I'm A Martyr, Get Me Crucified!

Ok, so here’s the pitch:

 

We take twelve celebrities with some sort of chip on their shoulder about something. Ideally, they’ll be z-list celebrities that everybody’s forgotten about who are desperate to be remembered for something more worthwhile than, for example, ‘Finders, Keepers’ and ‘Fun House’. Actually, Pat Sharpe and Neil Buchanana would be perfect contenders!

 

Then – it gets better! They’ll be competing against different classical civilisations to be martyred. These civilisations will be built in suitably unpopulated locations like Shetland and Guernsey, as true to history as we can. They’ll then be populated by historians and actors who have read up on the background of their particular society. The contenders will then go about, stirring up trouble in the name of their preferred raison d’etre. We can even get top celebs as special guests to play famous figures from history. So, let’s take our budding CITV presenters as a simulated example.

 

CONTENDER:   Pat Sharpe

MORAL STANCE:          Tepid

SOAP BOX TOPIC:        “We should give more money to endangered butterflies.”

CLASSICAL CIVILISATION HE’S UP AGAINST:   Phoenicians.

THEIR BEEF IS:            “We fackin’ hate them fackin’ butterflies!”

THEIR PREFERRED METHOD OF EXECUTION:              Offering the victim as a sexual vessel for the sea-beasts of Dagon (one of their attested 1^st millennium gods).

CURRENT RULER:        Ahiram, Phoencian King of Byblos (to be played by Richard O’Brien).

 

 

CONTENDER:   Neil Buchanana

MORAL STANCE:          Vehement

SOAP BOX TOPIC:        “We should enslave little ethnic kids.”

CLASSICAL CIVILISATION HE’S UP AGAINST:   The Achaemenid Persian Empire.

THEIR BEEF IS:            Zoroastrianism (their state religion) forbids slavery.

THEIR PREFERRED METHOD OF EXECUTION:             Split your nutsack open and watch you bleed to death.

CURRENT RULER:        Emperor Cyrus II The Great (to be played by Jasper Carrot)

 

 

I’ve no doubt you’re all as excited about this as I am. I suggest you get scribbling to the Beeb and Channel 4 AT ONCE and lobby them to pick up this innovative and exceptionally educational show.

 

Thank you.