I need help with this month's theme!

[Falls]

Help Mantaspook!!,

 

I'm having real trouble with this months theme. It refers to Classics but is this limited to British Classics? If so I'm running out of ideas.

 

I did think of adapting one of the Bronte novels and calling it " TheTenant of Meadowhall" but I cant get the ending right. In any event, it would most likely result in me receiving snotty letters from both the shopping centre and the Bronte Society.

 

Can we included Russian classics? These provide much more scope.

 

For instance, there's Mikhail Sholokhov -you remember him ? He wrote the novel "And Quietly Flows The Don" . Lots of scope there.

 

 

Of course there's Anton Chekov. Even more scope with him.

 

For instance you can have "Uncle Vanya", who used to sell the Star at the corner of Haymarket and Commercial Street.

 

Then there is "The Cheery Orchard" (in Neepsend)

 

Dont mention "The Seagull" - I'm still trying to get the stains out of my shirt.

 

Whad ya say?

[Mantaspook]

Hi Falls,

 

British classics, Russian classics, classic ANYTHING really - not just books, feel free to re-write a short screenplay to a classic film if you want, just don't forget to include the local angle.

 

Rich, who suggested this theme, has hinted that his story is based on a famous H.G Wells novel - I can't wait to see that one.

 

The theme can be interpreted as broadly as you wish, you may uproot the story and bring it to Sheffield or re-write a classic from the perspective of someone from Sheffield.

 

Imagine if Rick Deckard, the bounty hunter from Blade runner was a dour Yorkshireman from T'Manor ("Bloomin' replicants - they dint half make a mess when I shot 'em…") or Animal Farm, set just outside Bradfield, Moby Dick, which as every one really knows, was the name of a big white trout in the canal basin, The day of the Triffids…in the botanical gardens.

 

Or how about Alfred Hitchcock's "The birds" - those pigeons on Fargate are lethal…or Jules Verne's "Around the ring road in eighty days" or what about that great Sherlock Holmes classic "The hound of the Beachief hills."

 

Looking at the above examples I can see there is a natural tendency to highlight the comedy of the situation, after all we're writing a spoof, but you don't necessarily have to go down that route.

 

For instance, Aldrous Huxley's Brave New World could be set in a Sheffield comprehensive school, the "class structure" of the pupils being streamed according to their ability could be a metaphor for the genetic screening in the novel.

 

Whatever you decide to do is fine, for further inspiration here are 110 Classic books or enter classic books / classic films / book titles into Google and see if you come across a title that appeals to you.

 

The Cherry orchard...in Neepsend? - Did they build the gas works over it?

[Falls]

Hi Falls,

 

British classics, Russian classics, classic ANYTHING really - not just books, feel free to re-write a short screenplay to a classic film if you want, just don't forget to include the local angle.

 

Whatever you decide to do is fine, for further inspiration here are 110 Classic books or enter classic books / classic films / book titles into Google and see if you come across a title that appeals to you.

 

The Cherry orchard...in Neepsend? - Did they build the gas works over it?

 

Hi Mantas,

 

Thanks for your help. The fog is beginning to clear. I have also taken another look at the Russians.

 

Tolstoy is a bit over-the-top for me. That Anna Karenina has got herself a terrible reputation by hanging-out with the pub crowd up West Street.

 

I had thought of something along the lines of Dostoevsky's tale of the Brothers Karamazov. Mine would be tale about a trio that lived on a well-known council estate and nicked lead from church roofs.

 

Germany doesn't offer much in the way of help. Goethe and Schiller - the writers, not the comedians -don't adapt easily. I would probably have more success with the legends. Loreley luring the unsupecting boatmen to their death on the rock has scope for development. Of course, transfering the the tale about treacherous currents of the Rhine Gorge to the Don at Hillfoot Bridge would be a challenge but I'm sure this can be over come (Sauerkraut is going to kill me for all this).

 

Thanks again