Ghosts at the Gladstone

 

The annual storytelling café at the Gladstone Pottery Museum fell on Hallowe'en this year, so we all hammed it up accordingly. Staged each year by Penkhull Press, Renegade Writers and the Room in the Roof writers' group, it's become something of an institution and once again played to a packed house.

Penkhull editor in chief Peter Coleborn acted as MC and displayed commendable spirit by appearing in a silver skull mask and ribcage shirt on the front row. The pieces ranged from ghostly horror to total lunacy in the form of Mick Walters' Pink Duck of Doom. The remote control decided to die while I was doing my piece in an unconvincing Glaswegian accent, but fortunately I wasn't watching the screen behind me and didn't know the visuals had packed up. The audience pretended not to notice and laughed in all the right places, so that was all right wasn't it?

Bloody good fun, I call it.