Eee I've been having a fine old fun day portioning out portions of lines for 'my' various characters for this masked ball.

(Back story: Cleopatra and myself have been lured into providing some sort of 'entertainment' for a Halloween-themed masked ball at the end of October. At the astoundingly beautiful Ghillie Dhu. I baulked at a choreographed musical number - the organisers' first thought. So instead, we have a Faustian themed offering and my merry band of troubadours shall each take a character from this story and recite a little. I pray to god it will work. It looks amazing in my head but I realise this doesn't always translate into real life.)

Lovely lovely lines. Considerately rhymed. (I'm using the Philip Wayne translation of Goethe's story for the geeks reading this.)

Here's a little Mephistopheles to whet your appetite.

And I feel like a tom-cat on the stroll
When sick with love he climbs the fire escape
And over walls, then streaks his shadowy shape.
I exercise a sort of moral right
In bits of thieving or of love's delight.
Then through my members, Sir, will thrill and leap
The love of our superb Walpurgis night.

Unfortunately we are not performing on Walpurgis night. But my hope is that the audience will be sufficiently uninformed (apart from Siobhan) to not know that this isn't an equally syllabled word for Halloween.

Do come if you're about. Tickets here. It should be fun.