Dolly & the Oxide Capers: SEASON ONE - EPISODE SIX

By Kevin Karmalade

At this stage of the serial, readers will have formed a picture of the nature of the groups of characters that attend Lamb’s ball. Lamb welcomes his guests and re-assures their donations will go to a worthy cause. It helps that he is wheel chair bound. It makes his fund-raising more credible—being a distinguished citizen, with a visible disability from the free use of his legs.

We are able to observe Dirk, the Attorney-general, Mandy Fagan, Warrin Fitz Gerald and others as they party on, relatively uninhibited. Dolly the sheep appears as part of the festivities. The reaction to her; the strangeness of having an innocent sheep as an amusement, signals the understated vulgarity and lavishness of the event. We are also vaguely aware of the impending appearance of a donkey called, ‘Sir Nigel.’ Along with Dolly, he too has been quietly smuggled into the venue by Lamb’s stagehands.

Karmalade shares a fascination with many—for the Renaissance painters Bruegel and Bosch. Their paintings were one of the chief inspirations of the penning of this episode. In the early manuscripts, copies of the paintings were embedded into the actual manuscripts versions, to mirror the underlying themes of temptation and organised debauchery. The paintings that inspired the ball scenes are from the famous Temptation of St Anthony oil painting series by Bosch (ca 1505). The painting currently hangs in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, in Lisbon.

There is a palpable sense of the writer’s observations of human interaction, games and relations throughout episodes 5-8. This is not dissimilar to the way F. Scott Fitzgerald took aim at the opulence and decadence of his era in, The Great Gatsby (1924-25). We become immersed in the meandering scenes of the intoxicated superiors and inferiors; a warped nativity using an inferior subservient to play ‘the son of Regina’; nitrous-oxide gas, a sheep, a donkey swilling ale, an angel in an Elvis jacket and a statue with its head broken off— cussing to the ball guests. We have no doubt that ‘the charity’ they have come to support, may well just be an excuse for some extravagant entertainment. Lamb is everyone’s enabler therefore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: May 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781642376364

Book preview

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EPISODE SIX

Dolly &

the Oxide Capers

Tristan and crew watch ‘Love & Contempt’ in the RV; back-stage at the ball; Dirk meets Pasha and Samantha; lighting of the candles; Fagan and Dirk; ‘Merry Regis everyone’; the oxide gas party tent; angels in electric jackets; Dolly’s ecclesiastic suspenders; sniffing powder on the carpet; the Attorney-general takes a fall; the talking statues; a broken head; Dolly’s chalk-powdered bottom; Sir Nigel prepares to perform.

The Gala Ball 20 December 2025

With Sir Perceval Lamb upstairs and the garden games running smoothly, Tristan and some of the crew slipped back to the lounge of the RV. They turned on ‘Love and Contempt’. Tristan was infatuated with what was happening in the life of Quentin Dupont.

With her headset on, she was multi-tasking, receiving messages and giving instructions through her mike.

When the ball was over, Percy Lamb would check if the program had been recorded. He would be thirsting to know what had happened to Dupont. The show had reached a complexity of late—after Lady Dupont received a nasty shock: Quentin, whom she believed was her maternal son, was not hers after all.

He had been switched at birth.

It was a wicked, shameful deceit that had audience members like Tristan—emotionally invested and somewhat upset. Hospital officials had been bribed. And an offer made from high up of a new maternity wing, which never materialised. And her real child snatched away. It was caused by a vendetta against her late sister's father-in-law, for interfering with a Ponzie scheme that was meant to deliver profits and riches on an industrial venture—but which had soured catastrophically.

A number of fortunes were lost as a result.

Except Lady Dupont’s. Her family fortune was withdrawn intact, shortly before she was due. Her child swapped and baby Quentin put into her arms instead. Her capital was transferred to a safe haven, just one day before the venture became insolvent and collapsed. From that moment, she was targeted on the basis of a jealous hatred, that her funds were saved, because of the inside knowledge and actions of her sister's father-in law.

The next major shock for audiences came when the father-in law was elected to office as the Member for Wordsworth. Just after the election, he was found unclad in a blow-up toy swimming pool, with wrap-around dark-glasses, a Kaftan—and a tourniquet around his neck. With a mysterious jaffa-coloured tablet sitting on his tongue. Unswallowed. The coroner could not conclude whether it was death by misadventure—or by another fate.

Worse still, it had been determined that a large quantity of party-desert jelly had been mixed and poured, like