UK faces dwarf actor crisis.
Panto season is upon us once
more, oh yes it fucking is - that time of the
year when dwarves gather themselves into groups
of seven (a 'shortage', to use the proper collective
noun) and high-ho their way back into gainful,
respectable employment, usually glad of the work.
This year's ever popular Snow
White productions are turning from a pantomime
into a bit of a farce however, as more and more
of Britain's little folk waddle off to New Zealand
to appear as hobbits or elves or whatever in the
Lord of the Rings movies.
In what is turning out to be
the worst international dwarf crisis since the
Ewoks (1983), all performances of Snow White may
have to be cancelled this year in favour of
Jack, Do Your Beans Talk? Which as
everybody knows, is a big pile of giant 's shit.
No job, too small.
Ordinarily at this time of year
Britain faces the opposite problem: a dwarf
mountain, literally piling up outside the
London Palladium. Why? Jobs for the dwarves during
the rest of the year are few and far between,
on account of their limited size.
Joe Average Dwarf spends much
of his year trying to see over the counter in
labour exchanges. Often, to save himself embarrassment,
he takes a friend. Standing on each other's shoulders
and wearing a long coat , Joe and John Dwarf collect
their giros - swapping over down a back alley
and returning to rejoin the queue.
It's a life with little dignity,
but long lie-ins (in short beds). Yet it's a life
the dwarf is used to, wondering where his next
meal might come from, always a bit short.
Now, with the hype surrounding
the Lord of the Rings films, the world of the
dwarf has been turned on its out-of-proportion
head. Some of Hollywood's biggest small stars
of the big screen have been crouching and slouching
and wearing shoes on their knees in an attempt
to pass themselves off as boney-fido achondroplasiacs.
Only last week Dustin
Hoffman was seen buying a beard and helmet
from a costume shop in downtown LA, and Tom
Cruise has been caught on tape whistling
while he worked. |
