Mystery Story is loosely based on a Basil Boothroyd - or was it
Alan Brien? - short story in Punch magazine, around 1980. The tag
line is a very old piece of conjourer's patter.
Monologues - or 'dramatic recitations' as the serious ones were
called - are hopelessly out of fashion these days. I'd love to -
by Heaven, I shall! - write a strutting, unselfconciously theatrical
one, another 'Christmas Day in the Workhouse' or 'Wreck of the Schooner
Hesperus', although there now seems to be an idea that you can't
rhyme and be serious at the same time.
Well, it never bothered Shakespeare or John Donne or even Cole
Porter, and, by 'eck, I shan't let it bother me. Now, where's me
quill and thesaurus...