Liars' League

Masks by Paul Blaney

Read by Silas Hawkins

‘I knew there was something about him.’

‘You never said.’

‘Doesn’t mean I didn’t think it.’ She tried to catch his eye but he looked away, took a sip of tea and set the mug back down on the bedside table.

‘I just had a feeling,’ she said, not insisting. It was a relief to be speaking about it after all the not speaking about it. It was Saturday morning; they’d got the phone call on Wednesday night. Since then: more phone calls and work and drink and trying to think of something else, forgetting sometimes for a couple of minutes at a time but always remembering then.

Liars' League Gentlemen & Players - Encore - Tuesday 19 May

Much to our delight, as part of ongoing arts/club/music night The Playground, we have again been invited to strut our story stuff at Proud Galleries in Camden.

This basically means that if you missed Gentlemen & Players last Tuesday at the Wheafsheaf, you now can come along at 7pm next Tuesday 19th May and hear our fabulous actors read them for you again.

It will also cost £5 instead of £3 because your ticket grants you entry to the bands, DJ and other stuff that's on there after the stories have been read - but trust us, for Camden that's a bargain. Drinks are also silly cheap until 10 or something, and the whole place (including bar) stays open until midnight.

The bands are Delooze, Ocean Reid (playing this summer at Beachdown and Out of the Ordinary festivals) and genre-straddling electro/rock/anthem-mongers The Education. So don't say we never do nothing for you.

As for the stories, as before they feature torture, kidnap, murder, flirtation, Prince Harry and quiche. Oh, and some gentlemen. And players.

Worst Review of My Career, So Far by Quintin Forrest

Read by Alex Woodhall

It was after the tabloids published the location of my unit in Afghanistan (my military unit, that is, not the marital, though I was attached to that too) that I decided I had to leave the army. It had been good fun, I'd enjoyed mucking in with the regiment, but being decapitated live on al-Jazeera seemed too high a price for the guys to have to pay, for hanging with the H-Meister. I mean, I know some great clubs, and I always get my round in, but nobody's that good a bloke. Plus, we're a bit sensitive about the whole beheading thing, us royals.

The Player by Vanessa Woolf-Hoyle

Read by Stephen Butterton

The Player by Vanessa Woolf-Hoyle was read by Stephen Butterton at the Gentlemen & Players event at Liars' League on Tuesday 12 May

Pitching Quiches by Sarah Rose Etter

Read by Danielle Fenemore

It’s a spectacular spectacle. Under the moon, on the darkened front lawn, Mr. Rosemary’s form is pitching quiches against the linoleum siding of Margaret Holly’s house.

“You got an arm?” he asks, looking up from a stack of filled frilled tins.

“No, Mr. Rosemary, I do not,” I say. I light a cigarette as he picks up a Quiche Lorraine and hefts it in his right hand. I am not entirely sure how he obtained these quiches.

Once a quiche is air born, the outcome is inevitable: It, like so many quiches before it, punches into the side of Margaret Holly’s house, the tin making a hollow reverberating sound as eggs and crust are liberated from the silver, broccoli and red pepper slivers dusting the grass.

The Torture Orchestra by Sarah Ellender

Read by Paul Clarke

“Aaaurgh.” Two, three, four. “Aaaurgh.” Two, three, four. Really, Percy Cribbs thought, he could do this in his sleep.

When he’d auditioned for the King’s Torture Orchestra, he’d been so nervous he’d been sick twice before his turn. After they told him he’d be playing third groaner, he ran home to his mother and they held hands and jumped around the tiny parlour. Now he could only recall the events intellectually, without a shadow of emotion. He wondered if he could miss the next rehearsal.

The Gentleman on the Train by Nora Nadjarian

Read by Emily Lucienne

Did any of this happen? I ask myself. I live in a haze these days. Haze, daze, I don’t know, same thing. Somebody smiles at you and you think everything’s oops-a-daisy. And that somebody is a gentleman: blue-blooded, clean-shaven, well-off, gentle yet strong, every woman’s dream.