SIMON BRETT - SITUATION TRAGEDY

SIMON BRETT

SITUATION TRAGEDY

Charles Paris, an elderly actor, gets the role of a

'Golf-Club barman',  which is a regular character in

the new sitcom 'The Strutters'. One evening, Charles

is visited by a friend, who is a fan of Aurelia

Howarth, the main actress, and who wants to be

introduced to her. Just as they are talking and all

the actors, producers and staff-members have arrived

at the bar suddenly Sadie Wainwright's corpse is found

on the ground of the parking.

As the next six episodes are produced, Charles is

pretty bored because of his very small appearences

containing 14 lines per episode. So he decides to

spend his time finding out more about Sadie's

background and motives people could have had to kill

her. He comes to know, that everyone she knew could

have had motives to kill her, so he doesn't get very

far.

That day, Charles flirts with a very attractive young

lady called Janie, who can give him a lot of

information. After a few days, he contently accepts

the common verdict of death by accident. But still he

asks some members of the crew to find out more about

the dead woman's schedule on that day. She broke up a

relationship with a man, and she went straight to

another man, Bernard Walton.

As the days are passing, the filming starts at the

villa of one of the main actors. They all go there by

bus, except the young television director, who comes a

bit late, in his brand new Porsche and boasts a lot of

it. Then, half an hour later, the two main stars

arrive, being welcomed especially and having big

privileges everywhere.

Then after the filming-day is over, the director and

one of the main stars bet who's going to be first in

driving into the city. Just as the director starts

racing, he crashes into a tree and dies.

Because of that incident, Charles thinks about the

past, and tries to find out who could be the murderer.

He concludes, that it could be someone who wanted to

sabotage the whole show, and not particularly the main

actress, just as well as people with personal reasons.

And the only person he can think of, is Bernard. He

knows, that his own older series is not going to be

continued and he simply might have wanted to take

revenge. The new director is a bit strict, but

efficitent and good. He is a routineer, who does

everything 'his way', but still good. He sees the

shots from the former director, who was killed, and he

sais, they are all crap and that they have to film it

all over again. After that day, Charles drives home

with Bernard and on the way, they stop by for Bernard

to make a phone call. Charles tries to  bring up the

subject of the death of the two people several times,

but he doesn't succeed. Then they go out for dinner.

Because 'The Strutters' is produced, the old

show(where Charles played the main role), 'What'll the

neighbours say?', was cancelled and no plans of new

episodes were set up. Now the only way to get the old

show running again, was preventing 'The Strutters'

>from success and stopping it from being produced. As

he is a bit mellowed, Bernard also confesses

indirectly that he is glad that the two murders

happend. Content, Charles goes to bed but as he wakes

up the next morning, his contentment is gone. He hears

that Rod Tisdale, the script-writer was killed the

last night. After having delivered the scripts for the

upcoming episodes, a car rolled him over. That happend

just at the time Charles was dining with Bernard.

Irritated, Charles has to set up a new theory about

the crimes because obviously Bernard cannot be the

murderer.

The next weeks are a bit boring until one part of an

episode requires filming in the ghetto but the

squatters there make problems. A young man, their

leader, starts stating that they don't have the right

to film  there and as they start shooting rotten food

and trash, chaos arises. But then suddenly everyone

realizes that someone is lying dead in the middle of

the field. The police come, and investigate just as

usual and leave again, not minding Charles, who

remembers that this is the fourth incident. Later he

escorts one of the actresses home and sleeps with her.

The day after the beloved dog of the main actress dies

which hurts her immensly. As Charles sees how sad she

is he is determined to solve the accumulated

mysteries. For her.

Now he goes to the leader of the squatters, who made

problems, and that's how he is told that a green

Bentley was seen at the place where the murder

happened. Charles remembers that the only person who

ownes such a car is Barton Rivers, Aurelia's husband,

who was present at all death-scenes Charles finds a

lot of good motives and the more he thinks about it,

the surer he gets. Barton might have wanted to take

revenge from all the members of the crew, assaulting

them randomly.

He doesn't suspect Aurelia, his wife, to be an

accomplice, but he is sure that she must have

suspected something. But maybe her husband threatens

her and noone knows. During the next production days

Charles watches Barton's every step so that no more

'accidents' can happen.

As a few days pass he realizes that he can't watch

Barton all the time and so he calls one of his good

friends who is also interested in solving

murder-cases, and asks him for help. George Birkitt

complains about the new script writers and criticizes

the quality of the new episodes. A few changes are

done and everybody is satisfied.That week, everything

goes on pretty slowly. But as time passes, they get a

bit faster.

Romney Kirkstall has a biography of Aurelia Howard in

which there is a still from an aborted film called

'Death takes a short cut'. Then later Romney says he

has seen a copy of this book by R.Q. Wilberforce with

that title in a bookshop Barton Rivers once

recommended to him. So Charles had gone to the

bookshop and been put in touch with the book-sales

man.

Charles realizes that the next murder in the book was

commited with a samurai sword and that the next day's

script contained a part with a samurai sword.

As he wants to order more of R.Q.Wilberforce's books

to his surprise he is told that Wilberforce's real

name is Barton Rivers. BP 154 Now he is even more

forced to read his other books.

Quote p. 158 4th paragraph from the bottom

So on the next day, Charles is prepared to keep an eye

on Barton all the time, not touching the sword. He

needs evidence and he is sure to be able to manage

getting it that day. As the final scene comes up he is

very nervous knowing that if he makes a mistake

someone else can die.

Then, as the part with the sword comes up Barton

stands up, Charles runs behind him and then suddenly

instead of touching the sword he pushes Charles over

the railing and made him fall off. As Charles got up,

all his bones hurt, and he felt lots of pain. His

theory with the books had been right but today it was

another part of the book's turn.

As he talks to Aurelia about it she confirms his

suspicious and tells him  that she always had waited

for him to stop the killing - but in vain. War had

left a lot of scars deep inside of Barton and a

production of the book he had written had been

cancelled. His dream had been destroyed and again he

was the unimportant man next to his famous wife. And

then their son was killed in war.

Now Aurelia admits that she and her husband committed

all the murders. In the end Aurelia had tells Barton

to try to kill Charles because was on the right path

in solving the murder mystery.

Suddenly Charles realizes why Aurelia is talking so

much - she is just waiting for her husband to return.

As he enters he isn't surprized to see Charles at all.

His claws shoot out and Charles feels himself being

lifted horribly fast out of his seat. Aurelia tells

her husband to kill Charles but Barton won't do that

because he needs a samurai sword to slide into the

last character of his books. Barton leaves the room

with Aurelia just before a production assistant

appears. He says, that a samurai sword has been stolen

and that he is looking for it. Charles realizes that

his ordeal was not yet over. He takes a taxi and goes

to the collector(library), who has the R.Q.Wilberforce

collection and reads the rest of his books, hoping to

solve the mystery this way. The last book from Barton

deals with the tragic accident of the two main

characters falling off a cliff on purpose.

The next day, the news tell about the tragic death of

Aurelia and Barton, having fallen off a cliff are

announced on the radio. The whole public looks back on

Aurelia Howard as one of the finest young ladies in

movie business and regret her passing away. The news

don't say anything particular about Barton or his

life. The production of 'The Strutters' is aborted.

Charles calls his family after a long time.

CHARACTERS

Charles Paris

His is not a career of constant decision, weighing the

advantages and disadvantages of one job against

another; it is a career of grabbing whatever he was

offered quickly, before anyone changes their minds.

He is constantly courageous, trying to find the

murderer in any way. And of course he is extremely

clever and smart - finding out this crazy theory

really isn't as easy as it seems.

Aurelia Howard

Aurelia is very strong on the surface, but deep

inside, she is weak. She is afraid to stop her husband

killing people and so she comes along with him and

starts to kill too, when neeeded. She is after all

desperately in love with her husband, though he is

really mentally sick.

Barton Howard

He is a man, disappointed by the world and everything

in it. Pretending to be a character from his books is

appearently his only chance to

My Opinion

'Situation Tragedy' is one of those books, in which

you can't understand the whole story until you have

read the last ten pages. But the more impatient you

get, the more it is worth reading it. The book is full

of jokes and funny parts. The ends of the chapters

always are a bit of a preview of the upcoming one - a

writing method, I personally think of as highly

professional. The vocabulary used here is at a very

level and understanding whole paragraphs sometimes can

only be possible with a translation book.

The Author's Message and some comments

Simon Brett points out that scrubs deep inside of

people can be hidden for years. Healing wounds takes

patience and good will. Instead of joining her husband

killing people, Aurelia could have tried to help him

by either sending him to a psychatrist or simply by

showing more love and respect to her husband. Very

often it is hard for men to accept that their wife is

more successful or more popular than they are. All

that fame around Aurelia and also the loss of his son

create a very hard environment for Barton.

I guess, the book also wants to convey the Atmosphere

on a set, and the problems which occur in

film-business. All the different characters, the

longing for fame, the jelousy , and the interpersonal

relationships are described very well.