The Best Of All Possible Islands

Evening.

The Kingscote Town Hall is filled to capacity.

Mayor Clements walks onto the stage.

Welcome everyone! says Mayor Clements. What a treat we have for you tonight! We are honoured to have been visited by three eminent environmentalists, all of whom have agreed to speak to you on the topics about which we are all .....

Mayor Clements goes on for several more minutes, until the audience starts tittering.

Mayor Clements tries to shush them. He holds his hands up. He lowers them down.

Titter titter.

Is there something behind him?

Mayor Clements turns round.

A pale Bright Red Object is moving back and forth as though swimming.

Get off, hisses Mayor Clements.

The pale Bright Red Object stops swimming, bows and swims off.

Our first speaker is Gaius Plinius Secundus, a man who needs no introduction, says Mayor Clements. An unsurpassed natural historian, quoted possibly more times than any other natural historian in history, he came to Kangaroo Island to observe the latest fossil discoveries in the Emu Bay Shale. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome........Gaius Plinius Secundus!

Gaius walks on, to a smattering of applause.

Thank you, says Gaius. Everyone has been very kind. My companions and I have decided that rather than bore you with speeches, we will perform a short excerpt from a play which was written by one of our party.

Jacques Cousteau! calls a voice from the audience.

If you like, says Gaius. But tonight he will play the part of Dr Pangloss.

The audience is quiet, never having heard of Dr Pangloss.

Gaius leaves the stage.

The play begins.

Enter Sweezus and Arthur as Candide and Carambo.

Candide: I have lost all the red sheep I was given by the King of Eldorado.

Carambo: No! All hundred?

Candide: Yes. All hundred. Two plunged into a bog. Two died of fatigue. Seven or eight starved in the desert. Some fell down a precipice. After one hundred days I had only two left, but nevertheless I was happy, because those two were loaded with gold, diamonds and precious stones.

Carambo: What happened to those two?

Candide: I was tricked out of them by a pirate, whose ship sank in a subsequent battle.

The pale Bright Red Object enters stage left and swims past.

Carambo: Is that one of them?

Candide: Yes!

Bright Red Object: I'm a proper red sheep!

Candide: Good! Now I have money again. What is there to do here?

Carambo: Nothing.

Enter Dr Pangloss.

Dr Pangloss: I say! Have you heard about the new golf course? It's going to be a wonderful asset for Kangaroo Island.

The audience cheers. At last, Dr Pangloss! And they can understand what he is saying.

Candide: What about all the precious water it will require?

Carambo: Will there be a kangaroo cull?

Candide: What about the impact on the island's ageing infrastructure?

Dr Pangloss: Piffle! It means fifty new jobs for the community. And more tourists. It's ALL FOR THE BEST IN THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE ISLANDS.

The best of all possible islands!  The audience cheers again.

The pale Bright Red Object scatters two stones that he has borrowed from Shu.

Bright Red Object: These are meant to be jewels!

Half the audience stands up in order to see the jewels.

They are fossil eyes. The soft tissue compound fossil eyes of anomalocaris.

To the audience, they just look like stones.

Finis.

The players step forward and bow.

Mayor Clements runs onto the stage.

He looks like a man in a flap for some reason.