TAX NEEDN’T BE TAXING

My last blog contained a hint that Christmas is not my favourite time.

I’d like to say I’m over it now, but the Government has a cruel way of celebrating the excesses of the festive period - it sends you a tax bill.

I’ve just paid mine, and I think I’ve noticed a subtle shift in official policy. It seems that, presumably to minimize paperwork and bureaucracy and to cut out the middleman, Gordon and friends have now targeted the half a dozen or so people still in work, and ordered each of them to send all their money to a nominated bank in order to recapitalize it.

I got Barclays.

The theory is that, having sent them all my money, Barclays is now in a much better position to lend it back to me. This, apparently, gets the economy moving again, and that in turn makes sure that Britain’s wealth is more evenly distributed between those who earned it and those who couldn’t be arsed, which is only fair.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, more than ever, just after receiving a tax bill, one has to have a sense of humour. How I laughed when I received mine. The tears were streaming down my face. I hadn’t felt like that since January 31st at the end of the previous tax period.

The only other time I experience such regular jollity is at the annual Golden Beaks Comedy Festival which, like many annual events, takes place every year. This, for those of you who know nothing of it, has become a great theatrical institution. I started the whole thing off about a dozen or so years ago (we forget exactly when) by hand-making some very bizarre trophies (a sort of golden theatrical mask with a duck’s beak – don’t ask, I was under the influence of some mind-altering substance at the time) and offering them up to any theatre company who could present a one-act play that made us laugh.

Yes, it was comedies only. I was fed up of attending festivals where the wrist-slashing piece with the social message always won, because the comedy which had everyone rolling about was deemed too frivolous.

Usually in festivals, the adjudicator adheres to a traditional marking scheme which allocates the teams an overall score based on the quality of their production. He takes into account the standard of acting, staging, direction, props, use of music, and all the other aspects of stagecraft. What he doesn’t do, however, is judge the play itself – in other words it’s not considered to be the playwright that’s on trial, just the production.

Now this gives us a major problem at the Beaks. With this marking scheme, in theory, a very good production of a very unfunny play could win – and that’s obviously a nonsense in a comedy festival.

So, with scant regard for the traditions of GONADS (the Guild of National Adjudicators of Drama Students) we’ve turned that principle on its head. Yes, the adjudicator is still looking for good acting and smart production. But in our festival, a big chunk of the marks go to a new category – a category we’ve simply called “Comedy”. And that means that if the play’s not funny, it ain’t going to win. No longer can a society turn up with King Lear and hope to scoop the honours - not unless they’ve discovered how to wring some big laughs out of it. At the Beaks, both the play and the production are on trial.

Entries are now invited for this unique occasion, which takes place at the Theatre On The Steps in Bridgnorth over the weekend of 18th-19th September.

Entries are limited to 12 and there are cash prizes on offer as well as the world’s most off-the-wall trophies.

So, what’s it to be? Duck’s bill or tax bill?

For more information, contact goldenbeaks@yahoo.co.uk