The Amelia Project - Episode 54 - The Royal Shakespeare Company

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

“Mine colleagues and I art in urgent need of thy help. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark...” Episode 54, Season 4.  With Alan Burgon, Alex Scott Fairley, Carli Fish, Ben Meredith, Torgny G. Aanderaa, Sarah Golding, Alexander Mercury, Spencer Lee Osborne, Anthony Glennon, Andrew Golder, Chris Polick, Julia C. Thorne and Julia Morizawa.  Written by Philip Thorne Story editing by Oystein Brager, T.H Ponders and William Shakespeare Sound design by Adam Raymonda Music by Fredrik Baden Sound editing by Philip Thorne  Directed by Philip Thorne and Alan Burgon Graphic design by Anders Pedersen Production assistance by Maty Parzival For full credits see our website.  The Amelia Project is an audio fiction series. We recommend starting at the beginning. The Amelia Project is part of the Fable & Folly Network.  Website: ameliapodcast.com  Transcripts: ameliapodcast.com/transcripts  Twitter: @amelia_podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summer's here, and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? You can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. See app for details.

Cold tapes. A gripping crime story that will chill you to the bone. You know, life on the base means, well, it's close to six months without light. That does things to people that study that he was doing to watch us and then set off us like mice around this special little experiment how many people are on this space 16 on this one someone amongst them is our killer experience cold tapes the murder mystery podcast game. Start your investigation where you get your podcasts. Today's episode is dedicated to Alison and Amelie.

Alison told us she has a framed Amelia poster hanging in her osteopathic clinic in New Zealand, something we're very chuffed about. Enjoy today's episode. Congratulations. You have reached the Amelia Project. If you're not serious, please hang up. If you continue, there is no return. Good choice. There is a new life awaiting you. You'll hear back from us. If you don't hear back, please consider this a hoax. Leave your message after the beep. Good morrow.

This is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ladies and gentlemen of the Hamlet Company, this is your beginner's call for Act One. Mine colleagues and I are in urgent need of thy help. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Bernardo, Francisco, Marcellus, Horatio and the ghost to stage, please. Stand by stage management and technical staff.

The play doth commence. I must switch off mine phone. Who's there? Answer me. There is an interval in two hours. I will switch mine phone back on then. Thou canst leave me a message and tell me whither to meet.

By cue, I must make haste. The Amelia Project. Created by Philip Thorne and Osten Braga, with music and sound direction by Frederik Baden. Designed by Adam Raimonda. Episode 54. The Royal Shakespeare Company. Has everyone found a place? There's still a bit of room here.

Fortinbras? Polonius and Laertes, if you just budge up a little, we can get a ratio in here. And Hamlet, I think you can just about squeeze in between Claudius and Gertrude. Oh, I'm sorry, Osric. Do you mind sitting on the floor? Now, is that everyone?

Aren't we missing someone? No? Sure. Oh, well, well, well. Well, you came all the way from Stratford, eh? Aye. Well, it's certainly an honour to have the Royal Shakespeare Company pay me a visit. Big fan.

Who's for cocoa? Aye. So that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 51, 52, 51, 52, 51, 52, 53, 53, 52, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 cups of cocoa. If you can all start passing the cups around. That's it. Keep passing them on. Keep passing them on. Oh, I'm so excited. I love Hamlet. 30% puns, 50% sex jokes, and 20% death. You know I played the gravedigger once.

Right, does everyone have a cup? Aye! Aye! Good. Then I'll get pouring. Wonderful. Ouch! Watch out, Gertrude.

It's as hot as molten lead. Yes, it is rather hot, isn't it, Claudius? Ah! Oh, sorry. Hello, ghost of Hamlet's father. I hadn't seen you lurking there. Do you like the cocoa? This cocoa is the stuff that dreams are made of.

Aye, tis the bard's bollocks. Divine. Hang on. I know who we're missing. There's Rosencrantz, but where's Guildenstern? He didn't get left behind on the Eurostar, did he? Alas, poor Guildenstern. I knew him well. The fellow of infinite jest.

Of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is. Where be your jibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that will want to set the table on a roar? Out, out, brief candle. Let me be boiled to death with melancholy. Are you saying he's... Oh, I'm so sorry. My heartfelt condolences. Life's but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts

and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. Yes, sooner or later we must all shuffle off this mortal coil. But Guildenstern was ravished and wronged, hacked to mince by that clamorous harbinger of blood and death. What?

Um, you know, maybe it's time to stop quoting the bard and tell me in plain speech what has happened here. A villainous deed, and desperately dispatched. Murder most foul, strange, and unnatural. Murder? Hacked down by tyrant's hand by murder's bloody axe. With an axe? Oh, keep us from that hellish villain's violent hands. Who's after you, Ophelia? Who is this villain?

I dare not say. His name blisters on my tongue. Guys, guys, come on, guys, guys, if an axe-wielding psychopath is after you, I suggest you give me the facts. And preferably in plain English. Oh, filthy and contagious clouds of heady murder

and villainy. Oh, ill-dispersing wind of misery. I never thought I'd say this, but maybe this isn't the appropriate time to be quoting Shakespeare. You know, you're not on stage anymore. Oh, the world's a stage. Yes, yes, very cleverly, Aertes. And all men and

women merely play. Oh, God. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. Yes, yes, yes. Look, do you want me to help you or not? Aye! Then please, drop the Shakespeare.

We dare not. What? Why ever not? We must stay in character, from the first chirp of the lark to the ring of the nightingale. Yes, yes, yes. I'm quite in the way of that. How very method. You know, I didn't think the RSC went in for that kind of thing. It is the express

wish of our director, Werner Boom. Well, blow my flute and strum a lute. You really stay in character and speak in quotations all day. Aye. Even when you're at Tesco's buying loo roll. Aye. Even when someone on the other end of the phone is trying to sell you property insurance. Ha! Even when someone on the other end of the phone is trying to sell you property insurance?

Aye. Even when you're ordering a pint? Aye. Don't people kick your head in? Aye. Aye. So why do it? Werner Boom. Excuse me, Horatio. Werner Boom. Your director? He would have such a fellow

whipped for stepping out of character. Well, I don't care what this Werner guy says. You're in my office and he's not here. So why don't we tell that Werner to go suck eggs? Don't say that. He has a million false eyes stuck upon us. We are under his strict and most observant watch. What? Even now?

There is no escaping his watchful tyranny. He's across the channel. You're totally safe here. Best safety lies in fear. You're really terrified of this Verner, aren't you? You know what? I think you should tell me more about him. He is a man of boundless intemperance. A man of vaulting

ambition. A proud man dressed in a little brief authority. His glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before I ever does make the angels weep. Wasn't he the one who did that underwater Uncle Vanya at London Aquarium?

Aye, it is he. Thought so. Man's a freak. I've read he directs actors at gunpoint. Is that true? He always gets what he wants, and he playeth most foully for it. He is ruthless, bold, and resolute. Why did you agree to work with such a megalomaniac? One must not be afraid of greatness So you put up with his antics for the sake of art?

And you really think that's worth it? Nay, no profit grows where is no pleasure taken But how do you put up with him? I oppose my patience to his fury. And am armed to suffer with a quietness of spirit the very tyranny and rage of his. Oh, yes, very noble, Gertrude. Anyone else have anything to add? Ophelia? Polonius? Give it a stab?

No? Good Lord, you're trembling. Osric, come on, you haven't said a word yet. What do you think of Wernher Boom? Yes, well... Oh, come on! Wernher Boom is a rank, beef-witted boar-pig. A bolting hutch of beastiness. A beslabbering, beetle-headed, bunch-backed toad. An earth-vexing rabbit-sucker.

A bursting bladder of boils. A lump of foul deformity. A courage, eye-offending hedge pig. A swollen parcel of dropseas. A lumpish, logger-headed flapdragon. A prating, paper-faced pantaloon. A puny, pox-marked bull's pizzle. A clay-brained, cream-faced loon.

A greasy, onion-eyed puke-stocking. A trunk of humours. A hell-hated canker blossom. A gore-bellied, milk-livered bumble-mews, a pottled deep pigeon egg and a damned and luxurious mountain goat, a tickle-brained lewd stump, a fobbing full-gorged huckamucka, a stuffed cloak-bag of guts, a frothy fly-bitten malt-worm, a bawdy caddis--garten nathook, a mewling folly-fallen fustelarian, a mammaring maggot-pie, a yeasty

clapper-clawed horse-son, a brazen boiled-brained apple-john, a vacant, lean, witted mannequin, and a motley-minded rootsby, a waggish unchen-snouted dogfish, a roosted manning tree-ox with pudding in his belly.

A reeky eel skin, a dankish dried neat tongue. A waggish rampallion. He is the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril. The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. And his tongue outvenoms all the worms of the Nile. There is no more faith in him than in a shrewd prune. He is unfit for any place but hell. But soft.

Methinks I do digress too much. Um, brevity, Osric, is the soul of wit. Does everyone feel this way about Werner? Aye. He hath made our lives a bubbling hell-broth. I always thought directors were supposed to bugger off after the premiere. You have premiered, right? Aye.

What are those? Reviews? Oh, good Lord, is that a picture of Werner Boom? What does that mean? Well, because he's so tiny. Oh, he be but little. He is fierce. No, no, no, it's just not how I imagined him at all. He seems smiley and pleasant.

One may smile and smile and be a villain. Oh, oh dear. This review isn't very good, is it? There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. No, Hamlet, this review is objectively bad. I've had root canal surgery that was less painful and more pleasurable than this overwrought production. Oh my. I mean, in what world can that be good? The best men are moulded out of faults and, for the most, become much more the better for being a little bad. Ha! Try telling that to this critic. Or this one. Or this one. Oh, good lord, or this one.

They have colluded to spit forth their venomous indignation against our little play. Werner can't be happy about these reviews. Werner can't be happy about these reviews. They are oil and flax to his flaming wrath. Never till this day have I seen him touched with anger so distempered. He says it is our robustious, periwicpated performance that is to blame, tearing the bard's verse to tatters, to very rags. He hath been inflamed by a rage, like an angry boar chafed with sweat.

A rage whose heat is so incandescent that nothing can allay it. Nothing but blood. The blood of Actus? It is why he hacked poor Guildenstern to mince. But Guildenstern's part is tiny. Why take it out on him? He soared the air too much with his hands. But it will not stop with Guildenstern.

Blood and revenge are hammering in his head. He hath sworn to be revenged on the whole pack of us. What ugly sights of death within mine eyes. Last night he left a scroll in my dressing room, threatening to have me torn apart by an angry mob. I have not slept one wink. He will chop off my head. He will rape me and cut out my tongue.

He will bury me to the neck up and leave me to starve. You can't be serious. This is mad. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. Method? Oh. Oh, I see. Yes, yes, for each of you he's planning a death from the blood-soaked pages of the collected works.

I will be dismembered and then burnt. I will be smothered by a pillow. I will die by the bite of a venomous snake. I will be baked into a pie. And I will die of indigestion. And I will exit pursuit by a bear. Save us from this barbarous, dreadbolted death token. His heart is as black as Vulcan in the smoke of war. We dare not come within the measure of his tiger-footed range. I'd rather fetch a toothpick from the farthest reaches of Asia.

I'd rather pluck a serpent from Medusa's mane. I'd rather wear yellow stockings and cross-cutters. I'd rather make love to a donkey. Anything to escape that roguish rat's bane's rage. He out-herods Herod. The weariest and most loathed worldly life that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on nature is a paradise to what we fear of him.

He'll massacre us all, raise our families, grind their bones to dust. We must disappear. Aye. Aye. Wilt thou help us? I will. Yes, all right, all right, all right, all right. All right, now listen, we have to move quickly.

We have to kill you before Werner does. A man can die but once. Wrong. That's Shakespeare. Well, obviously he didn't know about Amelia. You propose to kill us with a living death? I propose, as your bard put it, a death counterfeiting sleep. Death's a great disguiser.

I most jocund apt and willingly to escape him A thousand deaths would die That won't be necessary, Gertrude One convincingly staged death will suffice Is there a matinee tomorrow? Aye, when the clock strikes two Can you remind me how you all die in the play, Polonius? I am stabbed behind a curtain

Ghost? A vial of poison is poured in mine ear. Ophelia. I go insane and drown myself. Rosencrantz. I am hanged by the King of England. Gertrude. I accidentally drink poisoned wine.

Claudius. I am first poisoned, then stabbed. Laertes. I am wounded with a poison sword. Claudius. I am first poisoned, then stabbed. Laertes. I am wounded with a poisoned sword. Hamlet. I too am wounded with a poisoned sword. Horatio. Actually, I live. Actually, not in tomorrow's matinee, you don't.

But... Hamlet, would you mind stabbing Horatio? It would be my pleasure. The curtain falls on the final scene of carnage, then rises again for you to take your bows, but your bloody bodies are still scattered around the stage. The applause subsides, and a horrible realization sweeps the audience. They start to scream. A doctor is called. He declares you dead. What sorcery is this, you propose?

Take thou this vial, being then on stage, and this distilled liquor apply thou to Hamlet and Laertes' swords, and mix thou in Gertrude's goblet. When presently through all ye veins shall run a cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse shall keep his native progress, but surcease. No warmth, no breath shall testify ye livest. No warmth, no breath shall testify ye livest. The roses in ye lips and cheeks shall fade to pally ashes. Ye eyes' windows fall like death when he shuts up the day of life. Each part, deprived of supple government,

shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death. And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death ye shall continue two and forty hours and then awake as from a pleasant sleep. Huzzah! Darest thou die, what's done cannot be undone. Yes, but it will be an illusion, no more yielding than a dream. Thy disappearance shall be absolute. Thou must bid farewell to family, friends

and fame. I would give all my fame for a pot of ale. Oh, and safety. Safety! Thou must encounter anonymity as a bride and hug it in thine arms. Where shall we go? Oh, gentle Rosencrantz, upon the

heat and flame of thy curiosity, sprinkle cool patience. Patience is sottish. Who can be patient in extremes? Tell us where we are bound. You doubt me? Have faith, man. Aye, but did I? And go we know not where. Oh, very well. I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet muskroses and with eglantine. How like a dream is this! There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

This is very Midsummer Madness. This is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Thy proof that this fantasy exists. Thy reason, man. I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false I am loath to prove reason

with them. He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. Oh, what have we to lose? The miserable have no other medicine but only hope. Our stars shine darkly over us. Lest we follow poor Gildenstern to dusty death,

we must escape the malignancy of our fate to such a place where the compass of Wernher Boom's curse cannot find us. If we should fail... We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail. Aye! You shall board a bobbling vessel no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

And it will be pushed out into the rude seas in raged and foamy mouth, where you shall be blown around with restless violence. What? We would run ourselves aground. You shall be washed up on the shores of an isle full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Peopled with islanders who, though they are of monstrous shape, have manners more gentle kind than of our human generation. You shall find. I'm talking, of course, about the island of Manhattan. Yes, actors in Manhattan don't get noticed. Everyone there is an actor.

You'll blend right in. You can continue your lives as actors in independent shows, off-Broadway productions and community theatres. Your accents will serve you very well in America. Take us to these undiscovered waters. Oh, take us to these undreamed shores. Take us to this brave new world. Is there a ghost in Hamilton? Very well. Give me some music. Champagne, ho! Let the canikin clink, clink, clink.

Come thou monarch of the vine, plumpy backers with pink eyne. Cup us till the world go round. Cup us till the world go round. Me? Anybody? Come thou monarch of the vine, plumpy Bacchus with pinkine. In thy fat sack hairs be drowned, with thy grapes our hairs be crowned. Cup us till the world go round, cup us till the world go round, Cup us till the world go round, with thy grapes our hairs be crowned. Huzzah! How long has this been going on for?

Hamlet? The past 30 minutes. Before that, he faked the deaths of Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Fagin, Frodo Baggins, Tintin, and Peter Rabbit. Oh.

He's getting worse every day. Last night we were playing Scrabble and I tried to put down the word surgeon. He completely lost it and proceeded to eat all the Scrabble pieces. If they don't come out by themselves, we might need to take him to a doctor. This is happening much faster than I expected. What is going on, Amelia? Amelia? Huh?

What is going on? Well? Well? There's that cat again. Amelia! Amelia, you're going to have to tell me eventually. Come on. Don't you think it's time? Come for still the world go round.

Come for still the world go round. Come for still the world go round. With the grapes our hairs be crowned. Ha ha ha ha! Wonderful! Oh, wonderful! See you all at the premiere. Ha! See you all at the premiere.

Ha! This episode was written and edited by Philip Thorne, directed by Philip Thorne and Alan Bergen, designed by Adam Raymunder, with script assistance from Einstein Breger, T.H. Ponders and William Shakespeare. Music by Maestro Frederick Barden. It featured Alan Bergen as the interviewer, Alex Scott Fairley as Hamlet, Ben Meredith as Osric, Sarah Golding as Gertrude, Carly Fish as Ophelia, Alexander Mercury as Polonius,

Spencer Lee Osborne as Laertes, Anthony Glennon as Horatio, Andrew Golder as Claudius, Chris Pollock as Rosencrantz, Torgny G. Ondero as Francisco Bernardo and the Ghost, Julia C. Thorne as Alvina, and Julia Morizawa as Amelia. The episode was recorded at Soundborne Studio in Vienna. Graphic design by Anders Pedersen and production assistance by Marty Patsyfail.

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Do you even understand the difficulty of trying to keep a base like Fathom at the bottom of the ocean from killing everyone in it on a daily basis I think whatever is on the other side of that door out there. It's not friendly I think it's trying to get out that my friend is a dire combination That's a bad sign. Get out of the door! It's spreading like some kind of technological contagion. We can either stop it here or watch the world burn. Fathom. The first season of Derelict. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.