Straight Outta Crouch End

Jane was sitting on the terrace of the Italian villa that she and Bob had hired for the week. She was eating a combination of breakfast foods and lunch foods. She sighed and stretched her body out in the wicker chair, and her sigh turned into a yawn. Morning sunlight glinted off the glass table, and she briefly caught the slightly acrid, sweet smell of the cypress trees nearby, which were swaying gently in the breeze. Bob was still in the shower; she could hear him singing a tasteful slowed-down version of the Macarena. She would shower after him, and then they would walk down to the lake together through the pine forest. Suddenly a massive gull landed on her breakfast table, making the coffee pot rattle. One of its talons, or is that just for eagles?, landed in her bowl of Mulino Bianco. Jane shrieked, but not loud enough for Bob to hear her. "Heeey - Macarena, wah HAI", he trilled in the distance, blithely. Jane was now sitting deep in her seat. She studied the bi...

MARIELLA FROSTRUP (smiling) Hello, and welcome to Murder Box. (Camera pans round the studio, which is black and white with Jackson Pollock –effect blood stains and has a large wooden box in the middle designed to look like an ammunition crate from the Wild West. The audience cheers and claps and the camera returns to a still smiling Mariella Frostrup, who performs a mock shudder) MARIELLA FROSTRUP You’ve heard the gossip, you’ve clicked on the thingies with your mousepads, but here at last is the actual programme, complete with real, live things in it, for you to watch on your television or at home. Today one person who has never killed before will enter the Murder Box – ( Camera frames her in chiaroscuro against the Box ) MARIELLA FROSTRUP (CONT’D) -           and despatch a real, live human. They can use a weapon of their choice, or their own bare hands – it’s entirely up to them. Once the killing has been done, a...