Liars' League

Valentine's Event: TOGETHER & APART, 7pm Sunday 14th February

Our Valentine's Day event showcased a selection of five seductive stories featuring Victorian agony column-addicts, hormonal teen parties, poorly-programmed love robots, hybrid roses and a classic romance with a sting in the tale. Join our Facebook group if you want to experience our next Watch Party live on the day (unless ... gasp! we might be able to do it live by April?!) and see below for all the videos and stories and the podcast.

TOGETHER & APART WINNING STORIES

 

Balancing Act by Tomek Mossakowski *New author* read by Helen Belbin
Phantom Plane by C. G. Thompson *New author* read by Paul Clarke

Agony by Jennifer Rickard, read by Harriet Dobby
Hometown Debut by Jess Worsdale, read by Fergus Rattigan
You Don't Have to Read This, But I Hope You Do by David Guy, read by Martine McMenemy

 

This will be our fourth online Lockdown Literature show - thanks for joining!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! (How to give tips & donations)

Usually we'd use ticket sale cash to buy our authors & actors food, booze and/or books. As we can't do that right now, if you want to donate some £/$ to our talented contributors who have dedicated their time, skill and effort to entertain you, please do so via Paypal to [email protected] ... or you can use the yellowy-orange PayPal Donate button above on the right -->

All money will be split equally between all participants: if you'd like your cash to go to a particular author, actor or story, just add a note to your donation with their name: named "tips" will be passed on to those contributors. LL won't be taking anything .

 

Agony by Jennifer Rickard

Agony MP3

Read by Harrie Dobby

To the red lady on the St James omnibus –

I sing of men, and of the love
That slipped from my fingers
Velvety pure, ever unsure
I still have your glove.
Please reply as to return address via this column.

- The man with the hat

It is a pointless endeavour for a writer to hide her guilty pleasures from her reader, so instead I shall boldly confess my greatest sin here – I adore the agony columns. Those personal messages which sit on the second page of every great paper in the city of London, where people write tiny love letters, advertisements for missing relatives, requests for money and other cries from the heart – the great majority written in some kind of cipher that is only intelligible to the single soul in the world to whom it is addressed … or to a good detective.

Hometown Debut by Jess Worsdale

Hometown Debut MP3

Read by Fergus Rattigan

Cian is a shiver of denim with a plastic bag of canned good times. Deckchair-striped, it gouges heavy into his fingers so they bulge white at the tips. Occasionally, some acquaintance of his mother cackles by and comments on him breezily before reemerging with the dregs of the Centra wine fridge. Along the street, a family with kids unable for midnight sets off New Year’s fireworks early, and a crack of gold sparks splits the bite-cold evening, leaps over the broody hulk of suburbia.

Rob is late but for once Cian doesn’t mind. Since the summer, he’s coexisted with this bubbling anticipation, the simmer of it fizzing through his skin. A little longer. His mam had slipped him a twenty when she’d heard Kathy’s son was home. ‘God love him,’ she’d said, ‘that lad deserves a good night. What’s it been, five months now?’

Phantom Plane by C. G. Thompson

Phantom Plane MP3

Read by Paul Clarke

He hears something about a mind going south. He and his wife used to drive south, to Florida, every year. They would stay a week, visit a nearby Christmas shop, stroll along the beach. One September he found a baby turtle stranded during low tide. He took it to a lifeguard. It was an endangered species. He hoped he’d given the turtle a new chance at life, that it was as big as a kitchen table now, safe in the ocean.

He’s in an unfamiliar room, where everyone is dressed as if they’re at church. He glances down and sees he’s wearing his brown suit. He feels his head. Wearing his hat indoors would be unforgivable. Someone should have told him. But his head is bare. Was there a hat rack in the hallway?

You Don't Have to Read This, but I Hope You Do by David Guy

You Don't Have to Read This ..

Read by Martine McMenemy

Dear Sir,

I thought it best to contact you by mail, considering the events of this past week. You don't have to read this, of course - I'm sure you are very busy, after all - but I hope that you do. Perhaps it will do you good to hear an explanation of events from a point of view other than your own.

After the events of the dance on Friday night - I'm sure I don't have to explain that in detail - it seems a vital misunderstanding of the importance of our ... tryst (shall we say) ... has begun to blossom in your mind. Yes, I enjoyed myself very much - as I hope did you - but I thought a man in your position would have understood, as seemed clear to me, that this was simply an enjoyable dalliance rather than the precursor of something, indeed of anything, deeper, or more personally committing.