About three years ago now, our (now defunct) medieval group, The South Australian Living History Association, was looking for ways to make some extra money so we could buy some chain maille link.

So S came up with the ever so cunning plan (ie, not really), to go onto "Red Faces" b.c there were 3 cash prizes per week. Now, for those who don't know, Red Faces was the talent quest segment of a two hour long variety show called "Hey Hey It's Saturday". They would audition people to go on and perform, and everyone would win a cash prize. Great idea, ney? It truly was. But we had one small question: what did a motley group of medievalists have to offer?

So we spent the night before the audition making what has come to be affectionately known as the Michelin Man gambeson. A gambeson is a padded tunic type garment that goes underneat armor to prevent chaffing, among other things. We made that, no problems. That was up in Humbug Scrub (yes, there really is a place called Humbug Scrub,) at N's house. From there, the five of us (S, N, solmadr, L and I) went to E's house.

At E's, N took over as Dictator of the operation, and gave us all our appointed tasks: S and E were to clean the two suits of armour. L was to hand sew the seams of the gambeson. I was to cook dinner. N was self appointed supervisor and defroster of the mince meat.

We had wine with dinner. Took lots of extremely silly photos. Then we got it into our heads to make cocktails based on our medieval persona names. I think we made one - Cream of the Khan - which S was giggling over, and got us all rather drunk.

We trooped upstairs, and went online, where N once again took charge of the situation and appointed me the one in charge to find porn online. Go, me. So we drank more, looked at porn, giggled a lot, and passed out.

The next morning, we went back to my place and slept and stressed. At 6pm, we were joined by Rachael and went to the TV studio to do our audition. Walking up the street in full kit, carrying an assortment of weapons was highly amusing. We got to the studio and huddled together in a little group.

"What are we doing?" we asked.

For lo, we had no idea. None. Nada. Zip. Our cunning plan had reached an impasse.

So we had a brief but heated debate and came up with our routine.

When we were called on, we assembled in front of the camera and the audience. We looked at each other with varying expressions of impending doom. Rachael began to sing "Greensleeves". We continued to look at each other as she sang. S stepped forward and joined in the singing, very loud, very off key. N then smacked S with a sword. They fought. N killed S. Rachael sang on. L ran to S's body, wailing, and killed N with a dagger. Rachael sang on. I grabbed a handful of L's hair (sorry about that, but it was a very convienient handle!), jerked her head back and slit her throat with another dagger. Rachael continued to sing. E stabbed me in the back with a mace and killed me. Rachael sang lustily on, turning to brain E with another mace and kill him. As she concluded her song, she threw her cloak over our 'corpses' and bowed.

There was dead silence. Then the audience began to clap. We got up, bowed, smiled sheepishly, left. Outside the studio, the conversation went along the following lines:

Me: I can't believe we just did that.
Rachael: The accoustics were great.
S: I can't believe we just did that.
E: Who's idea was this?
All: HIS (pointing at S)
Me: Well, I have to say that's the single most silliest thing we've EVER done.
L: I think we shocked them.
N: I think we were great!
Me: I can't believe we just did that!

Needless to say, we did not get onto "Red Faces."

Some two years later, L and E and myself were reminiscing about this amusing event. We could not for the life of us think of anything else we could have done. No other routine entered our minds. I then asked whose bright idea it was in the first place to do what it was we did. E sheepishly admitted it was his idea and we'd all gone "Yep, okay, let's do that."

Lesson to be learnt here: the variety show circuit is not ready for people in costumes with swords and daggers and maces to kill each other to the strains of "Greensleeves."

Questions? Comments? Wanna stroke my ego? Then e-mail me.