Liars' League

Birth Plan by Uschi Gatward

Click to play BIRTH PLAN

Read by Beverley Longhurst

Birth partner — husband only. No-one else to be admitted until post-natal ward.

Midwives — would prefer female midwives and other medical staff.

Positions for labour — would prefer active labour if possible to enable me to work with gravity.

Monitoring — where monitoring is necessary we would like explanations as to why it is being done.

Elevator Pitch by Mike Clarke

Click to play ELEVATOR PITCH

Read by Sarah Feathers

‘Prologue: 2084. The Americans have wasted all the shale gas. President Cash allows mercenary conglomerate FrackULike to drill in geologically dodgy regions, like close to the Yellowstone Caldera – you know, this enormous, fomenting mass of pressured lava that’s been overdue to erupt for a million years. The experts—’

‘OK. I get it, you’ve got the end of the world wrapped before the opening credits. But give me the human interest – and what did you say your name was?’

The Job by Maggie Veness

Click to play THE JOB

Read by Silas Hawkins

I arrive home one afternoon to find my eighty year-old father using a spatula to scrape the green, velveteen paper off one of the walls in the lounge. I can hardly believe my eyes. He’s just spent the entire winter grieving for Mum, barely eating or speaking, cocooned inside bedding that had come to smell like a tired, old creek.

The Rat Pie Man by Stephanie Brann

Click to play THE RAT PIE MAN

Read by Tony Bell

The Beginning

The Rat Pie Man adjusts the brim of his hat and slips down Cecil Court, almost invisible. Darkness has fallen on outer London but the lights in the centre are never extinguished. The theatre crowds have gone home; the homeless lay out their cardboard mattresses in doorways, pull up damp sleeping bags, turn restlessly on their stony beds. In the bowels of the earth a few trains still rumble; rodents squeak.

Memory Man by Jim Cogan

Click to play MEMORY MAN

Read by Suzanne Goldberg

We saw him again for the first time about three months after the accident.

I was at the far end of the bar when he entered, watching my pale cheeks and pigtails cohere in the chrome of the espresso maker as I buffed it raw. I heard the door open way up front, shooing in a burst of traffic noise, and I wouldn’t have bothered to turn had not Lewis, standing there in anticipation of the day’s first customer, failed to deliver the jaunty, rather servile greeting he’d invented for us all to use, which had long since evolved into communal reflex.

Beginning & End - Tuesday 13th May

The five winning stories for our Beginning & End event on Tuesday 13th May have been selected! They feature a bewildering array of subjects including birth, death, fiery apocalypse, Aussie fishermen, rodent kebabs, eidetic lovers and what to do when you're stuck in a lift with a movie executive.

 

The Guardian named us as one of the UK's Great Storytelling Nights just a few weeks ago, so come along and see why ... it's only a fiver on the door, which includes a programme and the chance to win free books in our fabulous fiendish literary quiz.

BEGINNING & END WINNING STORIES

Birth Plan by Uschi Gatward *NEW AUTHOR*

The Job by Maggie Veness *NEW AUTHOR*

Memory Man by Jim Cogan *NEW AUTHOR*

The Rat Pie Man by Stephanie Brann *NEW AUTHOR*
Elevator Pitch by Mike Clarke