Diary Saturday 4th April 2026 Deity Of The Day Day

One of my source books in researching Deity Of The Day

I was surprised by how little I attended this year, even on a surprisingly light programme compared to many Eastercons. The Saturday was my quietest day in terms of attending panels as I was getting set for my own play performance, preparing scripts, meeting cast members to go over the text in a quick read through and rehearsal, and making sure tech knew what we might need, which was actually relatively little. Aside from my play and one that followed soon after it, featuring two of the cast of my own in key roles, I got to only a few other activities.

10.30 am Writer’s Workshops And Critique Groups SJ Groenewegen (moderator), Allen Stroud, C. L. McCartney, Liv Strom, Morag Hannah (MK Hardy) A panel centred on the importance of writers being in touch with other writers, and not writing in isolation and loneliness. I have personally been involved in critiquing groups and feedback forums from my earliest writings (mid 1980’s onwards) and often perform my work publicly. Even the convention is a networking activity for me (among much more). The panel touched on writer’s retreats, Milford critiquing (which I have experienced), online communities, (some of them free and others with paid subscriptions), I have of late been involved with the Orbis writing forums run through the BSFA, which have been invaluable. Criticism should always be framed positively, as writers can be very sensitive when work seems to be intensely disliked. An informative group which sadly left little time for Q & A from the audience.

My Convention membership badge

Evening Meal – I got a decent, if expensive jacket spud from the hotel bar.

9pm Deity Of The Day – Arthur Chappell (moderator, author, director, actor), Allen Stroud, Smuzz, White Clanger, Eira Short & Farah Mendelssohn. My play was now staged. There had been read throughs during the day with many of my cast, a late change of episode opening narrator as Geoff Ryman was unable to make it to the convention in the end. Allen Stroud stepped in brilliantly to take on the part. My other cast members excelled themselves and many asked me if there can be more interviews with more gods at future conventions. I certainly hope so.

Me as Jack with White Clanger as Baal. Photo cutesy of Farah Mendlesohn

The History Of The Play https://arthurpeterchappell.wixsite.com/homepage/post/deity-of-the-day-origins-of-a-play

10pm The Enemy Within Smuzz (Author), Eira Short, David Wake, Mark Slater, Cuill Short, and Cal. Imagine the 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) from Doctor Who, and his companion, Melanie Bush (Bonnie Langford) ending up trapped in a state of amnesia in the middle of a Beckettian Waiting For Godot wasteland, trapped in the Vladimir & Estragon personas, surrounded by corporate messaging from the time their episodes first aired. Expositional yet surreal narration is added by a Time Lord who may or may not be The Valeyard observing events through the Galifreyan Matrix. Other Beckettian figures turn up, thinly disguised bowler hatted tramp-clown takes on Pozzo & Lucky, and a computer interface taking the seemingly awakened heroes through a transporter portal back to their traditional adventures, echoes the child who gives prophesy and promises of Godot coming soon.

Well acted (Smuzz absolutely nails McCoy), and mildly unsettling, this is Who in a World broken by Thatcherite policy and greed. This is quite a counterweight to my own play, in style and content. My characters spoke their lines. Here, there was a set of desolation, billboards and a sense of being trapped in an existential nightmare and there are special effects, costumes and more dynamic interaction, though it never fully became a Doctor Who adventure – the Godot element was stronger with a sense that this was no place for the Time Lord. He and Mel are not there to fix the World but to get themselves free from it. Somehow the audience feels partly left behind there, in a World we still need to put right.

No daleks appeared in the plays. They are very disappointed.

Photos taken by me unless otherwise stated.

Arthur Chappell.

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