Tainted Souls

This booklet contains a number of short plays that I used (in various forms) through my 2021-2023 Fringe tours of a show initially called 'Tales Of Tainted Ma-at' to finally arrive at 'Tales Of Tainted Souls' as the show developed.

The theme combines my love of ancient Egyptian literature along with something that I became hooked on during the COVID isolation a couple of years before: Tales Of The Unexpected. This was a TV series that initially ran from the late 1970's to mid 1983 in the UK. The first series was written and introduction by the writer Roald Dahl and those greatly inspired my twisted sense of mystery and the macabre at the time I first saw them as a child. During the COVID period I spotted them being rerun and fell in love with them once again.

While I had a show centred around established ancient Egyptian literature (as a storyteller) I wanted something original and the idea struck me to merge that style of plot development with my love for ancient Egypt which ultimately lead to theses. The scope for twisted macabre was wide and I formulated around six short stories that I performed as short 10-15min stories for those fringe festivals with a one later becoming a fully cast radio play.

I gathered my initial ideas from source material referred to as the 'Instructional Texts', these were a set of guiding principles or morals that a number of scribes, and in some cases Pharaoh, had laid down for leading the idea life. These morals provided a pivot for each story to send a character or more over the edge and transgress. Now, in the sprit of the Dahl's work, the idea is to throw as many redirections in as possible in as short space of time which as a writer is a very enjoyable exercise, and for the audience can be quite exciting and surprising. I relished the writing - and the performance too!