in the rain and listen to the world revolve around them, but Touloula hadn’t come back yet, so he didn’t. Instead, he sat by the window and watched it from the dry. He wrote her name with his finger on the glass: “Touloula” - and as he watched, it began to fade away.
See Choose Death in Camden!We're performing our award-winning, five star Edinburgh show for the final time at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden as part of the mega-exciting "Fresh From The Fringe" mini-season. Tickets are selling fast, so I'd recommend booking in advance from here! 
DOUG SEGAL: I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING and MACE AND BURTON: ROM COM CON As part of this season of shows, you can see any two of these shows on the same night for a scant £14.50/£12.50 concessions. If that's not a bargain, than I don't know what is. This is the last time we'll be performing the full Choose Death show, so please do come along and show your support! Finally: if you don't do so already, please become a Facebook fan of Casual Violence! Comedy for ticket offers, gig updates and suchlike. Choose Death 2011: The Round UpSo, here's how we did this year! 
NOMINEE: MALCOLM HARDEE AWARD FOR COMIC ORIGINALITY, EDINBURGH FRINGE 2011 (James Hamilton, for "Choose Death") WINNER: THREEWEEKS EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD 2011 (Casual Violence, for "Choose Death") RANKED #2: BEST ONLINE BUZZ OF THE EDINBURGH FRINGE 2011"Casual Violence could have created a new genre of ‘realistic surrealism’... Choose Death was so strange it is beyond any sane description and, in a long-shot way, is the most interesting of the three [sketch shows I saw]. The show was written by James Hamilton. I think he may need psychiatric help. Though not creative help. He is doing something right. There is something very original in there. I just don’t know what the fuck it is." ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "A perverse, twisted version of It's A Wonderful Death... strong and original sketch comedy" - Fringe Review, Edinburgh 2011 ★ ★ ★ ★ "Ludicrously inventive" - FIVE STAR review from Three Weeks
"A weird and wonderful show" The Skinny review "Casual Violence: Choose Death" (Edinburgh Fringe 2011)http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/102759-casual-violence-choose-death FOUR STARS Gloriously bleak and black, this is a weird and wonderful show more reminiscent of things like Charles Addams and Edward Gorey comic strips than any of Casual Violence's sketch-group peers. Under film noir-style lighting, Casual Violence take us through the grim demise of six intense and twisted characters to the tones of a creepy cabaret keyboardist. Of the range of random and hugely backstoried characters, the one that stands out is insane armless serial killer Bad Legs McGinty, and his menacing yet slightly sexually charged relationship with captor Detective Shoehorn, which owes as much to the Wizard of Oz as it does to Jack Nicolson in Chinatown (there are such a broad range of influences in this show, it's hard to keep track). Then there are the Siamese twin assassins, who are as far from Farrelly Brothers as you could care to imagine; the odious dying father in his mansion full of taxidermied relatives; and the desperate bubble-gun seller ripped straight out of post-Soviet melodrama. All delivered flawlessly, passionately, and completely straight. Gloriously dark and twisted, not filled with belly laughs but an unexpected trip into the bizarre. I can’t say how much I enjoyed it. Short story/flash fiction: "Christmas Every Day".A story I wrote today/yesterday for Chuck Wendig's terribleminds blog competition: I'm a bit out of practice when it comes to writing short stories, so feedback would be welcome. The brief was "An Uncharted Apocalypse". "Here’s your task: I want to see flash fiction set in a very unconventional, never-before-seen apocalypse. A Create Your Own End Times kinda story. Get as creative as you want. I want the world to end — or be in the middle of ending — in a way we’ve never seen before."Christmas Every Day It has been Christmas every day for eleven years, two months and nine days. *** For a while – about a fortnight, at least – it worked. There were a few teething problems, of course: a spike in the divorce rate as husbands forgot to buy gifts for their wives; bawling children coming to terms with the impossibility of a Santa that delivers every day – but these were buried under the positive notion of a planet brought together in harmony.Cracks began to emerge by the end of the third week. Within a year, those cracks had widened into gulfs of festive disaster. By Christmas Day #395, the balance had been skewed beyond repair. The first problem came with the decimation of the turkey population. The extinction of the turkey by Christmas Day #302 was the first in a series of swift and systematic genocides against edible animals. Lunchtime alternatives were desperately searched for. After turkey went the less popular options – ham, chicken, goose, beef – and by Christmas Day #386, vegetarianism became more than just a lifestyle choice. People begrudgingly tucked into nut roasts – their distaste for which strained family tensions even more than 186 consecutive Christmases already had. Once the nuts of the world had been vanquished, tree bark quietly replaced it. By that point, people had stopped caring much. Christmas dinner was all about the extras, after all. Worse was to come. The death of the turkey sparked a shift in the balance of nature, the likes of which nobody could have foreseen. Dogs were neither for life nor Christmas by Christmas Day #512 – by #592, most people had forgotten what the word “dog” even meant.*** The economy was the next thing to go, of course. After all, nothing was open at Christmas – bar a handful of pubs and 24-hour convenience stores. Industries across the world began to crumble – except for a chosen few. Port, cheese and stuffing oligarchs quickly took over the factories of the world, and went on to assume “special relationships” with our governments and media unchallenged. These problems didn’t just happen on a global level. People became cash-poor but possession-rich – except children, whose grandparents had to sell their homes to provide them with daily cash stuffed into tatty, Tippex-encrusted cards. Childless uncles also sold up – using the money to keep them floating in port. They became a public nuisance before long – and, after forming their own alliance on Christmas Day #2,012, a Threat to Society dubbed by a fearful public as “Drunkles”. (Drunkles have been less of a problem since the government’s Christmas Day Massacre on Christmas Day #2,122. This was not an action considered to be entirely within the Christmas Spirit, but it wasn’t reported until Christmas Day #2,197 – and things were much worse by that point.)***
*** Actually, the homeless communities outlived everybody else. Hundreds of volunteer-run soup kitchens kept them thriving; discarded presents and donations from the guilt-ridden kept them well furnished in home comforts. These people were the last to go. Long after the better-off had perished, pockets of tramps and beggars lived out their final Christmases in relative comfort. They learned to make their own soup. Small groups huddled around fires, drinking port from the bottle. One would have an acoustic guitar – a dead boy’s present – and struggle to write a song about feelings that weren’t directly connected to Christmas. Four thousand and eighty-six Christmas Days later, the yuletide juggernaut finally shudders to a halt. Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.JH Short story/flash fiction: "Jones".Jones sat on the bench at Platform 14 and lifted his briefcase onto his lap. He stared up at the electronic board. Names of places he'd never been before scrolled past him. A rare and unusual spark ignited at the back of Jones's skull. He didn't have to go to work today if he didn't want to. He could have an adventure instead. Jones had never had an adventure before. He squinted up at the board. East Grinstead sounded nice. He briefly wondered how Grinstead was given its name. It was probably named after a person. Mr Grinstead. More names scrolled past. Pevensey. He could go to Pevensey. Or Barnham. Horley, maybe. He didn't like the sound of Bognor Regis, but he didn't have to go there if he didn't want to. He could just step onto the next train and travel where it took him. Redhill. Burgess Hill. Hastings. All of these names held a kind of exotic appeal. They had a forbidden quality that made them all the more alluring. Jones had never gone to places he wasn't meant to before. The thought poured bubbly, child-like excitement into him as though he were an empty glass. Horsham. Perhaps he wouldn't even call work to warn them about his Adventure. Pegg could almost definitely manage by himself today. He wouldn't even tell Susan. Susan would never understand. Susan still loved him, but she would never understand. No. He would not tell Susan or Pegg. He would step on this train all by himself and go wherever it took him. St Leonard's Warrior Square sounded positively thrilling. Maybe he would go there first. He had his credit cards. He had a sandwich. He had a spare tie in his briefcase for emergencies. He could go anywhere. He didn't even have to come back until he wanted to. Complications began to cloud his judgement. His work would call home. Susan would worry. He would be reported as a Missing Person. A4 copies of his picture would be Blu-tacked up in train stations. Susan would use the one of him smiling. The police would be involved. They would trace his credit cards and find him. There would be a siege. They would bring him home in a police car. Susan would be crying. That would be embarrassing. A train pulled up in front of Jones, then pulled away. Jones cleared his throat and blinked. His train arrived a moment later. Jones stepped on board and went where he was meant to go.
JH Productive things: updated my CVJust given my CV a cheeky spruce-up: |
|
