Goofy Columbus - The Ultimate Influence on my Writing - Shameless Plugs

Sometimes people ask writers where they get their ideas from.

For a while I kept this secret but it really is a major influence.

I give you...

I bought this from a jumble sale when I was about 8 or 9 years old.

I read it again and again and again.

I loved it.

I still love it.

Goofy Columbus sets out to prove the world is round.

No-one believes him except for Queen Isabella (a cow).

He manages to get a fleet together.

But, in a very dark ending he is proved wrong - (see below).

It is a fantastic book, playing out medieval thought as fact and thus revealing the inherent silliness in out-dated and superstitous belief.

Seriously. It's that good!

A great non-canonical retelling of the Columbus story. However it is a beautiful part of the Goofy Canon perhaps one of the best.

It's pretty hard to get hold of now (try it!) so I guard my copy with my life and will NEVER sell it.

This story stuck with me into my adult life, even though it was gathering dust in a box in my loft, it was there tugging at my memory when I wrote "The Simple Process of Alchemy".

The play concerned the comical misadventures of two rubbish Rennaisance scientists, who accidentally create a love potion (that works), discover the secret of Alchemy and prove the world is the shape of a big cake.

It is the third act that is influenced by the masterwork known as Goofy Columbus.

It is much more saucy than the Goofy version but the flirtatious relationship between Isabella and Columbus is homaged, in fact you could argue there is a striking resemblance between the actor Ralf Higgins and the Disney King and Queen (he played both King and Queen in this play through the power of "hole in the set technologyTM"). See below for comparison.

 

Ralf Higgins                                      Ralf Higgins



A Fat Wolf                                   An Amusing Looking Cow

 It's just uncanny isn't it.

The lovely Ralf Higgins and the wonderful Chris Corcoran played all the parts in this play, little knowing that I had based this work not on the musing of Descartes, the arguments of Galileo or the works of Marlowe but on a cheap, short and little known comic book.

The end of the comic book was my main inspiration. I always wanted to end a play with two people hanging off the edge of the world and so I did.

Publicity shot

Shot from end of show

 

See!



If you want to partke of this silly play (particularly good for show off male actors, budding double acts and silly university students) - you could play it with a massive cast too! Shameless plug!