Before the show, the atmosphere at Tramline promised a funky and intriguing night ahead. The venue was clearly picked for its low-key vibes, as if we were all meeting illicitly for a night of forbidden readings. Most attendees seemed to already know each other but in the true spirit of Freshers’ Week they were eager to welcome me with open arms. When it seemed the atmosphere couldn’t get any more sultry, the lights dimmed and all went quiet.
Katie Hastings, MC for the night, kicked us off with a brief introduction to what lay ahead, promising that the performers would be treating us to a night of “live readings of fan fiction from the internet and maybe even their own brains”. Slash fiction, we were quickly informed, was off limits as it is apparently too gruesome for such a light-hearted event. But Hastings was kind enough to help us expand our fan fiction vocabulary throughout the night by defining various popular terms. A drapple, for example, “is a story that is 100 words in length, or thereabouts”.
David Donovan was first up with his rendition of Garfield, An American Revolutionary. This comically sexist extract described the life of Garfield (and I do mean the famous lasagne-eating cat) as leader of “The Founding Failures” during the American War of Independence. The most comical part of this fan-fiction was probably the horrendous grammar. One sentence described Garfield as he “went to door for opening”. In spite of the lack of accurate syntax, all ended well with Garfield eating “a red, blue and white lasagne stuffed with patriotism and cheese”. What more could a cat want?
Joel Coussins followed with his chosen extract from
After such an upheaval to everyone’s childhood, Sadbh Kellet treated us to some Trump fanfiction entitled Trump Temptations: The Billionaire and The Bellboy. This fan fiction is so popular, it managed to become actual erotica, and is no longer technically considered fan fiction. During this cringe-worthy piece, Trump was described as a “Golden God” and likened to a “tall stallion”. What was wonderful was the fact that Sadbh had only read the first few lines prior to getting up to perform. So her natural reactions were quite possibly more entertaining than the actual extract itself.
Our next brave performer was Anna Ní Chathail who gave us a snippet from the very short Sold to One Direction. Halfway through, Anna declared “there’s no punctuation in this whatsoever” after which she mimicked the author’s writing style by reading for two minutes without pausing for breath. The story ended abruptly after five strange boys with British accents showed up at the house of a girl whose mother had dragged her, by her hair, down the stairs, just moments before. It was very strange all together.
An extract from the most iconic fan-fiction of all time was read by Eoin Roche. As Hastings said, “What is a fan fiction night without My Immortal?”. Never having heard of, let alone read My Immortal, I was not disappointed. Roche also read out the author’s notes so that we could “get the full experience”. After a description of Draco Malfoy (there he is again), wearing black eyeliner, we were told “a lot of cool boys wear it okay?”. The story focuses on Draco and the love of his life Ebony (don’t tell Harry), who were discovered in a compromising position in the Forbidden Forest.
There were several other Harry Potter inspired fan fictions including, an extract from Hogwarts School of Prayers and Miracles, in which Harry was sent to school to prevent him from ever becoming a “fornicating, drug-addicted evolutionist”. This was followed by an extract from Severus Snape. Professor and Lover. The original post online was deleted but “thankfully” saved and reposted at a later date. Gillian Kiely did the piece justice by pronouncing things exactly as they had been misspelled. So that the story was soon about Snippa and Dumbledoro. It also, surprisingly, featured the Teletubbies and their “purple leader Tinky Winky”. Kiely thankfully let us off the hook before it got “to a level of disturbing I’m not sure you’re capable for”.
The current Chair of Litsoc, Deirbhile Brennan, got up to read Handbook for Mortals, which isn’t actually fan fiction and was originally written “as a medical guide for getting through loss of a loved one”. In spite of the fact that it butchers the English language, it made its way to the top of the New York Bestsellers List after the author and her friends went into bookshops all over the city, ordering copies of it, before it even went to print. As Brennan rightly highlighted, the only good part of the entire segment was a pun about some witches who “made side-money at Halloween by making killer costumes”.
Our final act was performed by David Monaghan, an honorary Trinity student for the night. And let me tell you, he was most welcome with his rendition of The Communist Anakin Awakens where Karl Marx and Anakin Skywalker merge as one. Anakin’s lightsaber has turned into a “red hammer and sickle” and he suddenly becomes very aware of Obi Wan’s “immensely communist facial hair” and “working class good looks”. All in all, this event was everything it promised to be. The crowd were more than receptive to all the humour and it certainly proved an appetising taster for what both DU Comedy and Litsoc have to offer potential members, for the coming year.
