Liars' League

Hull to Haddon Hall by Lauren Van Schaik

Read by David Mildon

Mick’s gold lamé jumpsuit reeked: of sweat, of beer, of that gummy stage makeup, in the armpits and down the crotch. He noticed when he shimmied into it in the green-room, zipping it to his sternum.

He could have had it washed, he imagined, but could you dry-clean a thing like this? He couldn’t imagine picking it up, in a swishy, loud garment bag; the winking looks from behind the counter. He couldn’t imagine even being in a dry-cleaner. Or a launderette: watching the gold lamé spin, like an astronaut tumbled in a rocket ship; like a man washing his Mam’s best Debenhams dress.

What Now? by Enzo Kohara Franca

Read by Kevin Shen

Some called it the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Others the Third Wave of Automation. Terminology aside, we all knew what they meant. Truck drivers, radiologists, abstract painters – all had been bettered by algorithms.

  And now it was our turn. “Amateur” adult actors.

  Many a journalist has interviewed those in our profession and come back with horror stories about our upbringing. Parents enslaved by opioids. Partners with a taste for extreme violence.

  Trust me. Those clichés aren’t true of us.

Aletheia by Katty Pearce

Read by Paul Clarke

It is not our custom to invite strangers here, you know. For obvious reasons. Except of course on our Treat Days. Every Leap Year our Keepers permit just one resident to invite a guest to join us. Given the general sense of irony in here, it’s always on Valentine’s Day. Read nothing into that. It is simply an institutional joke. We take it in turns. It staves off the loneliness and the despair that follows. Today the honour has fallen to me. You are my choice. My treat.

But why you? Well, I have read your column, of course.

I enjoy your hyperbole, your witty turns of phrase. And I do so enjoy your amoral stances on whatever little titbits you happen to pick up around town. A dying art these days, the art of the high society gossipmonger. ‘Aletheia’ – your pen-name amuses me. ‘The disclosure of truth’.

The Kiss by Brindley Hallam Dennis

Read by Sophie Cartman

The two couples, not often, but three or four times a year, would get together for a meal in a small restaurant or bistro café near the city centre. At that time of the early evening when the office workers have departed in their cars, or on their trains and buses, and the late night diners have not yet arrived, they would meet at whatever car-park was nearest. Traffic would ignore them, going in the opposite direction, eager for, or resigned to home. Buses lit up like chandeliers would pass them by. Pedestrians wrapped up in their thoughts against the chill would walk on. The scent of late flowers, overhanging the pavements and brushed against, wafted on the evening air.