Bren O’Callaghan A Runaway at the Media Circus!

Celebrity Skin 4

Having mugged up a bit more, I could now return to the full painting and make a choice from a number of distinct incidents within the overall melee that I felt could function as independent mise-en-scène. The intention then, as now, was not to create a functioning toy theatre with accompanying play script and interchangeable scenery, but to present a static tableaux, albeit future-proofed for live presentation.

The characters, to be drawn from living, dead and entirely fictional celebrity alcoholics and heavy drinkers, would stand alone but come provided with attachable rods for manipulation if required, while the backdrops, wings and flys could all ultimately be combined or kept apart. I would build the sets with help but commission six illustrators so that although the same model, each would be unique.

My choices of which scenes to focus upon were also determined by a wish to reflect then-popular performative genres, but they also needed to lend themselves to a contemporary, comedic update. In this way I was able to have fun translating six major themes, exchanging mugs of ale for bottles of WKD en route for Romantic, Pastoral, Pantomime, Classical, Gothic and The Orient.

A tendency of that period was to grant a dual-name to a play (for example, Jack the Giant Killer, or The Magic Beanstalk), and by following this same affectation I could insert a semantic hinge between then-and-now: combining a deferential nod with a smutty wink. I really enjoyed coming up with these!

The Wedding Supper, or Till Decree Nisi Do Us Part, updates a society betrothal to the money drenched pages of Hello! magazine, featuring the sozzled likes of Liza Minnelli, Kerry Katona, Bender from Futurama and Shane McGowan as an example of the Romantic persuasion (artist: Gemma Parker).

Olympian Revels, or Two Pints of Ouzo and a Kebab exchanges the mythical seat of the Gods for a toga-clad pool party at a Mediterranean concrete pool resort, with Oliver Reed as Zeus, Keith Chegwin as Dionysus and Lindsay Lohan as Artemis in this Classical milieu (artist: John Powell-Jones).

Harlequinade, or Rita, Sue and Herpes Too does a terrible disservice to the early Pantomime, with roots in the Commedia del’Arte, as Columbina, Harlequin and Pantalone become stags and hens on the Great British High Street. Gram Parsons, Keith Floyd and Clarissa Dickson Wright trash Weatherspoons (artist: David Bailey).

Fête Champêtre, or The Battle of B.O.G.O.F. (Buy One, Get One Free), teleports a countryside picnic in the Pastoral vein to to a fantasy sequence inspired by Mary Poppins, as inebriated penguin waiters find the diners quite literally in pieces. Father Jack, Courtney Love and George Best suck on their juice boxes (artist: Simon Misra).

Studious Pursuits, or One More For The Road is devoted entirely to literary drunks, both real and fictional, as the Gothic genre provides a suitably spooky crumbling edifice and creeper-clad graveyard for these pickled ghouls to carouse. Hunter S. Thompson, Dorothy Parker and Edgar Allan Poe raise a toast (artist: Laura Barnard).

Mission to the Hindoos, or Pilgrims of the Porcelain Throne celebrates the treasures of The Orient here, upon our own shores, in the form of a Chinese restaurant on a Saturday night. In a nod to The Last Supper, Janis Joplin blesses her posse, including Samuel L. Jackson and Patsy Stone (artists: Charlotte Gould & Hannah Gibson).

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4