Liars' League

St John's, 23rd December - Forgiveness by Anna Savory

St John's - Forgiveness MP3

Read by Paul Clarke

Welcome. Welcome, everyone, to St John's. And, goodness, look at you all! It’s heartening, really it is, to see so many faces here tonight. If there’s one thing I’ve realised in the past few weeks it’s that there’s nothing like Christmas to wake that latent religious urge, which in many of you has lain dormant at all other points in the year. Why, only in September I was stood in the Bishop’s living room expressing doubts about our dwindling congregation, and what did he tell me? He told me to have a little faith.

‘Don’t worry, David,’ he said, like the Lord addressing Thomas ‘Don’t fear. Just you wait until midnight fucking mass, it’s like the bloody Hammersmith Apollo.’ Famously obscene our Bishop, one of his many charming quirks. But indeed, how right he was! Attendance tonight is gratifying and I can only assume it signals a sea-change in the spiritual direction of this parish, which I trust will continue long, long into the new year.

It Never Snows at Christmas by Peter Higgins

It Never Snows at Christmas MP3

Read by Gloria Sanders

‘Every year, she comes, and every year it’s the same.  “Have you been on holiday, Laura?”  “Yes. Greece, actually.”  “Greece?  Really?”.’

‘Esme.’

‘“Oh, and I’ve brought you a bottle of Greek wine.”  “Oh, Laura, you shouldn’t have.”’

‘Phoebe!’

‘It tastes like wee.’

‘How would you know?’

‘Girls, please stop bickering, please.  Greek wine does not taste like wee.’

Flitter by Emma Hutton

Flitter MP3

Read by Annalie Wilson

Maggie didn’t think the snowman would punch back. The others hadn’t. Their heads had just rolled off and landed with a thud that made her hate the night a little less. But he landed a hook on the jaw that sent her body to the ground.  

‘Weren’t expecting that, were you?’

‘Jesus!’ 

‘Nope. Not Jesus.’

She stared up at two lumps of coal and clicked her jaw back into place.

Strange Heart by Jean Rover

Strange Heart MP3

Read by Max Berendt

For the most part, Dave kept his mother in his closet except on her birthday when he would set her on the fireplace mantel so she could get some sun.

Now Miriam, his sister, was going to spoil all that.

For Dave, a mild-mannered, bespectacled high school history teacher, life was going along at an even pace. Then, he met Sharon. Last month, he turned forty and planned to marry her in December.

That’s when Miriam had jumped in. “It’s time,” she announced in her matter-of-fact way via a telephone call from her condo in the Deep South. “No bride in her right mind wants her mother-in-law’s ashes hanging around, especially at Christmas.”

The Corollary Museum by Joel Blackledge

The Corollary Museum MP3

Read by Louisa Gummer (MVP Acting, 2017)

Welcome. Gather round. Gather round, please. Good. Ahem.

If one person were to spend one minute looking at each item in the British Museum’s permanent collection, it would require a visit of 15 uninterrupted years. To do the same in the labyrinthine halls of The Corollary Museum would take almost a century.

But don’t worry - today I will show you just some of the Museum’s catalogue. Please stay together and don’t touch the items. If you have a question then please speak loudly, I’m older than I look.

The Museum was founded by Porfirio Maldonado Jambrina, to house the private collection of objects he acquired on his extraordinary travels. How can one man have collected so much?