The Fun Factory by Chris England

stomped off muttering to himself. I frowned quizzically at the stage manager, who shook his head in a long-suffering manner.
    “This is his first time as a solo turn,” he whispered. “He was here with Casey’s Circus a while back and sweet-talked the boss into giving him a go. He’s been giving us hell with his music cues and such. Nothing’s good enough for him, and he’s not happy with the running order, like we’d change it just for
His Majesty
…”
    The band struck up with a tune I didn’t recognise, but it seemed to strike a chord with the Jewish contingent, and I couldsee them nudging one another, as if expecting now to see one of their own.
    What they saw, though, was a slight figure stepping onto the forestage, clearly a slip of a lad pretending to be older than he was, with a mountain of black crêpe piled on his head and a further waterfall of the stuff cascading from his chin in a parody of the style favoured by most of their number.
    “Cohen’s the name,” the youth began. “Sam Cohen. I was talking the other day to my friend Levy, I was, and do you know what he said to me…?”
    He then proceeded to relate, line by line, a conversation between himself and his absent friend – who didn’t seem, from what I could make out, to be the brightest spark. And thus his whole act seemed to be made up of “then I said such and such…” and “to which Levy said so and so…” so that you had the substance of a slick two-handed patter act, except with just the one hand, if you follow me.
    His first jokes, such as I could make them out as he was affecting a very nearly incomprehensible Jewish accent and his voice lacked power, seemed to have originated in America, concerning as they did “a debt of some seventeen dollars and fifty cents”.
    None of this went down at all well, and it was downhill from there. After a couple of minutes or so, I heard the first loud clang of a penny landing on the stage, followed by another, then another. Sometimes money arriving onstage during your act is a good sign, but on this occasion you could tell that the coins were being thrown really quite hard. Could have been worse, though. I once saw a singer hit full in the face by a dead cat hurled from the stalls.
    The lad froze as the full horror of the growing hostility towardshim sank in. An orange cannoned off his head, knocking his home-made wig askew, and then more loose change arrived. He peered out over the footlights, as if puzzled that these people were unable to perceive the genius in what he was doing.
    A rain of pennies and halfpennies settled the matter finally, and as he withdrew I even saw a shilling or two bounce off his back, so desperate were the audience to see it.
    He rushed into the wings and past us, his cheeks fairly ablaze with humiliation, ripping his wig and beard off as he fled and leaving them where they fell.
    Onstage the master of ceremonies was trying to get the audience to calm down for the headline act of the evening. I was suddenly aware of George alongside me, shaking his head philosophically.
    “I think they preferred that act when it had two people in it,” he murmured. “And two different people at that.”
    I nodded, but I was distracted. I was sure I’d seen, again, that when the youth flung his props down and stormed through the pool of light thrown by the lantern on the prompt desk, the eyes that flashed defiantly at me were purple.

7
THE MAYOR OF MUDCUMDYKE
    “…OWN , your very owwwwn!” bellowed the master of proceedings above the hubbub. “Mistah … George … Robey! Ey thank yew!”
    Hang on a mo’, I thought. I’d heard that name. George Robey, the Prime Minister of Mirth, was one of Mr Luscombe’s favourites.
    Robey had transformed himself. His already luxuriant eyebrows were heavily accentuated with make-up and were now two huge black half moons covering most of his forehead. A little round derby perched up top, with two small tufts of dark, curly hair sprouting