Liars' League

An Irish Christmas by David McGrath

Pssst ... Resolved to submit more stories this year? Head over to our brand new 2021 themes to see what we're looking for!

Read by the author - Full podcast here

As a young woman, old Mrs Coogan reloaded rifles in the War of Independence and ran ammunition for the Flying Column of the Third Brigade. She took a bullet to the shoulder from a British Vickers machine gun for her efforts. She was heralded as the brave epitome of the new Irish republic, and missed her image featuring on the nation’s first five pound note by only two committee votes.

Lookin Up by Emma Grae

Read by Lois Tucker - Full podcast here

Lockdoon turbo relationships. That’s whit they call it. Ye finally cross pass wi somewan guid, and then boom - Big Boris tells ye tae stay at hame.

“Fancy gettin a hotel?” ah text the fella ah’ve ainlie met twice. Boozers shut at ten, and a few hoors o chat wisnae gonnae be enough fur us. The prices o rooms are oan their arse because o lockdoon two.

“Aye,” he replies, no hinkin twice aboot it.

“Smashin. Meet ye by the station in an hoor?”

“Aye. Cannae wait! x”

Ah’ve gat Mark Zuckerberg tae thank fur this wan. This fella gied me a compliment oan the auld Facebook, and ah replied tellin him that he made a hot wumman. It wis true. That body swap filter is sommat else.

Last Christmas by Rhys Timson

Pssst ... Resolved to submit more stories this year? Head over to our brand new 2021 themes to see what we're looking for!

Read by Tony Bell - Full podcast here

Twenty-five feet wouldn’t kill him, especially given the blanketing of snow. He’d probably break something though, maybe a leg or an arm. Still, just a few more inches along the roof and he’d be able to reattach the wire. He was flat against the concrete tiles, his feet propped up by the guttering, sliding himself along towards the animatronic Santa and his reindeer, currently dark and motionless atop the ridge. He was holding the cable between his teeth while he dug his fingers into the gaps. Probably not the safest way to carry a high-voltage electrical wire, but fuck it, it wouldn’t be Christmas without Santa and his levitating caribou.

A Pear for an Urchin by David Turnbull

Read by Claire Louise Amias - Full podcast here

The drone dropped down to examine the strange green object the droid held in his rubberised gripper. She was buffeted slightly by the winter wind that was swirling eddies of dust amongst the ivy-clad debris.

“What’s that you have there?” asked the drone.

The solar powered engine of the droid hummed in baritone monotony.

“It’s a pear,” he replied.

Red diodes flickered on the drone’s LED display as she searched the cloud for a definition. “A fruit!” she exclaimed when the answer revealed itself. “A seed bearing structure which once grew on trees.”

The Annunciation by David Gill

Read by Lin Sagovsky - Full podcast here

Mid-December hung around Ely, Cardiff. It was cold but it had yet to snow. It had yet to do anything.

What Joseph and Mary called a flat was one room. A window that looked north across Bishopton Road. A gas cooker on which two of the four burners worked. A sink.  A double mattress set on a floor industrially carpeted grey.

The thin sunlight sighed through Joseph and Mary’s window, dangled as threads about their room.

Their furniture was plastic, Joe’s mate Paddy had lifted it from the Culverhouse Cross B&Q. Straight into his van and dropped it here one late November evening. A table and four chairs. A housewarming present.

CHRISTMAS EVENT: Heart & Soul, Tuesday 8th December

TICKET UPDATE: 8 TICKETS REMAINING, PLEASE BOOK ASAP IF YOU ARE COMING!

 

The mornings are frosty, the lockdown has (sort of, partially) lifted, and tinsel is in the supermarkets: it's finally December and time for Liars' League's annual Christmas feast of festive fiction! 

 

This month for our seasonal theme of Heart & Soul (click for Facebook event) we have five brand-new stories, set in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the far future, to warm your cockles and ginger your bread: they feature lockdown hook-ups, accidental babies, drones, droids, zombies (obviously) and some truly appalling things coming down chimneys.

 

Thanks to lockdown closures we can't be at our usual venue the Phoenix, alas: but we have provisionally booked the upstairs room at the Nag's Head in Covent Garden: stories will be read LIVE by REAL ACTORS in front of a REAL AUDIENCE at 7pm on Tuesday December 8th.

NB Tickets are STRICTLY limited to 25 and cost our usual £5. (See below for how to book online).

HEART & SOUL STORIES

A Pear for an Urchin by David Turnbull, read by Claire Louise Amias
An Irish Christmas by David McGrath, read by the author
Lookin Up by Emma Grae, read by Lois Tucker
Last Christmas by Rhys Timson, read by Tony Bell
The Annunciation by David Gill, read by Lin Sagovsky

We will also be distributing free mince pies and of course brand new novels for the quick of brain and high of hand in our Christmas book quiz.

The venue address is:
The Nag's Head
10 James Street
Covent Garden, London WC2E 8BT

 

TICKETS & EVENT INFO (the small print stuff)

TL:DR

- Tickets are limited to 25
- and are a low low £5
- but you have to book a table even if it's just you. Singletons book tables for 2.
- book and pay through Paypal using the orange Donate button above, top right

 

THE LONG VERSION

Please book a TABLE (for however many are in your group - max 6) rather than individual tickets, as pubs are not allowed to seat people of different "groups" (even if that group is only one person) together. So we strongly suggest you contact your friends if you think they'll be coming, and book a table together. If you're on your own just book a table for 2, but these are limited. 

 

Tickets will be limited to 25 (assuming all tables are full - may be slightly fewer if some tables are not full), and our ticket price remains a furlough-favouring £5.

 

If you want to drink alcohol you also have to order a "substantial meal", i.e. more than olives. Soft drinks are totally fine. (Sorry, them's the government guidelines ...)

 

How to book: Please use the Donate button on the top right of the LL website page (look up, look right, it's small and orangey-yellow...) to donate the price of however many tickets you want to us. So a table for 6 would be £30, but a table for 2 with only one guest is £5 because we're not going to punish you for not filling a table. Here's how you do it.

 

- Click the Donate button

- Enter the amount: £5 for 1 ticket, £10 for 2 etc. (you have to type in 5 - 0 - 0 for £5, it's slightly non-intuitive)

- Click Donate. This will take you to your Paypal login (if you don't have Paypal get someone else on your table to pay for tickets :) 

- IMPORTANT: Where it says Add a note please enter your name plus how many you want on your table. E.g. Katy Darby, Table for 4. Track & trace/QR code stuff is done at the venue so we don't need everyone's names, just the booker's.

- Ideally, tick the Share your email address button so we can contact you if there's any problem

- Click Donate Now

- And you're done! 

 

N.B. ALL donated funds (after Paypal fees) support contributing actors & authors: we take nothing.