Liars' League

Next event: ORDER & CHAOS, Tuesday June 8th at The Phoenix

In the beginning, the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the spirit of live fiction moved over the face of the waters ... And then the Liars got all their votes in, and a new order was come! It was rich with naked hikers and chaos Empresses and cats on Mars, mighty with evil angels and model buses, and it was GOOD. Facebook event here:

WINNING STORIES for ORDER & CHAOS

Chaos Reigns by E P Henderson, read by Gloria Sanders

Frozen by Todd Wells new author, read by Sophie Cartman

The Last Cat on Mars by Quintin Forrest, read by Al Woodhall

The Capture of Whitehall by David McGrath, read by the author

Certain Promises, Certain Threats by Rhys Timson, read by Oliver Yellop

 

The show is on Tuesday June 8th. Doors open at 6.30pm for a 7.30pm start, downstairs at The Phoenix pub, 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP (tube: Oxford Circus). Tickets are strictly limited and £5 in advance. Please see below for how to reserve your table.

 

UPDATE: If you're unable to pay online there will be some tickets available on the door on the night, from 6.30.

 

TICKETS & EVENT INFO (the small print stuff)

TL:DR

- Tickets are limited to 40
- and are a low low £5
- but you have to book a table even if it's just you. Singletons book tables for 2.
- please book and pay through Paypal using the orange Donate button above, top right

THE LONG VERSION

Please book a TABLE (for however many are in your group - max 6) rather than individual tickets, as pubs are not allowed to seat people of different "groups" (even if that group is only one person) together. So we strongly suggest you contact your friends if you think they'll be coming, and book a table together. If you're on your own just book a table for 2, but these are limited. 

 

Tickets will be limited to 40 (assuming all tables are full - may be slightly fewer if some tables are not full), and our ticket price remains a furlough-favouring £5.

 

PLEASE NOTE that ALL guests are required to do track & trace at the venue - if you don't have the NHS app you can fill in your details on paper. 

 

How to book: Please use the Donate button on the top right of the LL website page (look up, look right, it's small and orangey-yellow ...) to donate the price of however many tickets you want to us. So a table for 6 would be £30, but a table for 2 with only one guest is £5 because we're not going to punish you for not filling a table. Here's how you do it.

 

- Click the Donate button

- Enter the amount: £5 for 1 ticket, £10 for 2 etc. (you have to type in 5 - 0 - 0 for £5, it's slightly non-intuitive)

- Click Donate. This will take you to your Paypal login (if you don't have Paypal get someone else on your table to pay for tickets :) 

- IMPORTANT: Where it says Add a note please enter your name plus how many you want on your table. E.g. Katy Darby, Table for 4 ... Track & trace/QR code stuff is done at the venue so we don't need everyone's names, just the booker's.

- Ideally, tick the Share your email address button so we can contact you if there's any problem

- Click Donate Now

- And you're done! 

 

N.B. ALL donated funds (after Paypal fees) support contributing actors & authors: we take nothing. 

Billy's Ghost Dug by Emma Grae

Read by Silas Hawkins

Lockdoon’s gettin tae me. Ma dug, Neville, took a turn fur the worst efter tannin a fit-lang tube o Jaffa cakes, and noo ah’m well and truly oan ma tod.

Neville wis the apple o ma eye. He wis a mongrel, who’d black fur dotted wi white patches that made the wee bugger look like he wis always wearin a suit. He wis a sleekit bastart, and treated me like wan big tit efter he left his mammy a few weeks too early. But fur aw his tricks and licks, Neville could dae nae wrang in ma eyes.

‘Alexa,’ ah say, ‘Pretend tae be a dug.’

He is Coming by Callum Jacobs

Read by Claire Louise Amias

He is coming.

The poster had appeared during the night. It had been pasted onto the front door of the town hall, not quite straight, as though it had been done in a hurry. It didn’t say anything else. There was no extraneous information, no address to contact for further details, no indication of who ‘He’ was.

Most people who saw the poster assumed it was referring to Jesus, and that this was Reverend Sweeny’s doing, the latest attempt to fill the dusty pews in the village church on Sunday morning when most people were still snoring in their beds. So most people ignored it.

It was only Miss Hazelwick who thought it might be something else. She thought it might be something else because she’d seen a sign. Just over a week before the poster appeared, Miss Hazelwick had been walking to the post office on her lunch break, to send a parcel to her sister, when she’d seen a fox running backwards.

Guru by Fiona Salter

Read by Paul Clarke

“Have you seen this?”  Canon Stephen is waving the Western Morning News.  “Harry Mount is planning a solstice vigil on Belstone Tor.”

“Remind me,” drawls the Archdeacon “Is this the one off Bake Off? Or the one who was in the Communards?” 

“Neither. This is the one joining with Druids for an EarthSong vigil.”

“The rise of the celebrity priest. I blame myself,” preens the Archdeacon. “I suppose he’ll say it’s ecumenical.”

“If it was with the Methodists, yes, with Druids, not so much.”

Heroes & Fools by Brian Kelly

Read by Jeremiah O'Connor

Never meet your heroes. That’s what they say, innit?

Every Thursday at eight, the entire neighbourhood directing their applause towards our gaff. Bingo wings flapping up and down the terrace. Wooden spoons banging on pots. A few frustrated football fans letting off flares.

Now, I’m not saying she wasn’t sick or nothing. But the woman smokes forty a day. Has done since I was a nipper. Plus, our gaff is only fifty meters from the North Circ. So yeah maybe she had Corona, but all I’m saying is - there were other candidates.

The Dragon, the Knight and the Rabbi by Elizabeth Hopkinson

Read by Stephen Butterton. Inspired by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg's Twitter thread "Fantastic Beasts and Whether to Eat Them."

"I'm not sure about this," said the knight.

The dragon rolled his eyes. They were bloodshot around the edges. It reminded the knight of - well - blood. His blood.

"It's perfectly simple," said the dragon. "You go to the rabbi and you ask him which creatures are kosher and which aren't. I've made a list." He held it up for the knight to see. It was skewered by one claw and slightly singed at the edges.

"I've never been to the Jewish Quarter before." The knight scraped one toe in the ashes at the edge of the fire.

"You came into my Jewish quarter, didn't you?"

Ordinary Men Must Die by GC Perry

Read by Lin Sagovsky

“I am dying.” The Emperor is seated atop a vast throne that shimmers in fitful torchlight. Two fleshy eunuchs, naked except for loincloths, fan him with slow, steady strokes.

“The Emperor’s soul is eternal,” says the Wise Man prostrated before the seated figure, his forehead pressed to the cold marbled floor. “We are told this in the Old Stories. The Emperor shall live forever in the Palace of the Most Honourable Ancestors, to be reunited with your father and his father before him, and all our Emperors right back to the First Emperor Most High.”

Next event: FOOLS & SAGES - Tuesday May 18th at The Phoenix

We've gazed into our crystal ball and are delighted to reveal the six profound and absurd stories to grace our next event, FOOLS & SAGES! So if you like ripped, naked priests, mysterious messages, spirit animals, deceitful advisers, eunuchs, keyworkers, dragons, knights, or indeed rabbis, we have the event for you!

 

The show is on Tuesday May 18th. Doors open at 6.30pm for a 7.30 start, downstairs at The Phoenix pub, 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP (tube: Oxford Circus). Tickets are strictly limited and £5 in advance

 

(UPDATE 17/5/21: INITIAL ALLOCATION SOLD OUT BUT 10 MORE TICKETS RELEASED!)

 

Please see below for how to reserve your spot. We are SO pleased to be live again and hope to see you there!

 

WINNING STORIES for FOOLS & SAGES

 

The Guru by Fiona Salter, read by Paul Clarke

He is Coming by Callum Jacobs, read by Claire Louise Amias

Billy's Ghost Dug by Emma Grae, read by Silas Hawkins

The Dragon, the Knight and the Rabbi by Elizabeth Hopkinson, read by Stephen Butterton

Ordinary Men Must Die by G. C. Perry, read by Lin Sagovsky

Heroes & Fools by Brian Kelly, read by Jeremiah O'Connor

 

Ticket booking info is underneath the pretty Tarot lady ...

 

The Fool from the Modern Witch Tarot

 

TICKETS & EVENT INFO (the small print stuff)

TL:DR

- Tickets are limited to 50
- and are a low low £5
- but you have to book a table even if it's just you. Singletons book tables for 2.
- please book and pay through Paypal using the orange Donate button above, top right

THE LONG VERSION

Please book a TABLE (for however many are in your group - max 6) rather than individual tickets, as pubs are not allowed to seat people of different "groups" (even if that group is only one person) together. So we strongly suggest you contact your friends if you think they'll be coming, and book a table together. If you're on your own just book a table for 2, but these are limited. 

 

Tickets will be limited to 40 (assuming all tables are full - may be slightly fewer if some tables are not full), and our ticket price remains a furlough-favouring £5.

 

PLEASE NOTE that ALL guests are required to do track & trace at the venue - if you don't have the NHS app you can fill in your details on paper. 

 

How to book: Please use the Donate button on the top right of the LL website page (look up, look right, it's small and orangey-yellow ...) to donate the price of however many tickets you want to us. So a table for 6 would be £30, but a table for 2 with only one guest is £5 because we're not going to punish you for not filling a table. Here's how you do it.

 

- Click the Donate button

- Enter the amount: £5 for 1 ticket, £10 for 2 etc. (you have to type in 5 - 0 - 0 for £5, it's slightly non-intuitive)

- Click Donate. This will take you to your Paypal login (if you don't have Paypal get someone else on your table to pay for tickets :) 

- IMPORTANT: Where it says Add a note please enter your name plus how many you want on your table. E.g. Katy Darby, Table for 4. Track & trace/QR code stuff is done at the venue so we don't need everyone's names, just the booker's.

- Ideally, tick the Share your email address button so we can contact you if there's any problem

- Click Donate Now

- And you're done! 

 

N.B. ALL donated funds (after Paypal fees) support contributing actors & authors: we take nothing. 

 

Agony by Jennifer Rickard

Agony MP3

Read by Harrie Dobby

To the red lady on the St James omnibus –

I sing of men, and of the love
That slipped from my fingers
Velvety pure, ever unsure
I still have your glove.
Please reply as to return address via this column.

- The man with the hat

It is a pointless endeavour for a writer to hide her guilty pleasures from her reader, so instead I shall boldly confess my greatest sin here – I adore the agony columns. Those personal messages which sit on the second page of every great paper in the city of London, where people write tiny love letters, advertisements for missing relatives, requests for money and other cries from the heart – the great majority written in some kind of cipher that is only intelligible to the single soul in the world to whom it is addressed … or to a good detective.

Balancing Act by Tomek Mossakowski

Balancing Act MP3

Read by Helen Belbin

Mysteriousness to 96%. Sexual drive to 87%. Considerateness 93%.

          I step back while the model recalibrates. Its power light is pulsing. Outside the window, the stars are hidden by the fug. It’s the fug that’s got us hidden indoors. That’s our world now: indoors.

          “Debs,” the model says, alert now, “Debs, you must be cold.”

          The voice startles me. Deeper than the last one. It whips a blanket off the chair, the green one, and puts it around my shoulders, clasps it together at my chest. Its other hand goes to my chin. It holds my chin in a little pinch, delicate, commanding. The model’s eyes have gone somewhere between green and brown. It invites me to dream, that colour.

Hometown Debut by Jess Worsdale

Hometown Debut MP3

Read by Fergus Rattigan

Cian is a shiver of denim with a plastic bag of canned good times. Deckchair-striped, it gouges heavy into his fingers so they bulge white at the tips. Occasionally, some acquaintance of his mother cackles by and comments on him breezily before reemerging with the dregs of the Centra wine fridge. Along the street, a family with kids unable for midnight sets off New Year’s fireworks early, and a crack of gold sparks splits the bite-cold evening, leaps over the broody hulk of suburbia.

Rob is late but for once Cian doesn’t mind. Since the summer, he’s coexisted with this bubbling anticipation, the simmer of it fizzing through his skin. A little longer. His mam had slipped him a twenty when she’d heard Kathy’s son was home. ‘God love him,’ she’d said, ‘that lad deserves a good night. What’s it been, five months now?’

Phantom Plane by C. G. Thompson

Phantom Plane MP3

Read by Paul Clarke

He hears something about a mind going south. He and his wife used to drive south, to Florida, every year. They would stay a week, visit a nearby Christmas shop, stroll along the beach. One September he found a baby turtle stranded during low tide. He took it to a lifeguard. It was an endangered species. He hoped he’d given the turtle a new chance at life, that it was as big as a kitchen table now, safe in the ocean.

He’s in an unfamiliar room, where everyone is dressed as if they’re at church. He glances down and sees he’s wearing his brown suit. He feels his head. Wearing his hat indoors would be unforgivable. Someone should have told him. But his head is bare. Was there a hat rack in the hallway?

You Don't Have to Read This, but I Hope You Do by David Guy

You Don't Have to Read This ..

Read by Martine McMenemy

Dear Sir,

I thought it best to contact you by mail, considering the events of this past week. You don't have to read this, of course - I'm sure you are very busy, after all - but I hope that you do. Perhaps it will do you good to hear an explanation of events from a point of view other than your own.

After the events of the dance on Friday night - I'm sure I don't have to explain that in detail - it seems a vital misunderstanding of the importance of our ... tryst (shall we say) ... has begun to blossom in your mind. Yes, I enjoyed myself very much - as I hope did you - but I thought a man in your position would have understood, as seemed clear to me, that this was simply an enjoyable dalliance rather than the precursor of something, indeed of anything, deeper, or more personally committing.

Valentine's Event: TOGETHER & APART, 7pm Sunday 14th February

Our Valentine's Day event showcased a selection of five seductive stories featuring Victorian agony column-addicts, hormonal teen parties, poorly-programmed love robots, hybrid roses and a classic romance with a sting in the tale. Join our Facebook group if you want to experience our next Watch Party live on the day (unless ... gasp! we might be able to do it live by April?!) and see below for all the videos and stories and the podcast.

TOGETHER & APART WINNING STORIES

 

Balancing Act by Tomek Mossakowski *New author* read by Helen Belbin
Phantom Plane by C. G. Thompson *New author* read by Paul Clarke

Agony by Jennifer Rickard, read by Harriet Dobby
Hometown Debut by Jess Worsdale, read by Fergus Rattigan
You Don't Have to Read This, But I Hope You Do by David Guy, read by Martine McMenemy

 

This will be our fourth online Lockdown Literature show - thanks for joining!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! (How to give tips & donations)

Usually we'd use ticket sale cash to buy our authors & actors food, booze and/or books. As we can't do that right now, if you want to donate some £/$ to our talented contributors who have dedicated their time, skill and effort to entertain you, please do so via Paypal to liarsleague@yahoo.co.uk ... or you can use the yellowy-orange PayPal Donate button above on the right -->

All money will be split equally between all participants: if you'd like your cash to go to a particular author, actor or story, just add a note to your donation with their name: named "tips" will be passed on to those contributors. LL won't be taking anything .

 

An Irish Christmas by David McGrath

Pssst ... Resolved to submit more stories this year? Head over to our brand new 2021 themes to see what we're looking for!

Read by the author - Full podcast here

As a young woman, old Mrs Coogan reloaded rifles in the War of Independence and ran ammunition for the Flying Column of the Third Brigade. She took a bullet to the shoulder from a British Vickers machine gun for her efforts. She was heralded as the brave epitome of the new Irish republic, and missed her image featuring on the nation’s first five pound note by only two committee votes.

Lookin Up by Emma Grae

Read by Lois Tucker - Full podcast here

Lockdoon turbo relationships. That’s whit they call it. Ye finally cross pass wi somewan guid, and then boom - Big Boris tells ye tae stay at hame.

“Fancy gettin a hotel?” ah text the fella ah’ve ainlie met twice. Boozers shut at ten, and a few hoors o chat wisnae gonnae be enough fur us. The prices o rooms are oan their arse because o lockdoon two.

“Aye,” he replies, no hinkin twice aboot it.

“Smashin. Meet ye by the station in an hoor?”

“Aye. Cannae wait! x”

Ah’ve gat Mark Zuckerberg tae thank fur this wan. This fella gied me a compliment oan the auld Facebook, and ah replied tellin him that he made a hot wumman. It wis true. That body swap filter is sommat else.

Last Christmas by Rhys Timson

Pssst ... Resolved to submit more stories this year? Head over to our brand new 2021 themes to see what we're looking for!

Read by Tony Bell - Full podcast here

Twenty-five feet wouldn’t kill him, especially given the blanketing of snow. He’d probably break something though, maybe a leg or an arm. Still, just a few more inches along the roof and he’d be able to reattach the wire. He was flat against the concrete tiles, his feet propped up by the guttering, sliding himself along towards the animatronic Santa and his reindeer, currently dark and motionless atop the ridge. He was holding the cable between his teeth while he dug his fingers into the gaps. Probably not the safest way to carry a high-voltage electrical wire, but fuck it, it wouldn’t be Christmas without Santa and his levitating caribou.

A Pear for an Urchin by David Turnbull

Read by Claire Louise Amias - Full podcast here

The drone dropped down to examine the strange green object the droid held in his rubberised gripper. She was buffeted slightly by the winter wind that was swirling eddies of dust amongst the ivy-clad debris.

“What’s that you have there?” asked the drone.

The solar powered engine of the droid hummed in baritone monotony.

“It’s a pear,” he replied.

Red diodes flickered on the drone’s LED display as she searched the cloud for a definition. “A fruit!” she exclaimed when the answer revealed itself. “A seed bearing structure which once grew on trees.”

The Annunciation by David Gill

Read by Lin Sagovsky - Full podcast here

Mid-December hung around Ely, Cardiff. It was cold but it had yet to snow. It had yet to do anything.

What Joseph and Mary called a flat was one room. A window that looked north across Bishopton Road. A gas cooker on which two of the four burners worked. A sink.  A double mattress set on a floor industrially carpeted grey.

The thin sunlight sighed through Joseph and Mary’s window, dangled as threads about their room.

Their furniture was plastic, Joe’s mate Paddy had lifted it from the Culverhouse Cross B&Q. Straight into his van and dropped it here one late November evening. A table and four chairs. A housewarming present.

CHRISTMAS EVENT: Heart & Soul, Tuesday 8th December

TICKET UPDATE: 8 TICKETS REMAINING, PLEASE BOOK ASAP IF YOU ARE COMING!

 

The mornings are frosty, the lockdown has (sort of, partially) lifted, and tinsel is in the supermarkets: it's finally December and time for Liars' League's annual Christmas feast of festive fiction! 

 

This month for our seasonal theme of Heart & Soul (click for Facebook event) we have five brand-new stories, set in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the far future, to warm your cockles and ginger your bread: they feature lockdown hook-ups, accidental babies, drones, droids, zombies (obviously) and some truly appalling things coming down chimneys.

 

Thanks to lockdown closures we can't be at our usual venue the Phoenix, alas: but we have provisionally booked the upstairs room at the Nag's Head in Covent Garden: stories will be read LIVE by REAL ACTORS in front of a REAL AUDIENCE at 7pm on Tuesday December 8th.

NB Tickets are STRICTLY limited to 25 and cost our usual £5. (See below for how to book online).

HEART & SOUL STORIES

A Pear for an Urchin by David Turnbull, read by Claire Louise Amias
An Irish Christmas by David McGrath, read by the author
Lookin Up by Emma Grae, read by Lois Tucker
Last Christmas by Rhys Timson, read by Tony Bell
The Annunciation by David Gill, read by Lin Sagovsky

We will also be distributing free mince pies and of course brand new novels for the quick of brain and high of hand in our Christmas book quiz.

The venue address is:
The Nag's Head
10 James Street
Covent Garden, London WC2E 8BT

 

TICKETS & EVENT INFO (the small print stuff)

TL:DR

- Tickets are limited to 25
- and are a low low £5
- but you have to book a table even if it's just you. Singletons book tables for 2.
- book and pay through Paypal using the orange Donate button above, top right

 

THE LONG VERSION

Please book a TABLE (for however many are in your group - max 6) rather than individual tickets, as pubs are not allowed to seat people of different "groups" (even if that group is only one person) together. So we strongly suggest you contact your friends if you think they'll be coming, and book a table together. If you're on your own just book a table for 2, but these are limited. 

 

Tickets will be limited to 25 (assuming all tables are full - may be slightly fewer if some tables are not full), and our ticket price remains a furlough-favouring £5.

 

If you want to drink alcohol you also have to order a "substantial meal", i.e. more than olives. Soft drinks are totally fine. (Sorry, them's the government guidelines ...)

 

How to book: Please use the Donate button on the top right of the LL website page (look up, look right, it's small and orangey-yellow...) to donate the price of however many tickets you want to us. So a table for 6 would be £30, but a table for 2 with only one guest is £5 because we're not going to punish you for not filling a table. Here's how you do it.

 

- Click the Donate button

- Enter the amount: £5 for 1 ticket, £10 for 2 etc. (you have to type in 5 - 0 - 0 for £5, it's slightly non-intuitive)

- Click Donate. This will take you to your Paypal login (if you don't have Paypal get someone else on your table to pay for tickets :) 

- IMPORTANT: Where it says Add a note please enter your name plus how many you want on your table. E.g. Katy Darby, Table for 4. Track & trace/QR code stuff is done at the venue so we don't need everyone's names, just the booker's.

- Ideally, tick the Share your email address button so we can contact you if there's any problem

- Click Donate Now

- And you're done! 

 

N.B. ALL donated funds (after Paypal fees) support contributing actors & authors: we take nothing. 

Evidence by Rosa Muller

Evidence MP3

Read by Annalie Wilson

Patrick burnt himself on a hot pan on Thursday night.

I heard the clatter, his shout, rushed towards the kitchen - stopped. I changed my mind and scooped Jamie up from the playpen first.

When I lifted up Jamie, something seemed to pass across his face for a moment. One of those strange seconds where I could see what he’d be like as a man.

“Why are you doing this Mama? It’s wrong,” he would say, if he could talk. Babies always think they know best.