Peter Tong

FILM & STAGE

RADIO & TV

Film

Having written screenplays for the US and UK markets, I became inspired to produce a film of my own when rubbing shoulders with film-makers, usually of the inventive guerilla variety.

Although having no working knowledge of the film world, I had crewed on ten commercial productions as sound man and camera assistant. These were small productions making short safety first and induction videos.

Nonetheless, they had the elements of a movie: script, director, producer, actors, camera, sound recording equipment, lights, and location sets. And finally, an editor to cut it all together, and add music and effects as appropriate.

So what could be difficult about going it alone? Here’s the result!

Gobsmacked!

Sometimes stopping is the only way to get anywhere.

GOBSMACKED, Adj Brit. Slang. To be speechless with amazement. From GOB, n. 16th Cent. Irish for mouth, and SMACK, vb. Anglo-Saxon, to strike with open hand.

Gobsmacked, Adj Brit. Slang. To be speechless with amazement. From GOB, n. 16th Cent. Irish for mouth, and SMACK, vb. Anglo-Saxon, to strike with open hand.

When bossy feminist bus driver, Sandra, drives to town in her old country bus, with Granddad and Richmond on their weekly trip to the cinema, games freak Pilkie going to a mega cyber show, macho Tash off to a soccer championship, and dreamy teenage Denise with her fantasy phone calls to rock superstar Vince Marsh – it seems like an ordinary Saturday.

But when devious businessman Choker, on his way to a power lunch with his spoilt daughter Juliet,nearly knocks down pregnant Maggie, waiting for the bus, and when Sandra crashes into Choker’s classic car – the day is far from ordinary.

Especially when Walter, an eccentric folk dancing hitch-hiker, joins them. They are all reluctantly forced to spend the day together on a deserted country road.But can they tolerate each other’s company until a rescue bus arrives?

Mrs. H of Baker Street

This is a comic twist on the traditional Conan Doyle setting of 221B Baker Street seen from the point of view of landlady Mrs. Hudson and her Cockney maid, Fanny-Annie Grubbins.

Unbeknownst to Sherlock Holmes, they solve various mysteries of their own, using as much deduction and cunning as he does. But it is their feminine intuition that usually wins the day.

They also foil attempts on Holmes’ life, including bombs, poisonous spiders and snakes through the letterbox, as they go about their busy Victorian lives, looking after their two odd lodgers, Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Mrs. H is passionately in love with Watson but he is terrified of her, being a timid bachelor-type devoted only to Holmes and his work. Fanny-Annie is suspicious of Watson and overawed by Holmes.

After solving a trifling affair with a missing husband and his wife’s jewels, they unmask the nasty bottom pinching Jack the Nipper. Then, besieged by arch villain Moriarty and his gang, they defeat them, by Fanny-Annie dressing up as Holmes and Mrs. H using her rolling pin.