(Phone ringing)
"Hello this is Bottom's Weavers.
I can't come to the phone right now. Please leave a message. Ta!"
Nick! Where are you?
Why aren't you answering your phone?
I'm really worried now.
It's dark... and your donkey's not in the yard. What's going on?
(6 o'clock pips)
This is the BBC Evening News at six o'clock
on Monday the 22nd of June
Good evening.
The relatives of the six craftsmen who are believed to have gone missing
following a freak light storm that affected certain parts of the country
on Sunday's summer solstice have made an appeal for witnesses.
Marjorie: They were going out into- into the woods, I believe, and, well, they never came home.
Maureen: Woods are such scary places
you find all sorts of things over in those woods
Marjorie: So if, If you're stuck up a tree
Or if, if you've fallen down a hole
or if you've, I dunno, got - got lost in a pile of leaves...
Maureen: Maybe. We've all done it.
Marjorie: just shout loudly maybe some - some dog might hear you or
Maureen: Maybe
Marjorie: Please come home love
Maureen: come home love. And if, if anyone's seen 'im
he was last wearing a - a lion outfit
Marjorie: Oh yes It were lovely Maureen: 'E loved that. Weren't it lovely?
Marjorie: Maureen made it herself actually Maureen: I did, I made it
Reporter: Excuse me sir, sir just a few words please?
Listen son just just come home.
Your mum - your mum's beside herself.
We don't care where you've been, don't care what you've done.
We didn't know it was.. for play!
(Door shuts. Sound of weeping.)
Prem: I got him this for our fourth anniversary
Collector's edition.
And, er, he made these, just to give it a bit of zhuzh
Hmm
He's so crafty.
Sandra: Well, of course I miss him.
It's very out of character for Peter,
he's normally on a very fixed schedule.
He likes us both to be on a very fixed schedule.
The house is very quiet without him,
without him doing all his lines from the plays, playing all the characters,
roping me into playing the characters,
which apparently I don't do very well.
So yes...
I popped to the garden center because Tony, our gardener, needs some slug pellets, so...
Tony actually has been quite a rock,
a quiet rock,
but he's a very calming influence and loves hearing me talk which is nice
and thinks the garden is wonderful - all the hard work that I've put into that, so that's...
he's been...yes...
very very helpful in this awful time.
(Guitar strumming)
(Strained warbling singing): "Oh Sta-arveli-i-i-ing..."
"Please come..."
"Come back to me-e-e-e-..."
"Starveling."
"Ple-e-e-e-e-e-ase"
I'm sorry I can't - I can't do this
(Weeping)
(Sounds of a man exclaiming in confusion and surprise)
(The sounds turn into donkey braying)
Interviewer: Did you find that difficult to listen to again?... Yeah?
Rosie: Yeah...
Rosie: God knows what happened to his donkey
Ruth: Ah well
Ruth: we heard it on the news you see
yeah we'd been up the night before, hadn't we, making the costumes for our own little performance.
We're getting ourselves ready just in case something goes wrong with theirs,
you know, just in case.
Yeah, we've spent weeks now, making the costumes
for the final dance routine - that's our big number, isn't it Rhys?
A hundred and fifty-four costumes
- that's a lot of sequins.
And let me tell you, Sandra, from number 54
she's got repetitive strain injury now from helping us out.
Derek and Sue, they're on the cusp of a very nasty divorce
after the lighting design debacle, but we won't go into that.
Ruth contd: Rhys - he's been in the garden making the set all day, haven't you Rhys?
Go on, tell them about it.
Rhys: Well- Ruth: It's so huge
it's crushed half my begonia batch, which I'm not very happy about.
And as for the herb garden, well let's just say
we will not be having coriander anytime soon.
But we suffer for our art, don't we Rhys?
I would just like to say that in the 20 years that I've been working in this division
neither myself nor my colleagues have ever come across such a strange and, er, peculiar case
and I'd just like to thank the general public for their help
support and vigilance during this time thank you very much.
Barry: Well we still don't know.
I mean he's back and everything, but
well the drama therapy's helped
I mean they've been brilliant they've
they've come in and they've held his hand
and he seems more like... more like his old self?
Yeah, they're, yeah they've been brilliant.
(Sighs)
(The TV is broadcasting the play of Pyramus and Thisbe) Marjorie: Oh, what's he supposed to be?
Both: Oh! A wall!
(Indistinct speech from the TV) "hole... through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, did whisper often"
Marjorie: That's, that's Thisb - he's Thisbe - Tom Maureen: Oh right
Marjorie: That's Thomas Snout, that's Tom.
I knew something weird had gone on that night.
You know people said to me "Oh perhaps he was having an affair!"
No he wasn't!
I know my own Bottom.
Been married 20 years and never a cross word
from... him.
Oh and what else?
Yeah perhaps they was abducted by aliens - oh don't be daft!
I know what it was!
It's faeries
- big problem around here
I mean you wake up in the morning the grass is all wet but it's not been raining
Faeries!
Oh, I've just put my car keys down, now I can't find them
Fairies!
Who planted all them mushrooms, in a circle, on the green?
Well it wasn't me.
But people don't want to know the truth,
they can't handle it.
Ruth: Yeah,
to be fair they pulled it out the bag actually.
Con- considering they've lost their leading man the day before the performance
I mean, some of them could have done with a little more textual understanding in my opinion,
my humble opinion
And lacking in razzamatazz in the costume department, don't you think Rhys?
but! I say no more.
It was very good...
Ruth: very good indeed. Rhys: Yeah it was solid.
Ruth: It's a miracle.
Yes, Peter's back home
I don't quite know what happened in the woods
He doesn't like to talk about it, so...
But he's decided to give amateur dramatics a break for a while
which is a bit of a shame really.
And he's taken up gardening actually
which is quite a revelation.
He's wonderful with wild flowers.
I mean who knew?!
So that's been rather lovely
and, I'm reading his play, finally.
And I'm really enjoying it,
it's very entertaining.
So maybe there will be a time when he gets back to it all,
and maybe even I'll join him, who knows?
Ruth: Okay and five, six, seven, eight, slide and spin
and tap across and a kick that's a kick that's a kick and off! Yes!