Friday, 28 April 2017

The Last Misummer Banquet (introduction)


Text on blank screen:

 

Once upon a time in the future, in a part of what was once Britain ...

 

Commentator:

(voice over, concurrent with the text, which fades with the sound): Once upon a time in the future, in a small part of what was once Britain …

As the text on the screen fades away, whispering half-audible voices mutter conspiracies:

Conspirator #1:

... the most subversive power in the land ...

Conspirator #2:

... subversive, must be ...

Conspirator #1:

... banned ...

Conspirator #2:

... must be banned, yes, the most subversive power, yes ...

Conspirators:

... must be    Music!

Text on screen flashes and slowly fades

 

MUSIC!

Ext, day

A huge pile of guitars, keyboards, drums, every conceivable sort of musical instrument, stacked up on a patch of waste land.

Close up of a Machine pointing a gun-like appendage at the instruments, which burst into flames.  We see this bonfire from several viewpoints.

Fade to blank screen

commentator:

(voice over): So, music was banned. 

Obviously, you can’t do that.  It’s like banning hearing and breathing.

So after a while, they back off a bit.  OK, some music can be allowed.   Conforming to defined guidelines, mechanically constructed in officially approved music factories, by suitably trained mechanically qualified ‘resources’  – well OK, that can be allowed. 

But don’t try it on your own, don’t try it at home.  Unauthorised music, human music, that stuff’s well and truly banned!   

Well, after another while – a very little while – they saw that people might not like this either, might get a bit, let’s say, fractious.  So, it was decreed that each year, on Midsummer Night, there will happen A Great Banquet!

Text on screen flashes and slowly fades

 

A Great Banquet!!!

 

Fade up shadowy images of huddled conspirators.  Voices over:

Conspirator  #1:

… a Great Banquet, in a Great Banquet Hall –

Conspirator #2:

… everyone invited, things might even be permitted  

Conspirator #1:

… even their own music 

Text on blank screen

 

THEIR OWN MUSIC?

 

Commentator:

 Their own music?  Allow them their own music?  Human music?  For a few hours a year?  Bad idea!

Ext, day.  twilight

The bonfire of the musical instruments.  Shadowy figures dart in and snatch more or less unscathed guitars, drums, saxophones, gongs, dulcimers being salvaged and snuck away to secret hiding places.

Fade to blank screen

Ext, night and day: split screen

Dissolving close-ups of people learning to play their stolen musical instruments; raiding parties stealing stuff from shops, fuel depots, etc; people cultivating, harvesting, cooking, eating their own food ...

Text on blank screen

 

Some years later

 

Commentator:

Very bad idea!

 

*


Text on blank screen

 

June twenty-fourth, this year

Crash on soundtrack.

Commentator:

So, is this going to be the Last Midsummer Banquet?

 

Title on logo screen:

 
The Last Midsummer Banquet

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