Suitable Names

The Bard – so called because he had been thrown out of every pub in Stratford, London, and most places in between – was having an infernal afterlife chat with some of his fellow authors. After celebrating the fact that the booze in Hell was a thousand times better than the insipid ambrosia that was reputed to be on offer at the other end of the Cosmos, and they had therefore had the best of the deal when failing the Pearly Gates admission test, the conversation turned to the problems they had had in naming their characters.

Shakespeare bemoaned the fact that he had been persuaded by theatre managers to change so many of his play titles from what he was convinced would have been sure fire box office winners.

“If only they had let me stage The Tragedy of Bear and Trixibelle – what a great line “Bear, Bear, wherefore art thou Bear” would have made”.

“Maybe open to misinterpretation”? said George Bernard Shaw, who had always wondered if Eliza Doolittle should have been called Tamiko Kardashian.

Charles Dickens wandered over. He was miffed that Jane Austen and the Brontes had ended up in the other place; he reckoned that being daughters of clergymen had given them an unfair advantage.

“If I’d been around 150 years later I’d wouldn’t have had to invent such silly names for my characters”, he said. “There are so many real ones to choose from now. “Suppose my ‘Tale of Two Cities’ could have included Chelsea Clinton and Paris Hilton, for example? And I’m sure I could have found a role for Brooklyn Beckham in the American chapters of Martin Chuzzlewit”.

“That’s only because of where he was conceived”, offered GBS. “I don’t think you’d have got away with Round-the-Back-of-the-Bike-Sheds Twist”.

They all suddenly became aware of the presence of Dame Barbara Cartland, who was steadily getting outside an enormous pink gin. “If you want good character names”, she said, “you can’t do better than a good road atlas. I could write a decent romantic novel based solely on Dorset and Somerset”.

“Go on then”, said Shakespeare, “How would you start?”

“Sir Nempnett Thrubwell was looking forward to a good day’s hunting, but his main concern was finding a suitable husband for his wayward daughter, Priddy. Maybe the assembled group of horsemen taking their stirrup cups included some possible candidates.

There was Shepton Beauchamp, for example, a quiet man who owned a large estate in the south of the county. Or maybe Charlton Mackrell, or Rodney Stoke, both fine upstanding men. Sutton Waldron was another possibility, as was Milton Clevedon.

On the other hand, he didn’t fancy Creech Heathfield or Brympton D’Evercy as potential sons-in-law. The first was too creepy by half and the second had a seriously recessive chin.

As for young Priddy, her eyes were looking at none of these. For her it had to be the dashing rake Hardington Mandeville. Little did she know that he had already proposed marriage to Priddy’s schoolgirl friend Ryme Intrinseca, whose own heart had long been set on the poet Melbury Osmund.

Sir Nempnett could have no notion of the pain and trouble that was about to unfold.”

The authors had to concede that maybe Dame Barbara was on to something there.

© John Welford