Dedicated to: Strange
A/N: I wrote this as a comedy piece that is meant to be performed. Don't mind the weird grammar, I'm trying to portray how I performed it.
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Hello and welcome back to the Biblical Cooking Show. It's the Reign of the Judges* here, with our panel of four judges. Well, there's three judges here, but we've saved a spot at the table just in case Elijah decides to pop in later!
And it looks like the contestants are ready to present their dishes!
First up is Abram, but the judges have already pushed aside his dish! Turns out that ham is specifically against the rules. But Abram is contesting that, saying that that rule was created after he joined the show! ...! Now he's down on his hands and knees -- hands and knees, ladies and gentlemen -- begging them not to eliminate him. Boy with that performance and his dish, we might as well call him AbraHAM!
Now we turn to Jonah. He's serving a fish broth in a lovely gourd. We're pretty impressed he even managed to plate it, he spent so much time procrastinating. Oh no, are those worms in the gourd? The Judges are /not happy/.
Next up is Lot. He created a lovely casserole: boy, it sure looks tempting! MMMM. But the judges say he didn't add enough salt. I guess he should've brought his wife along!
...Too soon?
Finally, our last contestant. Moses has really been a plague on his competitors. Last week, the couldn't even get their ovens started, and he seemed to be able to call FIRE DOWN FROM THE SKY to light his, (and Eve complained about getting boils while she was... trying to boil the forbidden fruit that eventually got her eliminated... BUT SHE BLAMES HIM!)
...And he's done it again, ladies and gentlemen. With a dish that seems to have inexplicably fallen from the heavens. ...What is it? The judges don't know, but it's better than the other contestant's dishes. Just so long as they don't have to eat it every day for forty years or anything...
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* sorry, Mormon Joke.
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138,417 Literary Works • 672,117 Reviews
Yo, fortis! Since it's not to often I get to read a comedy piece (and a religious-themed one, at that!), I decided to drop in and give this a review.
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...and I love it. XD
Marvelous job! While I'm not a Christian myself, I got a lot of the jokes here (especially Reign of the Judges - that made me crack up), and I found this a very amusing interpretation of Biblical characters and stories applied to a cooking contest, of all things. I just admire the fact that you're able to take as unlikely a story concept as this, and make it into something that accomplishes its goals of being entertaining and fun. Imagining it being performed in front of an audience makes it all the more hilarious.
There aren't any criticisms I can provide of this piece, especially given its intentions and how its supposed to be read. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if there were, like, stage directions. Perhaps a few specific roles for each of the characters, and some lines for them, complete with your narration and stage props. Honestly, I'm envisioning the narration could be combined with play-style effects for more of a dramatic effect. That'd probably make it a little easier to act it out and construct the scenes, although this is more of a comedy work than a play-style work. But they could be combined, you know? Beyond that, I just really enjoyed some of the jokes in here. Especially with Abraham and the salt joke (although I don't think that'd be the best way to honor his wife - you know, putting part of her into a casserole for the judges. They might eliminate him for that.
Yep, that's about all. I loved this! It was funny, well-written, and took a concept that I wasn't sure would be very successful and made it exactly that. Nicely done!
P.S.:
Pssht, show off.
(I also think it's supposed to be "the contestants" or "they," rather than just "the"? )
you get the reign of the judges joke??? Where have you read/heard about that? and this was a monologue, so other characters etc. are a no go, and I did like no actions. Thanks for the review!
You missed the bit where someone gets stoned to death.
Okay, I can't resist, I'm going to review this.
So yeah, this is funny. Nerdy biblical references for the win. I kind of really want to hear you perform it in a recording.
Yeah, I'm iffy about the grammar things. It makes it a little bit strange to read, but it's also hard to convey that grand commentator voice without the emphasis.
I think my biggest critique for this is that I want it to be expanded. Right now, it feels like it's just a core concept that you could milk a lot more out of. Realism isn't the point here, but the commentary feels like it could be more fleshed out, and I'd like to have more details about the contest and where they are and just generally it feels like it moves too fast through the contestants, like your skipping through the story to get to the jokes.
Also, you've pretty much only done the obvious jokes here, the Bible stories that everyone knows (except of the Reign of the Judges joke.) Again, I think you could go deeper, referencing more obscure stories, even if they're about the same people.
I think your Abraham and Jonah jokes are the weakest of the four. While the 'ham' pun is amusing, I feel like the reason we're calling him Abraham doesn't really relate to the actual reason he's called Abraham. But maybe it's just because I'm not sure I quite get the reference to the rule being added after he joined the show - it's referencing Mosaic law, right?
With the Jonah joke, I just feel like there's not much there except for 'oh, he procrastinated a lot' and, of course, the fish broth. Maybe I'm missing something. I probably am.
My favorite of this is Moses, and honestly he's a great candidate for these jokes because there's just so many stories to choose from. Referencing Baal, and of course the mana - both work surprisingly well in this cooking context. The thing about Eve was just odd. It didn't make a lot of since to me and didn't really seem to fit where it was placed... why would she blame him for getting boils?
The biggest concrete suggestion I have has to do with the last line. I think it would pack a more solid punch of you said something along the lines of "and it looks like the judges like it so much, they've given it a score of 11/10, Would Eat for 40 Years" or something like that. Trailing off like you do is a little weak.
So, this has been a totally ramble-y review, but I hoped it helped anyway! Thanks for the really funny read.
This was supposed to be under 1.5 minutes for the monologue, so adding more stories wouldn't have been good. Plus I tried writing this earlier and I had a bunch of stories that sort of made sense together but didn't entirely, because there were too many. In fact, I had cut out the Jonah part before because it went on longer than one and a half minutes.
But the part about Jonah and the worm in the guard is one of the lesser-known stories of the Bible, but it's still in the Jonah chapters, so I think that even more obscure stories would have been a bad idea. But I promise it makes sense it's at the end of Jonah.
Yes I make a reference to the law of moses in the abraham part, but making a reference to the real reason he is called Abraham would be sort of sacrilegious and confusing I think. Much better just to keep it as a light-hearted ham joke.
Moses of course brought all those plagues, and one of them was boils, which is why Eve would blame Moses.
Thanks for your compliments and suggestions!
This was supposed to be under 1.5 minutes for the monologue, so adding more stories wouldn't have been good. Plus I tried writing this earlier and I had a bunch of stories that sort of made sense together but didn't entirely, because there were too many. In fact, I had cut out the Jonah part before because it went on longer than one and a half minutes.
But the part about Jonah and the worm in the guard is one of the lesser-known stories of the Bible, but it's still in the Jonah chapters, so I think that even more obscure stories would have been a bad idea. But I promise it makes sense it's at the end of Jonah.
Yes I make a reference to the law of moses in the abraham part, but making a reference to the real reason he is called Abraham would be sort of sacrilegious and confusing I think. Much better just to keep it as a light-hearted ham joke.
Moses of course brought all those plagues, and one of them was boils, which is why Eve would blame Moses.
Thanks for your compliments and suggestions!
Erm, I understand most parts, and this is humorous. Nice job!
I'm dying.
(Reign of the Judges. xD)
EDIT: Also you put this in fanfiction and that makes it that much more hilarious.