ST GEORGE AND THE EMERGENCY ALERT

Every year the Westfields County players volunteered their thespian skills to tell the legendary story of St George, the great Christian martyr.

Having assembled their quaint and rickety constructed stage on the Westfields Village Green early that morning, many members of the public gathered to see this most effective reconstruction of historic events later that same day.

Neil Daniels, who had recently been doing a convincing run as Rhett Butler in a controversial (and very nearly cancelled) local production of 'Gone With The Wind', had been St George for nearly thirty years now. The lines of the great matyr were etched in his memory more than the names of all of his numerous girlfriends (a good few fair maidens amongst them) he'd ever had. In many ways, he had finally grown into the role with greater gravitas after many decades playing the role.

The performance for the most part had gone without a hitch until, that was, St George had reached the entrance of the cave where the fearsome dragon dwelt.

Billowing smoke (courtesy of several cannisters of liquid carbon dioxide) was spreading like a mist all around the scene as several volunteers sprayed the liquid vapour with abundant enthusiasm.

The dragon, played by Neil's best friend Dennis, was just about to launch his famously blood curdling roar upon his sighting of St George when all of a sudden a mass bleeping of mobile phones sounded an alarming, strident alert notification in a dalek-like chorus that stopped him in his tracks, leaving him to hold his dragon tongue momentarily.

"What the bloody hell ..."

Various stewards in their hi-viz jackets then quickly attempted to reassure the concerned audience, who were now speed reading the ominous words on their individual phone screens from the British government.

'This is a test of Emergency Alerts, a new UK government service that will warn you if there's a life-threatening emergency nearby.

'In a real emergency, follow the instructions in the alert to keep yourself and others safe.

'Visit gov.uk/alerts for more information.

'This is a test. You do not need to take any action.'

It took a good ten minutes to convince the men, women and children of the public that there was really nothing to worry about and that St George would resume his slaying of the dragon soon enough.

Nevertheless, for Dennis playing the dragon, he felt the moment had passed and it would be hard to pick up the play where they had left off. He was having what Neil referred to as a 'precious' moment.

"No Neil, I know what you're going to say but I'm not doing it now. It's fucked. I spend the entire day working my way up to that roar and now it's ruined because of some goverment absolute bullshit interefering with my art."

"Don't go down your conspiracy rabbit hole now, Dennis. We've got the entire town waiting for you to do your roar."

Dennis was incredulous at Neil's lack of anger over the intrusive alert that had chilled him to his fiery core.

"Bloody hell. It's a sad state of affairs when St George himself submits to the dark forces impinging on our liberties. What's the fucking point anymore."

Taking a moment to carefully consider his answer for his depressed friend, Neil channeled his inner St George and uttered the immortal words to Dennis dressed head to foot in a green dragon costume.

"Because if we don't tell the tale, who will?"

The actor couldn't find an answer substantial enough to compete with the emotive riposte that Neil had presented him with, so deflected with a less serious response.

"Well, maybe the government can tell everyone the tale in a emergency text message and all the others events of significance they decide to take from us, the people."

"Maybe consider the dragon is the government and I'm here to slay it on behalf of the people. How does that sound?"

Even Dennis couldn't doubt Neil's sincerity in trying to work a compromise between his outrage and the honouring of tradition for the good townsfolk of Westfields.

"It's just I feel like everything is being ruined these days. You can't even have tradition without some Whitehall pen pusher trying to fuck it all up for us."

Looking back at the restless crowd, Neil sensed this wasn't the time to debate the state of the world with Dennis.

"I'm going back out there. I'll await your roar shall I?"

But Dennis, with head lowered had gone all morose and introverted again, leaving the performance on a sword edge.

"I'll think about it."

Neil, always the dedicated practitioner of his craft, was aware of his co-player's grumpy resistance, spontaneously launched into an improvised tirade of abuse directed at his fire breathing adversary.

"Where is this supposed famous dragon that hides when he hears the sound of a mobile phone alert? Surely this is no worthy adversary for I, the fearless St George, who has heard tales of so many living in fear of his fire breath and poisionous teeth and claws."

A moment or two passed which seemed like an eternity to Neil who wondered if his friend had done a runner.

"I said where is ..."

And with that, an incredible sounding roar seemed to shake the ground and echo for miles as Dennis (as dragon) emerged in hot pursuit of Neil (as St George).

As he saw Dennis running toward him with a look of primal rage, Neil knew what he had to do. Striking his friend with a retractable spear, both he and Dennis fell to the floor after their staged collision and made suitably painful sounding noises as they both writhed on the ground.

Then Sally Stewart (dressed as an orange tree) provided sanctuary for the wounded Neil as the dragon came in search of the knight once more. Rising to his feet, St George then held up his shiny sword to alert the dragon to his whereabouts.

"I have recovered my strength, o witless dragon and now you must pay the price for the death and fear you have spread across these lands."

And with that Dennis made a run at Neil like a demonic rugby winger but he quickly struck his friend in the center of his forehead with his spear once again; it broke in half shattering against his hard dragon scales.

"You are no match for me, o pathetic knight."

Pouring a strange looking gloopy looking poison over his prey it was clear Dennis was enjoying himself again as the young children in the audience gasped, fearing the worst for St George who called for Sally (as orange tree) to return quickly to him. She squeezged the juice of several oranges over the writhing Neil who appeared to recover quickly, just in time for the dragon's final attack on him.

"Come back here, dragon and I will put your fire out once and for all!"

Running like a demon toward Neil once again, Dennis felt a sense of freedom in being a dragon (albeit a pretend one) and roared the biggest roar he could muster for the occasion.

"Come now and meet my sword, dragon and sleep for all of eternity."

With great precision he then pierced Dennis under his dragon wing, the actor succumbing to his final demise as St George proclaimed his victory over evil and roared over his green scaly body a prayer to God and England to the whooping and cheering of the uproarius crowd.

It was later over a pint in their local, that Neil and Dennis shared a debrief of their performance earlier that day.

"Fair play. You roared louder than a million phone alerts ever could. I was impressed."

"I was wound up."

"I could tell."

Pouring the last broken crisps from the silver foil packet into his mouth, Dennis took a moment before looking at Neil with a solemn and ernest expression.

"Dragons come in all shapes and sizes," he said as solemnly as if delivering a Shakespearian monologue and holding up his mobile phone to bring home the analogy.

"They all need to be slain."

Smiling in appreciation of his friend's genuine, heartfelt concern for the freedom of his people and country, Neil clinked his pint glass against Dennis's.

"To St George!"