Now please bear with me, after numerous failed efforts at writing a sitcom/film script based on my idea, i have realised that perhaps the avenue for my piece to go down is that of a One Man One Act play for the stage, so this is the opening that I have got so far, please please please let me know what you think. Should i carry on and write more?
As the house lights dim, we start to hear a dull thudding noise, which turns out to be the drum beat from a song. The song becomes more recognisable and louder. Disco and strobe lighting flash round the stage and auditorium. The music grows louder and louder until everything suddenly stops. The lights portray early morning. Suddenly a moan comes from under the blanket on the sofa.
Oh. Ooooooohhhhhh! Why do I do it? Every year the same every year the same hangover!
He slowly draws the blanket off and swings his legs round off the sofa. Wearing only his boxer shorts, he gently gets up, stretches and looks around to get his bearings. He heads, somewhat haphazardly, towards the door to the kitchen and makes his way through it.
(Off) Eh? Who’s had me bloody kettle?
He returns through the door and looks around for it. Finally he goes to the waste paper basket; he pulls out a number of unsavoury things before his hand clamps around something familiar.
Aha!
He puts his second hand in and pulls them out together. Kettle in one hand, with the lead hanging down, and the disconnected plug in the other.
Oh Bastard! He addresses the audience. Cup of tea any one? He throws the kettle and plug onto the sofa. Welcome to my house. During the next section he dresses himself. It’s the twenty seventh of December. Two days after Christmas. But more importantly the day after Boxing Day. And Boxing Day is the day of the family party. So can probably understand why I’m in this state. Every family have family parties. But not like ours. Let me take you through the highs and lows, the ups and downs, the side to side, loop to loop, corkscrew to corkscrew of the rollercoaster ride that is our family party.
The lights change, pop music plays quietly in the background and the character is no longer hung-over.
It’s the twenty sixth of December. Boxing Day. Seven o’clock and the guests start to arrive. Mum is still insisting that we should have had the party start at eight o’clock, so we wouldn’t miss Coronation Street but is soon happy demolishing a glass of cheap rosé wine. The first guests to arrive are the aunty and uncle who live just up the street, but come on their bikes so they can both get smashed and cycle home. Next are the family with so many children that they arrive in two cars because one seven seater wasn’t enough. They pile out and the kids go straight into the conservatory to play on the Wii, and the parents crack open a bottle…… of Pepsi. Then there’s always the aunty who thinks she has more in common with the royal family than your family. She ‘swans’ in with a bottle of Cava. Followed by the aunty who has more in common with the Royle family off the telly!
Inevitably at some point the Grandparents arrive, bumping into every car outside while trying to park. A feat which they will repeat later when they have to leave at nine o’clock because Grandma’s had one sherry too many. Having ‘parked’ their twenty three year old Renault five, one wheel on the pavement the rear of the car obstructing almost all of the street, and one of the doors somehow stuck in the neighbours hedge, they too join the party.
Then of course Uncle Bob arrives! Now every family has an Uncle Bob, not necessarily called Bob, but everybody has one. He throws the back door open, a pint glass (called Colin) in one hand and yells "PARTAAAAY!" His long suffering wife follows him in, head in hands, face redder than a sunburnt beetroot. She knows what’s in store.
And so slowly everybody on the invite list arrives, plus a few stowaways and you do your best to mingle politely and answer the same banal questions that you get asked every year. "Yes I’ve had a good year thanks", "No I haven’t got a girlfriend yet", "No I’m not gay", "No honestly, I’m not gay" "Yes I’m sure!" And when you say "I’m just waiting for the right girl" they just give you ‘that look’ you know the one, and they move on.
He moves to the chair and sits
And so you sit, and you watch. You see all the kids waving the Wii remotes about willy-nilly while one, rather stressed, parent charges around catching the falling vases and mopping up spilt drinks. One of the smaller children is bawling his eyes out in the corner because his brother got rather excited during a game of Wii Boxing.
You observe the cliques within the family. How the room is split completely in half and the only interaction between the two sides is the odd poisonous glance. But everybody inevitably becomes less hostile as the liquor flows.
He grabs a drink from the table and stands.
My favourite bit of the early evening is introducing your sister’s latest boyfriend to the family. He introduces the invisible boyfriend to invisible members of the family. "This is Uncle Arthur, this is Aunty Slim, Aunty Twig and Uncle Wall, Pam and Uncle Sausage, Aunty Maz and Uncle Fester, Bob, Boo, Jack, Fish, Fred but his real name’s Garry, Uncle Lindsay and Willy Lad." The boyfriend’s face after the introductions is comedy gold in itself, but the real entertainment comes when you ask him to recite all the names including children…… and grandchildren.
Now for the first few hours things are quite civilised, in the good old days, when I was a kid, the young one’s would disappear upstairs and come down twenty minutes later with a fully choreographed dance routine for whatever song was track one on the latest NOW! Cassette. Nowadays they spend all their time in the conservatory on the Wii. Mind you I don’t think any of them could dance if they tried. The adults meanwhile have to, as they say, "Break the seal" and so there’s a queue for the toilet that stretches across the landing and down the stairs.