SCENE 3 - THE AMPHITHEATRE

NARRATOR: (VO) Roger was right, the soil was unusually loamy. By the time I reached the top of the hill, my boots were so heavily caked I was panting for breath. From the vantage point of the ridge I gazed down on a scene that looked like a cross between a phosphor mine and a beefcake photoshoot. There were 10 or 15 men, all dressed in ridiculous wrestling get-up, shouting to each other and carrying hods of earth out from the foot of the field and up the hill. A smaller man, whose presence reminded me of a rowing team’s cox, was pounding down the terraces, then digging steps with violent scrabbling of his bare hands. He looked up and immediately bounded up the hill to greet me. He spoke with an oddly youthful face, riven with coarse wrinkles around pink cheeks and a puckered mouth.

SMALL CLEM: The lads call me Small Clem. Pleased to meet you.

PETE: Small Clem, hi. Pete Pendragon, horticulture journalist. Nice to meet you. I’m researching about the soil here in Woldenheim. What are you building?

SMALL CLEM: I run the wrestling club - Massive Brutes and Juicy Fruits. We’re based at the town hall like the others but we’re growing so fast that we need somewhere else to perform so we’re digging out this amphitheatre by hand. We should be finished soon.

PETE: That’s amazing, truly amazing…

SMALL CLEM: How about a wrestle? Me and the lads take this pretty seriously. There’s grappling but it’s basically Greco-Roman with elements of WWF. And we like to eat sweets after each meet, hence, Juicy Fruits.

PETE: I see. The Massive Brutes bit kind of speaks for itself. Look at the size of that one! I’m afraid I didn’t come to wrestle. I’m only here for a couple of days and I spend most of my time sat in an office so I’m not sure I could contribute much to a wrestling club…

SMALL CLEM: Ask not what you can contribute to club. No. Ask what club can contribute to you. Then ask what you can contribute to club. It’s £4 a year and everyone chips in for the sweets. We meet Saturdays. Hey come and meet the brutes. Brutes! Assemble!

FX - SHUFFLING AND EXCITED CHATTER

PETE: Woah, no, er…

SMALL CLEM: This is Helmut.

PETE: Hello.

HELMUT HOLE: How do? I’m Helmut Hole, semi-professional wrestler. Hoping to pass my grade 1 this month. Been putting in a lot of hours at the dojo.

PETE: Pleased to meet you.

ANGULAR: Angular Muckel, built for business to scare you witless. Grrr!

PETE: Hi. Do I detect a European parliamentary theme to your ‘roles’?

SMALL CLEM: No. All the boys are masterful wrestlemen. And this man mountain is our longest serving member, Mighty Gorgeous Chops.

MIGHTY: Pleased to meet make your acquaintance. I’m a man of the world and a world of a man. I got landmarks where you got stretch marks boy!

SMALL CLEM: He’s the philosophical one. Hey look, it’s really great to meet you. We have a weekly group session in the hall…

MIGHTY: The Royal Fumble.

SMALL CLEM: Yeah the Fumble, that’s what we call it. So, if you find yourself at a loose end on a Saturday night come on down. We’d love to have you.

MIGHTY: And know this, we are powerful allies.

PETE: What do you mean?

MIGHTY: I don’t think I need to explain myself.

PETE: No?

SMALL CLEM: No.

ANGULAR: No.

MIGHTY: Nope.

PETE: Okay then. I’ll still have to decline because, I’m here, you know, about the soil. Have you noticed anything unusual while you’ve been digging Clem? I’m looking for mineral deposits, or underground streams; that kind of thing.

SMALL CLEM: Well now you mention it, there was something. We’ve come across areas of soil bound up with tendrils. Strong, like a wrestleman’s tendons. Could barely dig through it. Of course this was deep: a good 12 Clems down.

PETE: 12 Clems? You mean 12 times your height? Was this when you were laying foundations? Sounds like knotweed but a JCB wouldn’t have any trouble with that. Can I take a look?

ANGULAR: JCB. Is that a move? Like a DDT? Show us.

ALL: SHOW US SHOW US SHOW US!

PETE: It’s not a move. It’s a large piece of machinery. A mechanical digger.

SMALL CLEM: Oh. That sounds like cheating. Anyway, if you won’t be joining the club now we will have to ask you to leave. The amphitheatre is almost complete. Wrestletime approaches.

FX - ENTHUSIASTIC EXCLAMATIONS: ‘RATHER!’, ‘AND THEN SOME!’, ‘WRESTLE!’, ETC