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A Right Royal Revelatory Riot!

 


In the Throne Room, the King Phantomime is stationed on his throne, ready to pull the crocodile pit lever as soon as his rescue is secured and the Grand Duchess Yekaterina tips him the wink. Anna Kissed and Nick Louse, a.k.a the Santanarchist, are playing a tetchy game of ‘Whose Veggie Stew? – the Deluxe Version’. The Granarchist is pacing the floor, annoyed that there still hasn’t been a response to the ransom note.

‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘I thought the British public would be in uproar that their King has been kidnapped.’

‘Per’aps not,’ shrugs Anna Kissed. ‘Per’aps they are, at last, taking the lead from l’histoire de France, and are growing tired with the ‘ole pomp and circumstance of Monarchy. Per’aps they are sharpening Madame Guillotine as we speak,’ and she lets out a slightly maniacal French titter. ‘Mwahehehehe!’

Nick Louse, who is finding his Santanarchist outfit growing increasingly hot and scratchy, suddenly looks up from studying his hand of cards where he has been pondering either laying a pair of carrots and an aubergine, or calling Anna’s bluff with a triple roasted beetroot. ‘Woss that noise?’ he says. ‘Can you ‘ear it? Sort of rumbling, like an ‘erd of stampeding wildebeest is on the move…’

Everyone listens. The rumbling grows louder and closer. The gang of anarchists glance at one another, quizzically at first and then with increasing concern.

Suddenly, the doors to the Throne Room burst open and a swathe of not very happy Armed Forces Veterans enter, shouting ‘God Save the King!’ at the tops of their voices. Some of them have, en route to the Throne Room, grabbed a selection of ancient armaments from the Palace wall displays and are waving them around like they really mean business. Some of the Palace staff have done the same because it’s something they’ve always wanted to do and now seems the ideal opportunity.

‘Oh my word!’ says the King Phantomime, bugging his eyes and rising to his feet. ‘My people! My loyal and devoted people!’

Well, what a palaver ensues!

‘There they are!’ shouts Bert, who, at the age of eighty-eight, is having the time of his life. ‘Traitors! Anarchists!’

He leads the charge across the Throne Room. ‘Get them!’ he shouts. ‘Take them to the Tower! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!’

‘Careful, Bert,’ says his wife, Irene, who has armed herself with a toasting fork. ‘Don’t you be setting off your hip again.’

In her heart, the Granarchist wants to fight back. She wants to hold her nerve and stand fast for her beliefs and all she has worked for. She glances around and can already see that Anna Kissed and Nick Louse have been surrounded and cornered. She realises she is outnumbered to the tune of eighty-five to one against her, which isn’t the greatest of odds at the best of times. Her dilemma is should she surrender and feel shame for the rest of her life, or should she throw herself on a sword and die with honour, although it will probably hurt a bit, but not for very long? Also, she can smell battered sausages, to which she is highly allergic.

And then the noise around her subsides. She can see the crowd advancing on her, she can see they are still shouting and are very, very angry. But there is no sound. It’s like the moment has slipped into slow motion.

‘Vot shall you choose to do, Granarchist?’ whispers a voice very close to her ear. ‘Vot is your next course of action?’

‘Who’s that?’ says the Granarchist, glancing around.

‘Does it matter?’ says the voice. ‘I am ze voice inside your head. I am your conscience, your moral code, your ethical standard. Vot iz the best course of action at zis moment ov time? Sink carefully…’

Ultimately, the Granarchist is a sensible, if slightly misguided person, and she knows what to do which is jolly good because the Lady Author doesn’t have enough days left for an extended plot line. As the angry people approach, the Granarchist holds up her hands. ‘I surrender,’ she says. ‘Just keep me away from the battered sausages.’

‘Hurrah!’ shouts the crowd, and Bert’s wife holds the Granarchist at bay with her toasting fork whilst Bert secures her hands with a curtain tassel. ‘See how YOU like being held hostage,’ he says.

The King Phantomime is overcome with gratitude. How wonderful that his people have come to his rescue and how wonderful that no one has met a horrible end by being eaten by crocodiles, which, after all, isn’t very festive, is it? (Although part of him, the Kenneth the Phantomime bit, is a tad disappointed he didn’t have the opportunity to pull the crocodile pit lever.)

Everyone in the Throne Room falls silent as the King Phantomime stands to address his people.

‘You’re going to have to tell them the truth,’ says Mrs Miggins, giving him a nudge.

‘Yes, I know,’ says Kenneth. ‘But it’s been a hoot, hasn’t it?’

‘Would I call it a hoot?’ says Mrs Miggins, who is quite exhausted with it all and wants a nice cup of tea and a sit down. ‘I don’t think so, but do carry on.’

The King Phantomime clears his throat. ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen…’ he begins. ‘No, that’s not right. Er…my dear, dear people…I have a confession to make. I am not actually King Charles III, Monarch of this Realm.’

A collective gasp goes up from the crowd.

‘Told you so,’ says the smug Chief-of-Staff.

‘But fear not,’ continues the Phantomime. ‘The real King Charles is safe and sound. He and Queen Camilla are on a Christmas holiday. I am merely a very good and highly plausible stand in.’

‘Then ‘oo are you?’ says Bert, stepping closer and peering into the faux Monarch’s face. ‘Oh yes, I can see now. You’re not as ‘andsome as ‘is Majesty.’

‘Rude,’ says the Phantomime. ‘I am Kenneth the Phantomime, actor and performer extra-ordinaire.’

The Granarchist looks up, suddenly alert. ‘You’re WHO?’ she says.

‘Kenneth the Phantomime,’ says Kenneth. ‘You may have heard of me. I’ve had my moments of fame in the past.’

‘YOU!’ screeches the Granarchist. ‘But it’s YOU who encouraged me to take the road of anarchism in the first place…mwahahahahahahahaha!’

Kenneth looks confused.   

The Granarchist, newly emboldened by this revelation, continues. ‘Kenneth, it’s me – Tracey Lacey McFacey. The founder of the Phantomime Fanarchist Fan Club! Remember me? It was YOU who inspired me to take down the monarchy after your seminal performance in the musical drama, ‘You Must Be Joe King,’ where you played a Prince who gives up his right to the throne by moving to California, marrying an actress and single-handedly bringing down the British Royal Family.’

‘Dear goodness, Kenneth!’ says a shocked Mrs Miggins. ‘Even now, you STILL manage to be the root cause of all the calamity at Christmas.’

‘Honestly, Kenneth,’ admonishes Mrs Slocombe, ‘have you no shame?’

‘I never had you down as a firebrand,’ says Mrs Poo. ‘A bit of a twerp perhaps, but never a firebrand.’

‘Personally,’ says Mrs Pumphrey, ‘I am glad that everything has turned out well.’

‘I’m glad we didn’t have to resort to the crocodiles,’ says Mrs Miggins.

‘I am not,’ says the Grand Duchess Yekaterina who has witnessed the crocodile pit in action and always found it to be thrilling entertainment.

‘What crocodiles?’ say Mrs Slocombe and Mrs Pumphrey.  

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