THE GORBALS VAMPIRE part 5: The Gorbals Vampire (at the) Circus
Magic Island Storytelling Theatre: Strange Tales From The Isle Of Arran: Ghost & fairy tales & more.Show Notes
So our narrator has been abducted down into The Gorbals Vampire's underground lair, beneath Glasgow's Southern Necropolis graveyard, being told he is to remain there as the Vampire's "special boy". But in this episode, we learn his future is not to be spent entirely beneath the earth. No, the Vampire has need of him above ground....
This episode features one scene of violence.
More from Magic Island Storytelling Theatre: Strange Tales From The Isle Of Arran: Ghost & fairy tales & more.
Here's the first part of a new two part story, unscripted, improvised and actually based on an Indian folk tale but with the setting shifted decisively right here to the Scottish Isle of Arran, a kind of slinky, slithering, beauty & the beast tale....
And so we come to the final episode of this dramatic tale inspired by the urban landscape and macabre folklore of my native southside of Glasgow, a story I've wanted to perform and record like this ever since I first performed it live in the theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival way back in 2015, a story I was intent on performing, then as now, in an unequivocal, unapologetic Glaswegian voice and language. I hope with this, and the preceding episodes, I have done my native city full dramatic justice, in my own macabre sort of a way.
Now that the Gorbals Vampire has told his story to our narrating protagonist, this strange pair perhaps better understand one another now. Yet the fact remains - our young hero is getting older and no longer able to serve so successfully as 'bait', drawing victims to the vampire's iron fangs, and the Vampire is getting helluva thirsty. But now the Vampire comes up with a whole new idea for getting hold of fresh blood. But this will lead our hero to another startling reunion....
So the time has come for The Gorbals Vampire himself to tell the story of how he came to be a vampire in the first place, a story which links his biography intimately with that of the city he haunts....
So an innocent young Glasgow boy has been conscripted into serving as "bait" to lure victims to the clutches of The Gorbals Vampire. But as we learned in the last episode, time is catching up with the boy himself, making him much less useful in that regard. But as the relationship between the Vampire and our protagonist becomes ever more tense, a figure from an earlier chapter of our story is about to make a surprise reappearance, in an episode which makes no apology about some frank Glaswegian language and an eye for the harsher side of life in the big city....