A Riverside Roundabout

By John Livesey

The play offers a glimpse of life in and around the river and the conflicting hopes and dreams of the fish, amphibians, worms and dragonflies who make it their home. Only the amphibians (a natterjack toad and a great crested newt) are entirely happy with things as they are but sadly their very presence offends one of the fish (Aunt Charlotte) who feels that they lower the tone of the river. She’s the bane of Uncle Percy’s life – very much a live-and-let-live kind of fish. Alvin, their nephew, is a smolt or young salmon. As he’s about to follow his absent parents downstream and away across the ocean, he has a built-in wanderlust, which here expresses itself in his desire to find out what life’s like on land. The amphibians (Isaac the newt in particular – a great scientist) set out to help him achieve his goal – to Aunt Charlotte’s horror. Glory, the dragonfly nymph, also dreams of life on land, but doesn’t feel cut out for it. Finally on land the worms look at the river and resent the fact that, while they’re cramped and over-crowded on land, the river is virtually empty. Their race memory tells them they first lived in the water but somewhere down the line they took a wrong turn and now it may just be that the river is a reminder of a worm paradise lost– until human intervention changes everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Oct 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781800466302

Book preview

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Copyright © 2021 John Livesey

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 978 1800466 302

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For Sarah, Tom, Cathy-Ann, Niamh & Katie

Contents

Dramatis Personae

Notes On The Characters

Note On The Setting

Act One

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

Scene Seven

Scene Eight

Scene Nine

Scene Ten

Act Two

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

Scene Seven

Scene Eight

Scene Nine

Scene Ten

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

NOTES ON THE CHARACTERS

NOTE ON THE SETTING

The play is on two levels:

The lower area represents the river-bed. This is fully realised, in contrast to the upper area (representing various parts of the bank) which is not defined except where necessary by the angled mirrors