Christmas is a time for miracles. It is also the time for blatant commercialism and funny hats. That said, which it just was, it is also the time for ingenuity and improvisation.
This year Audrey asked for a copy of ‘The Lady in the Van’ on DVD for Christmas, the film based upon the book by Alan Bennett. It was a bit of poor choice really because the film is being shown on terrestrial television for free on Christmas Eve. Nevertheless, prior to being in receipt of this important piece of information, I still went ahead and purchased a copy. Neither I nor Reuben have ever read or seen ‘The Lady in the Van’ and so we decided, based upon the front cover of the DVD, that we would guess what the story was and write and illustrate our own version as an additional present.
It is called ‘T’Lady in T’Van’.
The end result was, quite simply, amazing. I cannot for obvious reasons include a copy here for fear of spoilers for the intended victim, I mean recipient.
What I can include though is a piece of concept art that Reuben came up with during the development process. He decided that the story should involve 80’s martial arts hero and general good egg Chuck Norris and thus drew a picture of him. This was then improved by adding three dimensional eyes.
Special doesn’t even come close.
12 comments on “Making Christmas”
I’ve never seen or read “The Lady in the Van” either but I think including Chuck Norris is a pretty safe bet. Most of Alan Bennett’s stuff has Chuck Norris in. It’s like when you see a film with Helena Bonham Carter and you go oh, yeah, that must be a Tim Burton film. It’s like that. It would be weird to have an Alan Bennett film without Chuck Norris really.
Chuck Morris featured heavily in his ‘Talking Heads’ series so it was inevitable that he’d turn up in this. “I punched t’guy in t’face and then did uh roundhouse kick t’groin.”
Magic
Having never seen or heard of it before, and still not having seen the DVD cover, I would guess that its about a woman in a mobile sweet van who kidnaps kids and makes them work in her sweatshop making those white woolly jumpers that cricketers were. Chuck Norris is the factory manager who roundhouses any kids who get out of line or drop a stitch.
Am I close?
That’s similar to what I would expect, but Alan Bennett often has a strong sci-fi theme to his work, so I’d have thought the whole thing would probably be set in space.
I am thoroughly disappointed that Alan Bennett has not embraced science fiction because I think a Yorkshire accent will succeed well in space.
Kevin, your attempt was rich and sweet but unfortunately does not resemble either the official work or our cheap knock-off. I would love to see it in print though.
Imagine that… Space Bennett™
Amaze pants!
Approved. DEPLOY!
Should we fire Alan Bennett into space or is that a step too far?
It’s effectively his second home. He’d love it.
I’ll get the cannon ready. It wouldn’t be done right without a novelty comedy cannon to shoot his Yorkshire ass into the wild black yonder.
Sounds good. I expect Chuck Norris will attend so make sure a gilded throne is available in a prominent position. He won’t sit in it but he might want to karate-chop it into firewood.