The Hermitcraft Plays

8: blocking, and Jimmy's scene

'Ok, we've got a lot of scenes to do today so we're going to start straight away with the first fight scene... so we need everyone focussed... Cleo, Doc you're onstage, facing stage right but... Don't block each other. Go at a diagonal... Doc, a little bit this way and.. . Perfect!' Stand exactly there, like that, in character. And the 6 main protagonists enter stage left and...

'FIVE VILLAGERS!' Hypno and Beef added excitedly

'Four side villains.'

'3!'

'Dumb!'

'Men!'

'2 Christmas Vexes!'

'And Etho dressed as a Christmas Tree!'

Pause.

'Glad you've all been practicing... Right, start the scene until I say to stop and we'll start blocking the fight.'

Cleo raised her hand.

'You said blocking was bad...'

'Oh, it's a different meaning... To work it out bit by bit.'

'Sure... HEY! Where are you going?' The group onstage froze suddenly. 

'Step out of the way or help us.' Wels replied, brandishing his sword at Cleo.

'Help you? With what?'

'We have come to rescue the toys beyond this wall.'

'Well we've been spent here to stop you from stealing the toys, haven't we, Doc?'

'What? No we haven't. I mean...' Doc looked down at his script. 'Yes we're here to stop you.' 

'Let us past or we'll fight you!' 

'Rendolf, seriously.' Pearlie intervened. 'This isn't our fight to be fought. We've helped Bells get here, and now we can go off on our real quest.'

'I'd like to see you try...' Cleo stepped towards the group. 'I'll break your legs!'

'What are legs?' Bazza chose this moment to ask.

'Can anything really be broken?' Added Casper the Friendly Ghost

'We're the Three Dumb Men!'

'Casper the Friendly Ghost!'

'Bazza!'

'And General Melchett (from Blackadder).' 

'I think they forgot their scripts again...' Grian laughed. 

'Get away or we will kill you!' Rendolf continued the scene by saying. 

'What is kill?' Followed swiftly by Tango declaring.

'The ancient spirits of Skidoodler declare that you shall die!' 

'Now, pause! This is where the fight begins!' Joe walked closer to the stage. 'Right, Ren, you run at Doc, who pulls out a trident and tries to stab back... Doc, do you have a trident?'

'Yeah?'

'Try to stab Ren with it... NO DON'T THROW IT!'

Renthedog was impaled by DocM77 using trident

'What?' 

'Great... now we need to wait for him to come back.'

'You said hit him!'

'Not kill him!' In the audience, Grian was cracking up with laughter, until Ren returned. 

'Let's continue this scene for real now.' He beamed, jumping onto the stage. Joe took a deep breath and continued.