Welcome to the thirteenth episode of our current Tale for Our Time: The Flying Inn by G K Chesterton.
Thank you for all your kind comments about this latest audio adventure. Barbara Yunker, a California member of The Mark Steyn Club, says:
Hi Mark, I cut my teeth on your superb video poetry and have also listened to many of the stories and books. The Flying Inn is riveting! I listen with a mixture of merriment, horror and amazement at Chesterton's excellence. Your own writings have the same effect on me.
My question is about your narration skills. Did you act in plays during school or were otherwise involved in productions? The way you distinguish by voice each character is exceptional! Even your female voices are convincing. Also, the multiple songs in The Flying Inn are beautifully rendered. Thank you, Mark, for sharing your awesome talents with us!
Thank you, Barbara. I regard myself as a good ham actor, but I've worked on various things with enough really great actors to know the difference. Oddly enough, up until the turn of the century, I did used to get offered occasional acting gigs hither and yon. As longtime readers may recall, there was one I regret did not come to fruition.
In tonight's episode of The Flying Inn, after a successful meeting to advance his cause of Islamo-vegetarianism, Lord Ivywood makes the mistake of dispatching a drunken journalist to beard his Irish nemesis:
"Hibbs," said Leveson, rather nervously, "will you do Lord Ivywood a favour? He says you have so much tact. It seems possible that a man may be hanging about the grounds just below that turret there. He is a man it would certainly be Lord Ivywood's public duty to put into the hands of the police, if he is there. But then, again, he is quite capable of not being there at all—I mean of having sent his message from somewhere else and in some other way. Naturally, Lord Ivywood doesn't want to alarm the ladies and perhaps turn the laugh against himself, by getting up a sort of police raid about nothing. He wants some sensible, tactful friend of his to go down and look round the place—it's a sort of disused garden—and report if there's anyone about. I'd go myself, but I'm wanted here."
Hibbs nodded, and filled another glass.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Thirteen of The Flying Inn simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
If you've yet to hear any of our Tales for Our Time, you can do so by joining The Mark Steyn Club. For more details, see here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership. I'll be hosting Part Fourteen of The Flying Inn right here tomorrow evening. Also on Thursday, Laura Rosen Cohen will be here with the indispensable Laura's Links.