This is a piece of silliness I dashed off very quickly without any self-editing, then put aside half way through and never got round to finishing. Looking at it again I honestly don't know what to make of it. Is this complete toilet or is there anything here worth salvaging?
NARRATOR
In a time before time...
FX: A BELL RINGS
LANDLORD
Last orders, if you please.
NARRATOR
...in a land far, far away
THE NARRATOR'S VOICE FADES AWAY AS IF DISAPPEARING DOWN A LONG TUNNEL.
NARRATOR
Not that far. There came a darkness.
SILENCE
Er.. could I have some lights please?
FX: A COIN GOING IN A METER.
NARRATOR
That's better. Could we try to be a little less literal with the FX please? A foul black cloud that blanketed all the land.
AUSTRALIAN
Bugger! We only needed one more wicket to win the series.
NARRATOR
The sun and the moon and the stars were blotted out.
AUSTRALIAN
And I'm telling you, you blind galloot of an umpire, there's still light for another over. Er... umpire... umpire?
INDIAN
Please desist from your arguing.
AUSTRALIAN
Oh, there you are. C'mon, just the one more buggering over.
INDIAN
It is too dark for the cricketing...
AUSTRALIAN
Ump...
INDIAN
...and I am not an umpire.
CUSTOMER
Twenty Rothmans and a scratchcard, please.
NARRATOR
This pestilential cloud bubbled forth out of the sulphurous springs of Ordour.
FX: Parp! (PAUSE) Parp! Parp! (PAUSE) Paaaaaaarp!
NARRATOR
Oh, I do beg you're pardon. Ordour, the land of the Shadows.
GRAMS: Apache.
NARRATOR
Where ruled an ancient evil.
CLIFF
Hi! Can we talk about God?
NARRATOR
Er... not just now... (SUDDEN INSPIRATION) I have a souffle in the oven. It is one of Delia's.
FX: Tring!
NARRATOR
Oh that's it now.
FX: FRONT DOOR SLAMMING. OVEN DOOR OPENING.
NARRATOR
My, it has risen. Thank you Delia.
DELIA
Always time for a quickie darlin'.
NARRATOR
Once this evil one had enslaved the hearts of maidens with his quivering lower lip and rock attitude, but long his siren song has gone unheard; his Time remembered with horror and loathing.
CLIFF
Oh come now, that's not fair! The main theme reached No 27 in the Australian charts.
NARRATOR
In this time of darkness...
AUSTRALIAN
C'mon just look at the lightmeter!
INDIAN
Sir, please to put down my pricing gun.
NARRATOR
There arose a hero. Er... could we have some heroic music please?
GRAMS: Bonnie Tyler: I need a hero, I'm holding on for a hero till the end of the night, he's got to be strong and he has got to be fast, and he's got to be fresh from the fight. I need a hero...
NARRATOR
A young boy....
BONNIE
Bugger.
NARRATOR
... who as our story begins is still only a humble page.
BONNIE
How old would a page be? Out of interest.
NARRATOR
Fourteen or fifteen.
BONNIE
Hmmm....Nah, too young.
BOY
Bugger.
NARRATOR
A page named...
BOY
Stormhawk.
NARRATOR
...Cedric.
BOY
I prefer Stormhawk.
NARRATOR
No, you're Cedric.
BOY
Oh poop!
BONNIE
Stormhawk! Oh, I like that. It's larger than life.
BOY (QUIETLY)
Sure is.
NARRATOR
Are you still here?
BONNIE
I'm holding on.
NARRATOR
Well don't hold on to that - he's only fourteen.
BOY
Fifteen. Sixteen next birthday.
BONNIE
When's that?
BOY
Twenty seven days. And eleven months.
BONNIE
I can wait.
NARRATOR
Not here, you can't. Now bugger off.
BOY (CALLING OUT)
Eleven months. And twenty seven days.
NARRATOR
Cedric...
BOY
Storm...
NARRATOR
Cedric was a page in the household of his uncle, Sir Kit, who was training him. Training him! Sir Kit training. Oh, I'm good!
BOY
I don't get it.
NARRATOR
Cedric was a very simple boy.
BOY
Oi!
NARRATOR
Cedric's uncle, the good and kind knight, Sir Kit, was schooling him in the noble arts of chivalry. Such as maiming, disembowelling, and groin-crunching.
FX: Thud. Ooof.
KIT
You got that now.
BOY (HIGH-PITCHED)
Yes, sir. Thank you.
KIT
Of course that's the English way of doing it. Your Scot, being an uncouth sort, uses the knee.
FX: Thud. Ooof.
KIT
But I just call that unsporting.
BOY
Jolly bad form.
KIT
Now your Frenchman, he prefers a good run up. Try and hold still there boy.
BOY
Sorry uncle.
FX: Mailed feet running. Thud. Ooof.
BOY
Oh well hit, Sir.
KIT
But me I prefer the good old-fashioned English stamp.
FX: Thud. Ooof.
KIT
Tried and tested, wot?
BOY
Yes, very efficacious Sir.
KIT
So what have we learned?
BOY
That in no much of a hurry we are, not to forget to put on our groin guard.
KIT
Quite right. You won't forget again...
FX: Thud. Ooof.
KIT
...now will you?
BOY (REALLY HIGH-PITCHED NOW)
No Sir, I think it is quite etched on my memory.
KIT
Oh, and Cedric, isn't it about time your voice broke?
BOY
Not sure that's going to happen now, Sir.
KIT
Nonsense, we will make a man of you yet, a gentil parfait knight. Right, tomorrow we will continue your training by looking at slaughtering peasants, raping damsels and ransoming Frenchmen.
BOY
Jolly good sir.
KIT
Theory only, of course. I mean, where are we going to find a Frenchman round here?
NARRATOR
While Cedric was being nurtured in the tender bosom of his family...
AUNT
Soak them in vinegar dear.
BOY
Will that help?
AUNT
It's what I always do with beetroots.
NARRATOR
... the great wizard Merkin summoned a council of the wise.
FX: HUBBUB OF VOICES.
FIRST COUNCIL MEMBER
Before we proceed to item 1 on the agenda I should just like to raise a point of order. I think the members of this council know that I am not one to hark on procedure...
FX: GROANS
FIRST COUNCIL MEMBER
...but it has come to my attention that the correct protocol for summoning a council of mages, warlocks, necromancers and allied magical professions has not in fact been followed. This irregularity does in my view call into question the validity of this assembly as a forum for combatting the forces of unspeakable evil.
FX: GROANS.
FIRST COUNCIL MEMBER
I call the esteemed members attention to the Prophecies of Morpeth the Seer; Section 27, sub-section 13B, paragraph 2g, second indent...
FX: Zap
FIRST COUNCIL MEMBER
Ribbit.
MERKIN
Right, moving on to item 1 on the agenda, the evil darkness that besets the land. The chair acknowledges Meldreth the White with a hint of beige.
MELDRETH
Do you not think evil is an inappropriately pejorative term? Evil as a concept seems to me to be outmoded. A pestilential cloud blanketing the land, if approached in a spirit of cultural relativism...
MERKIN
The chair warns Meldreth to be careful.
FIRST COUNCIL MEMBER (PLEADINGLY)
Ribbit. Ribbit.
MERKIN
Baldock the Lime Green.
BALDOCK
Am I only the one concerned by the correlation that is being made here between darkness and evil? To me it has overtones of racism...
NARRATOR
The council debated long into the night.
MERKIN
Right that's agreed then. Item 1 the cloud of a colour which is other than white, though no particular significance attaches to this, representing cultural values that are different, but not necessarily inferior, to our own, that is besetting the land.
TORDRED
May I say a word?
MERKIN
I do not know thee stranger, but it is said that the unbidden guest oft proves the best company.
TORDRED
Really? In my experience he drinks all the decent vino, pisses in the aspidistra and cops off with the next-door-neighbour's wife. But that is not important. I am Tordred, a wandering minstrel, and helpful plot-device. I have ventured into Ordour, the land of the Shadows.
GRAMS: FBI
TORDRED
Their dark lord dwells in bitterness. The once fair-seeming face, that through dark arts retained the image of youth down the long centuries of his reign, has become a skeletal mask, the stretched skin tanned like leather. None tend him now but withered crones, who worship him in the ancient fashion, by throwing him their undergarments.
MERKIN
Dear God.
TORDRED
Mark and Spencer firm control full cotton briefs; they can kill the passion in a man stone dead. In his tortured soul, the dark lord envies and despises us for our secular lifestyles and easy going morals. And so from the springs of Ordour he has summoned forth this pestilential cloud, to punish us for our debauchery. This darkness will remain upon us until every last man among us does as he has done, and keeps it in his trousers. You, the wisest in the land, must tell the people to renounce fornication. You must lead by your example.
MELDRETH
Oh.
MERKIN
The thing is, as wizards we don't go much in for that sort of thing anyway.
TORDRED
Of course! How stupid of me! You would loose your powers if you were to engage in congress with a woman.
BALDOCK
That's what we tell people.
MERKIN
The truth is none of us have ever had that much luck with girls. You know how it is, you grow up with your nose in a grimoire, in the playground no-one picks you on their side for tournaments, you become a loner, people start poking fun at you, you turn them into things...
FIRST COUNCIL MEMBER (TEARFUL)
Ribbit.
BALDOCK
Girls are just not interested in us brainy types. They always go for the sporty, good-looking boys. Who don't have personality disorders.
MELDRETH
I loved a damsel once, but she spurned my advances.
BALDOCK
Was that before or after you made her dress invisible?
MELDRETH
She was wearing Mark and Spencer firm control full cotton briefs. Uugh.
MERKIN
Frankly, oh wandering minstrel and helpful plot-device, a wizard telling folk to stop fornicating is much like a man with a white stick attempting to convince them of the advantages of wearing a blindfold.
TORDRED
Hm, I see. So what are we to do?
MERKIN
We must not kowtow to the evil one, we must stand firm for the right of men everywhere to put it about a bit, particularly wizards should the chance ever come along, which would be a fine thing. We must find us a warrior to lead us into battle against this lord of the Shadows.
TORDRED
But where shall we find such a warrior?
MELDRETH
Well, he's got to be strong.
BALDOCK
And we can't hang around.
MELDRETH
So he's got to be fast.
BALDOCK
And he should have experience.
MELDRETH
Oh yes, he's got to be fresh from the fight.
BONNIE (SINGS)
I need a hero
NARRATOR
We all know what you need dear. Now shsh... there's plot happening.
WELWYN (CREAKY VOICE)
The land has long been without a king.
MERKIN
Welwyn the Burnt Umber speaks truly.
TORDRED
Were not you, O mighty wizard Merkin, the last to speak to the old king before his sudden and wholly unexplained disappearance?
AWKWARD SILENCE
FIRST COUNCIL MEMBER (RESIGNED)
Ribbit.
WELWYN
The land cries out for it's champion. We must have a true King once more upon the throne to lead us into battle against this lord of the Shadows.
MERKIN
The oldest amongst us humbles us with his wisdom.
WELWYN
And coronations are such fun. We can have bunting and street parties...
TORDRED
Right, while you running dog lackeys of inherited idle wealth get on with finding your figurehead of class oppression, I shall have a bash at persuading people to lay off the fornicating. How difficult can it be?
NARRATOR
As Torded the wandering minstrel and helpful plot-device set off on his lonely quest to persuade the men of the land to stop playing hide the sausage, and the Council of the Wise debated how to find the one destined to be king, and when they did whether to have a vegetarian option and who was going to supply those little sausages on sticks, Sir Kit's son, the brave and noble knight, Sir Valiant...
BOY
Valiant? Valiant?! Right if he can be Valiant I am going to be Storm...
NARRATOR
Your name is Cedric, young man, and I am not arguing with you about it. And now Sir Valiant is going to continue your training.
BOY
Hang on, I'll get my groin guard.
VALIANT
No need for that lad. It is time you and I had a chinwag about your becoming a jolly old knight, and the true meaning of this sacred trust. When knighthood gets a mention what springs into that noggin of yours young Cedric?
BOY
Well, I suppose, there is the honour of arms and the glory of doing battle in a noble cause...
VALIANT
Yess...
BOY
...and rescuing damsels, of course....
VALIANT
Quite. Where would we be without the ladies, God bless 'em? But no, I had something more important in mind.
BOY
Slaying dragons?
VALIANT
Frightful beasts. Like crossing swords with an animated Aga. No knighthood's true meaning lies in the company directorships. There's nothing adds a touch of class to the old letterhead like the odd Sir or two, wot? And dashed lucrative it is too.
BOY
Oh, I see. But the skills I have been learning, the maiming, disembowelling and groin-crunching, are they a sound preparation for corporate business?
VALIANT
Oh, I should think so. In the media sector certainly. But the God's honest is all that is expected of you is to pop in at biannual intervals for a gathering of the Board and keep the old ocular roll tops propped open while the tribal elders sift through the entrails. A ghastly bore, but these corporate types don't stint themselves when it comes to laying on a decent trough, so it is not all face handles to the grinding stone.
BOY
Gosh.
VALIANT
Money for last season's halyards really.