(Loosely based on Andersen’s The Most Incredible Thing)
The world has seen many marvels during recent years, and one of the many things that helps to illustrate the fusion of technical modernism with the established status quo is the way in which England’s ancient feudal institutions have embraced the social and political structures of modern times. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the mutual fascination that the high and the low of the land have for the world of television. In fact, television is so popular in Great Britain that even the royal family, when not entertaining foreign presidents or giving the halls of Buck House a fresh coat of magnolia emulsion, spend their evenings with their eyes glued to the box.
In this febrile atmosphere of ratings wars and popular novelty, an executive producer at a small independent production company came up with a marvellous new idea. Rather than employing actors to tell classic tales, to make people laugh, or to inform and to educate, he hit upon the novel idea of making ordinary people the stars of television shows. He called the idea by the following name, ‘Dropped on your Head Television’. This was because he wanted people to understand that it was real, and like being dropped on your head, it sometimes hurt those who participated in it. Most of all, however, it was called by this name because it was funny watching other people making complete fools of themselves, and pretty soon nearly every television programme featured ordinary people trying to win small fortunes, to become movie stars and generally being the nastiest of nasties in the woodpile.
‘Dropped on your Head Television’ became so popular and so addictive that Betsy Windsor, our wise old Queen, called all of her courtiers and all of her political advisors before her and made an astonishing announcement.
“Whoever can do the most amazing thing on our royal television, whoever can show the most ingenuity and talent, will win the hand of our grand-daughter in marriage together with half of our personal estates and investments as a dowry.”
The whole country went wild with excitement. All across the land hopeful suitors practiced their funniest party turns and their most amazing performance art works in the hope of winning the princess’ hand in marriage. A sizable number of women entered the competition too, for the country has, in recent times, embraced social inclusiveness and is open to a wide variety of ideas.
True to the generally accepted format of such television shows, there were weeks of auditions held before an expert panel of judges, all of which were televised. The ratings were measured and found to be off of any known scale and every night, come the appointed hour, the whole country stopped dead in its tracks to watch one poor unfortunate after another being ridiculed by the judges.
The airwaves were filled by singers who couldn’t sing, by jugglers who dropped their balls and by contortionists whose bodies were as stiff as boards and refused to do what they might once have been capable of. The viewers laughed at inventors who made thingamabobs that didn’t work and at flu-riddled scientists who claimed to have a cure for the common cold. Every sphere of human endeavour at every level of competence was represented in the auditions, night after night after night.
The experts sat and watched each contestant, and as all such experts are trained to do, they sat there in po-faced silence until, with a flourish and a wicked gleam in their eyes, it came to the time for judgement. Each desperate contestant was made to stand in front of the panel of judges on a spot marked with a silver star, and almost without fail the judges poured torrents of scorn and condescension down upon their heads. These ordinary people cringed and winced as the experts subjected them to crushing and horribly patronising witticisms, The ultimate aim of this personal degradation was focussed on one thing; to single out only the most exceptional talents, while ensuring that the audience at home was vicariously thrilled and titillated by the humiliation of those who failed.
And this was, as our dear and wise old Queen knew very well, the whole point. Only the strongest and the most robust contestant would be a suitable match for her grand-daughter’s spirited nature. Only the most inventive and talented of her subjects would be able to engage with her grand-daughter on a mutually fulfilling and intellectual level. The weeks passed and the judges ripped contestants to shreds until at last there were only twelve of them left in the competition.
The whole of the country was ablaze with talk of the Grand Final. At every cross roads, in every bar and in every factory canteen, there was only one topic of conversation. For a whole week the twelve finalists were made to live in one of Betsy’s smaller palaces, where their every waking and sleeping hour was broadcast to a mesmerised and adoring public. The Queen even forgot to attend a diplomatic dinner because she was so engrossed in the goings on in the ‘Big Suitor House’.
With audience figures going through the roof and with advertising revenues hitting all time highs, the executive producer was, of course, paid a big fat bonus. He was also offered a promotion to the position of Head of Light Entertainment with the BBC, which would have been fabulous had someone on the board of governors not insisted on inserting a clause in his contract forcing him to keep a whole twenty percent of the schedule for factual content.
On the given day and at the given hour each of the remaining contestants revealed their final masterpiece. The first contestant performed a stunning new aria. The second conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a stirring rendition of his brand new symphony. The remaining contestants performed popular songs of wit and charm, painted pictures in sublime colours, formed living sculptures, delivered the world’s first coherent theory of everything and even wrote a best selling novel live on television. Everyone, however, agreed that the most amazing thing of all was the human television.
The judges used every hyperbole in the thesaurus to describe their joy and amazement. The studio crowds went wild. The human television was astounding. It was incredible.
One of the contestants made a suit out of the finest electronic wizardry, which turned his body into the most beautiful, the most versatile and brilliantly clear television screen ever invented. He even made a special series of videos to show on his body and as he slowly revolved under the hot studio lights, as he turned from judge to judge, each programme was revealed in all of its glory. The Queen and her family, who were sitting on the judging panel for the final, could do nothing but gasp in sheer ecstasy.
On the contestant’s back there was an image of Moses on the mount, typing the first of the Ten Commandments into a laptop computer; “Thou shallt have no other Gods before me”.
On his right arm there appeared a video of an exhausted messenger falling to his knees in a crowded Athenian market place. Although in the throes of death he reported to his people that the Persians were defeated at the battle of Marathon.
On the contestant’s left arm Adam and Eve danced around an apple tree in full bloom, bothered neither by their nakedness nor by the tambourine-playing snake that accompanied their wild gyrations.
On his bottom you could see depictions of the four seasons, each appearing in sequence, in full bloom and in sweet surround sounds that made the world appear so delicate and fragile.
Along the length of his left leg the great artists wove images and colours in a collage, in a riot of tone and line, just as if the contestant were a kaleidoscope.
His right leg showed the Muses, one for each of the arts, leading the great poets, writers, painters, sculptors and thinkers by the nose.
On his head played theorems and equations, numbers and symbols, representing the sciences. These images culminated in a sequence of grainy pictures depicting John Logie Baird, the inventor of television, as recorded at the dawn of the broadcast age.
Finally, displayed across the man’s broad chest, there were images of riot and unrest, of the dispossessed and the establishment locked in mortal combat. As the image zoomed in, as a police baton was raised in anger, the images metamorphosed into flowers blooming around the heads of cherubs born aloft on rainbow wings. This, of course, was the triumph of hope.
Everyone in the television studio was absolutely mesmerised by the melange of imagery and by the cacophony that rose up from the merged soundtracks. It was, they all said afterwards, quite the most amazing thing. It was a work of art without compare.
All that remained was to crown the only possible winner of the competition, and after the ceremony to place a laurel wreath on his head was complete, the contestant removed his fabulous suit and revealed himself to be a fine looking young man. He was handsome, strong and tender. In short, he was everything that the princess could have hoped for and the Queen and her consort were overjoyed that their plan had worked out so well.
All in all, and after a few questions about prospects and family lineage, they were so pleased that they had found such a suitable young man for their grand-daughter that it was agreed the marriage should take place there and then with the cameras still rolling. Cheers and hurrahs went up in every living room in the kingdom. Bottles of fizz were popped and toasts were drunk. The director of the broadcast panned his cameras around the studio and zoomed in on every smile and every grin as the audience pulsated in time with the continual explosion of flash bulbs and the shouts and screams of the wildly happy crew.
All of a sudden the screams of joy turned into screams of dreadful fear and panic. In the middle of the studio set there was a huge puff of black smoke followed by the loudest thunderclap imaginable. As the smoke began to clear, the shape of a large, muscular man could just be made out.
“STOP!” yelled the man. “That suit isn’t the most incredible thing on television. This is!”
And with an enormous sledgehammer the giant proceeded to smash every transistor, every microchip, every filament and every capacitor in the wonderful television suit. In a furious, seething storm of blows the stranger destroyed the suit right in front of Good Queen Betsy, her family and every member of the watching audience, both at home and in the studio. The royal family, the judges, the technicians and the watching public looked on in amazement as the stranger stood firm and roared, “I did that. I have power in these hands greater than life and death. I’m the victor!”
After much consultation and some legal wrangling, the judges reached an agreement. “It’s true.” they said. “In destroying this work of art, this marriage of the Muses with technology, this stranger has, indeed, shown himself to be the most astounding of all things.”
Of course, there were rumours. It was said in some quarters that the drama of the finale had been arranged as the final coup de grace in the search for the ultimate televisual experience. But, even if it were true, most of the general population agreed with the judges and so within the hour the stranger came to stand beside the princess in London’s great abbey at Westminster.
The princess was, understandably, not at all pleased with this turn of events. She tried to argue with her grand-mother, but mindful of the rules and of the power of the moving image, she could not change her grand-mother’s mind. The ratings and the weight of public opinion were too great. Any change of heart now would drive their poll ratings into the floor.
All around the princess the ladies of the court sang and celebrated the occasion as the great and the good of the England’s green and pleasant land, the celebrities and the superstars, assembled to celebrate the marriage. The streets thronged with revellers and the abbey was illuminated in the glorious ambers and reds of candles and torchlight. Beside her the stranger, her husband to be, swaggered and gloated over the princess, with his head held high, sure and certain in the winning of his prize.
At a signal from the Archbishop of Canterbury silence fell upon the assembled crowds. The ceremony was about to start. Priests, pastors and holy ones of all religions stood and opened their mouths to begin the first incantation. As they uttered the very first word of the ceremony the most horrendous wailing drowned out their massed voices and the air was filled with the thud and boom of bass notes and percussion. All eyes turned towards the huge oak doors at the far end of the abbey and there, advancing down the aisle in the once famous television suit, was the beaten finalist.
Ladies swooned and fainted. Men gaped and started to sweat as the apparition walked. It was like seeing a ghost for the very first time, for there in the middle of the church was an ogre, a hobgoblin, a wraith, which moved, in vengeful fits and starts on two stiff legs. Every cobbled together panel on the suit showed disfigured and disembodied images. The patched together speakers broadcast sounds of groaning torment, growling like rabid dogs. No one but the man in the suit could move a muscle. Slowly, in an agony of horrific imagery, in a barrage of deafening vibrations, he staggered up to the altar and came to a halt directly in front of the princess and the lofty stranger.
The man in the suit raised his right arm. In his hand he held a television remote control, which he showed to the assembled crowd. He pressed a button. One by one the images that played upon his broken body writhed and bit at the air, spinning and rising up from their broken screens to take shape and solid form in the real world.
First Moses, then Adam and Eve, the marathon runner and all of the other famous and virtuous people in the videos appeared in physical form. Moses pinned the stranger’s feet to the cold flagstones by dropping his laptop computer onto them, while Adam and Eve chastised him for his pride and for his covetousness. Each character appeared in turn, making the stranger quake with terror until, finally, a horribly disfigured cherub flew up above the stranger’s head and laid him low with a police baton.
In every home in the land, on every sofa, the entire population of the country sat transfixed by this gruesome and entirely unexpected scene. This vengeful, this fascinating series of events held them in total thrall. It was, without a doubt and despite all that had gone before, the most incredible thing ever seen.
The princess was the first to come to her senses. She stood before the man in the ruined and spectral television suit and called out to the assembled dignitaries, “He will be the one. He will be my husband.”
The young man pressed another button on the remote control and all of the phantom images faded into the shadows cast by the candles that illuminated the great abbey. The terrible discord that had filled the evening air wound down to nothing more than a faint hiss before falling into the deepest, darkest silence. The young man peeled the suit slowly from his weary body, walked up to the princess, took her hand in his and turned to face the awe struck line of ministers, priests and holy souls. As the young man leaned forward and kissed his bride to be softly on her ruby red lips, Betsy Windsor, the congregation and the viewing public all stated to sob tears of pure joy. Throughout the land men, women and children reached for boxes and packets of tissues.
Outside of the abbey, in a pantechnicon in a fenced off area, the director of the television broadcast cut to close ups of the young couple. The young man smiled to camera and there was a diamond flash of light around his head. Speaking softly and warmly, like a close and beloved friend, the television show’s anchorman informed the viewers that they would be right back in the thick of the action after a short message from the programme’s sponsors…