Saturday 24 May 2008

ENDGAME

Our friends Jonathan and Akiko have an interesting word in their personal vocabulary - "Toscadies".

It was coined when they went to see a performance of Puccini's opera, Tosca. Jonathan didn't know the story and hadn't read the programme synopsis. He was happy to simply experience and enjoy the drama as it unfolded upon stage.

Then, as the auditorium lights went down and the curtain rose, Akiko whispered to her husband: "Tosca dies..."

Poor Jonathan! The element of surprise was rendered null and void. It was now - like Tosca's leap from the battlements - downhill all the way!

Hence "Toscadies": what the film mags refer to as 'spoilers'; plot revelations that you are far better off not knowing about - until they happen!

Now Jonathan and Akiko's Toscadies has inspired our latest---

COMPETITION

I want you to send me your ultimate spoilers: those one-liner revelations that are guaranteed to make sitting through a film, play, opera or any other dramatic entertainment less enjoyable - or, at least, more predictable - than it might otherwise have been! The shorter, snappier and wittier the better.

Jonathan and Akiko will judge the results and all the entries will then be posted on the blog - without solutions! - as a secondary competition: so that everyone can then try their hand at guessing which works have been Toscadied!

The closing date for submissions is a week today: Saturday 31 May.

Go on! Spoil somebody's day! You know you want to!

1 comment:

Brian Sibley said...

Some excellent submissions already received! Keep them coming!