One Off Productions, 2006 - £3.50
I have a magnet on my fridge of a smiling young woman with a pony-tail. The smile is gleaming but a little forced. The words below the smile say: “It’s been nice but I have to scream now.”
Dark Tales, presented in four sets and written for performance in the Nunney Jazz Café on All Souls Night, make screaming officially allowable. Encouraged, even. I would love to hear this work in performance, because a great deal of the effect depends on accumulation and repetition. It’s poetry written firmly inside the oral tradition.
“Within each mind is a well of darkness” the poet tells us at the start. Then, bit by bit, he introduces the “monsters” which “come scrabbling up/ out of this well of darkness”. And very nasty they are too. This is Stephen King in verse form:
A susurration
as of a thousand grasshoppers.
Then a cheeping
as of a thousand chicks.
Your spider skin
starts to itch.
Again and again the tension builds to the high point:
And you scream
And you scream
And you scream
If, like me, you enjoy creepy horror and relish the scream effect, this is enjoyable and cathartic. A lot of fun with an uneasily serious edge—especially at the very end, where there is a magnificent twist, which I won’t give away here. You’ll just have to read it…
Helena Nelson
Available from: One Off Productions, 17 High St, Maryport, Cumbria CA15 6BQ