Liars' League

Romero & Juliet by Liam Hogan

click to play ROMERO & JULIET

Read by Robert Welling

Don't get me wrong, I knew the risks. We all did. Sure, like everyone else, I never thought it would be me – right up until the moment it was. And certainly not in such a goddamn dumb-ass Comedy of Terrors way.

If this is to be warts and all, I should admit that I wasn't originally a fan of the zombie genre. It’s hardly something that befits someone with a degree in English Literature, even if it is only from community college. Financially, I could see the merits, but before me it was just a few poorly-lit, shakily-held, brutish and downright nasty Youtube clips. Not that mine aren't brutish and nasty when the story calls for it, which is often, but I'd be very disappointed if you thought they were poorly lit.

At the Bottom of the Sea of Troubles by Lucy Ribchester

Click to play SEA OF TROUBLES mp3

Read by Miranda Harrison

When I think of him, it starts with his shoes. Italian leather, I can tell from the tongues. He must have been friends with a sailor to have acquired them, because I can also tell by the way he holds his legs that he is horseman rather than seafarer.

PTSD: Part-Timer Still Down - A Soldier's Tale by Caroline Greene

click to play PTSD

Read by Tony Bell

Alone and not alone. Is partly what it’s like. You’re grateful for solitude and yet you dread it. Like today, my wife went out, took the kids. Took them somewhere. To the park, I think she said, or it could have been the pictures. Sometimes I find it hard to follow. Well, that’s not new, she’d probably say.

Outrageous Fortune by Ala Anvari

click to play OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE mp3

Read by Alicia McKenzie

I hold my breath as best I can, but my heart is beating so hard I'm sure they'll hear it through my chest. My head's spinning, my skull feels like it's in an industrial press and I feel like puking. The most exercise I've done in the last ten years is forty minutes' jog on a treadmill twice a week after work. I wonder where my self-respect has gone. Sprinting through a muddy forest with a paintball gun in my hand is about as far from my idea of a perfect date as I could imagine.

But then, the boy is cute.

Kassell by Cherry Potts

click to play KASSELL mp3

Read by Greg Page

White mountain, white sky; burdened with dirty grey clouds that speak of more snow to come. Deep snow, thick snow, cold, deadly. On the lower slopes of the mountain, a road lined with a stuttering collection of shivering onlookers in improvised, impoverished mourning.

On the road, from the valley and the palace and the town, a funeral cortège: the matched black horses startling against the white, struggling to pull the hearse through the snow that falls faster now than any amount of sweeping can clear, ice under their hooves, deadly in the cloth muffling the clink of their metal shoes.

History Lessons by Oana Aristide

click to play HISTORY LESSONS

Read by Sarah Feathers

Who knows how children get such mad ideas? Some blame the tree. The old twisted oak glowering down on Gigi’s village was just like the oak in the schoolmaster’s tale. ‘Proud and large, overlooking the plains, visible from afar.’ Dark brown furrowed bark, one low fat branch sliding westwards on the sparse grass, giving the oak purchase against centuries of nipping eastern winds. On rain-heavy war mornings the children of the village watched the tree’s bare knotty branches writhe in the fog, stealthily alive. Their oak! Ready to bring wooden maces down on invaders’ soft heads.

Slings & Arrows stories for Tue 8th April

By the pricking of our thumbs, something wicked this way comes ... it must be our April SLINGS & ARROWS event, featuring soldiers, knights, cross-dressing, hangings, paintball and zombie porn - all in the very best Shakespearean tradition (it's the Bard's 450th birthday this month doncherknow ...) Pull out your quill and note it in your diary for TUESDAY 8TH APRIL - The Guardian named Liars' League as one of the UK's Great Storytelling Nights only last week, so be there or be a cross-garter'd gull.

In addition to these delights, there will also be the usual infamous literary quiz at which you can win FREE BOOKS to improve your mind even more than will the winning stories listed below (except the zombie porn one, that'll just eat your brain). As usual, doors open at 7pm, stories start at 7.30, and tickets are £5 on the door - address below.

SLINGS & ARROWS WINNING STORIES
PTSD (Part Timer, Still Down) by Caroline Greene *NEW AUTHOR*

Outrageous Fortune by Ala Anvari *NEW AUTHOR*
History Lesson by Oana Aristide *NEW AUTHOR*
Romero & Juliet by Liam Hogan

At the bottom of the sea of troubles by Lucy Ribchester
Kassell by Cherry Potts