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Christmas and Fairy stories updated for a twenty first century audience
How to enjoy Christmas.
Christmas and Fairy stories updated.
During the Christmas season there is a great tradition of retelling Christmas stories from A Christmas Carol to the stalwarts of the pantomimes such as Cinderella or Aladdin.
The stalwarts of the Fairy story can entertain all the year round.
Wouldn't it be interesting to revisit a few of them, and update them with plots more relevant to a twenty first century audience?
The modern "Christmas Carol" is a bit different
A Christmas Carol.
Mr Scrooge is hard pressed for cash because he lost millions investing with Bernie Madoff.
Bob Cratchitt is dipping in the till to finance singing lessons for Tiny Tim, who has an ambition to enter The X Factor.
There are no ghosts, but Scrooge is abducted by aliens on three successive nights, who operate on his brain so he thinks that he is Monica Lewinski's little black dress. He attempts to recoup his fortune by blackmailing Bill Clinton but dies under the wheels of a bus when the former US President chases after him waving an enormous cigar, shouting "just one more time pleeeease, for old time sakes".
Tiny Tim gets on The X Factor but a newspaper investigation discovers that Bob Cratchitt is an illegal alien. The whole family get deported.
The ugly sisters displaying the ravaging effects of cocaine addiction
Cinderella. A Christmas Pantomime with a twist.
Cinderella goes to the ball, but doesn’t really hit it off with Prince Charming, who spends most of the time asking her if she has any good-looking brothers. When midnight strikes she flees the palace but her glass slipper shatters and cuts her foot slightly. She goes to a "no win/ no fee" firm of lawyers, and sues the Fairy Godmother for ten million dollars, then lives happily ever after. Prince Charming meets Buttons in a gay club, and they get united in a civil partnership and also have a great life.
The Ugly Sisters sell the inside story of their dysfunctional family to a down market tabloid, then then blow the lot on unsuccessful plastic surgery and a cocaine addiction.
Aladdin. Very short Christmas Story.
Aladdin rubs the magic lamp, but when the genii appears, he gets a heart attack and dies. This is a very short story because there was a scriptwriters strike. Don’t expect miracles.
A communist Christmas Story. The Wizard of Oz.
Dorothy goes to Oz but the Munchikins are really communist revolutionaries, who are lead by the Witch of The West.
The supposed wicked witches are not wicked at all. It is only Munchikin propaganda. The Lion, The Tin Man, and The Straw Man are actually CIA operatives, who are in Oz to investigate a drug smuggling operation lead by the Wizard and the Witch of The West. Toto is a double agent working for both sides. He betrays Dorothy and she is kept hostage by The Munchikins. Due to the operation of Stockholm syndrome, she becomes a communist revolutionary too.
She attempts to blow up the State house in Kansas, using the ruby slippers, which are really an Improvised Explosive Device, but they fail to explode properly. She gets captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay, where she still is.
The shoebomber of Oz
Jack and The Beanstalk. An all too modern Christmas Story.
Jack trades the cow for some genetically modified beans from a mad scientist who he meets at the market. His mother throws them out the window where they grow into an enormous beanstalk that reaches up to the sky.
Jack climbs the beanstalk. That was his big mistake. The beanstalk gets cut down on the orders of the local council, because it was grown without planning permission. Jack gets eaten by the giant, but the goose that lays the golden eggs escapes and uses some of the eggs, to trade with the mad scientist, to rescue the cow. The goose and the cow settle down together in Jack's house. They put his mother in a home and then they live happily ever after.
Sarah Palin after she was baked by Hansel and Gretel
Hansel and Gretel. A Fairy story with politics.
Hansel and Gretel go for a walk in the woods in Alaska. They come across the house made of sweets, which is actually the home of Sarah Palin. They trick Sarah into getting into the oven and then bake her. They pay the woodsman to dismantle the house and bring it to their home, where they proceed to eat it. But they are taken into care by the state authorities and their parents are jailed for allowing their children to become obese.
They write a letter to President Obama, detailing their story. They are given The Congressional Medal of Honour for baking Sarah Palin.
They shouldn't have messed with this granny
Red Riding Hood. A Murderous fairytale.
Red Riding Hood is a malevolent little tyke, who replaces the contents of the basket of food with poison mushrooms, in order to kill her grandmother because she wanted to sell the house in order to pay off some gambling debts. She was in league with the woodcutter, who was going to share in the proceeds. The Wolf was an FBI agent, who was hoping to catch her in the act. The FBI were monitoring the calls, Little Red Riding Hood was making to her confederate, so they knew about the plan. The wolf dressed up as the grandmother and waited in the bed, while the real granny was hidden in the wardrobe.
Red Riding Hood, who was nobody's fool, knew straightaway that there was an imposter in the bed. She phoned the woodcutter from the kitchen, who immediately burst into the house and shot dead the agent in the bed.
The Grandmother, who had a machine gun in the wardrobe, immediately opened fire. The two conspirators died in a hail of bullets.
I’m not sure whether any of these versions would ever get performed in Panto, or made into a great movie, but it was fun writing them.