37. DAN LENO MEETS BOUDICCA In 1st Century Britain?

HOLOGRAM DEFENSE PROGRAM

MISSION BOUDICCA

REPORT FROM DAN LENO HOLOGRAM 60 AD BRITAIN.

I ought to give the public a short account of my thrilling experiences. All had without a rag to my back and without a penny in my pocket but thanks to the success of my endeavours I now feel I’m a farthing millionaire.

Upon materialising in this land of my birth, on 32nd of Danuary, some yokels did observe my entrance.

‘Whence did he whence?’ they uttered in unison, ‘And wither is he withering?’

The natives weren’t painted blue. Instead, they favoured a shade of red applied by busy brushstrokes from the Sun.

I spied a young woman and persued this gentle animal to her lair. She possessed a fine little palace, a scaled down version of my second home at Drury Lane. The Queen was met at the oak door by a much older man, King Prasutagus, who berated her and pointed to the garden.

Boadicea started pruning her roses. A snip here, a cautious few snips there, a precision snip just there. She’d all but completed her snippering when I decided to tackle her with three of my most famous character portrayals in a row.

I first adopted my waiter character with exaggerated high, stiff collar and subservient gait.

‘Boadicea,’ said I, ‘your steak and….’ I broke off as she looked at me in bewilderment. I recalled that her name had been erroneously scribbled by an unscrubbed scribe so I sought to unscrubble the scribered scribblings. ‘Boudicca,’ said I.

‘Ah!’ she responded. ‘You scared me!’

‘I hope I haven’t exhausted your frightenings,’ I mused, ‘as you’ll need some left for when I present you with the bill.’

I was glad that my translator device was translatoring as I continued with my routine.

‘Your meal of steak and tomatoes will be ready shortly, Madame,’ said I.

‘Steak…a meal…for me?’ she replied, dropping her tools to the soft earth as she inspected me. She soon took the route of her garden implements and dropped to her knees in awe. ‘How long will the steak be?’

‘Oh, about four inches!’ This jolly jape was lost on her.

‘What are tomaters?’ she asked.

‘Tomatoes, don’t mention tomatoes to me! I had a grandfather and he suffered agonies with gout, and we called him a toe-martyr.’

I went for the jugular and told her that she had to take up arms against the invaders in her country, and that in doing so she would die in the process but become a martyr for her nation and be revered thereafter for as many years as it takes to grow a mountain and for as many puffs as it then takes to climb it.

‘I promise my God to fulfil his wishes,’ Young Boudicca announced. Although a waif she had steel in her veins.

I sought to reinforce the message in the guise of two other characters, my celebrated Widow Twankey and the woman gossiping about Mrs Kelly.

It couldn’t have gone any better if it had been rehearsed for a fortnight. I left a Dantastic impression on her.

ACT 1 Ends

Dan Leno

IMPORTANT MEMO ALL DEPARTMENTS

●Mission Failed.

●Dan Leno evidently not in 1st Century Britain but 15th Century Doremy, France.

●He has created someone called Joan of Arc. A young French maiden encouraged to take up arms against the English invaders by the appearance of three saints in her garden.

●These visions are the three characters that Dan Leno’s hologram appeared as The waiter with the high ‘winged’ collar, Widow Twankey and the Gossip Woman.