For a small admittance fee witness the riots of Brighton, 1964. See Rockers pummel Mods with lead pipes, and Mods throw Rockers from the promenade wall. See elderly holidaymakers be terrorised by raving pillheads and grease monkeys alike.
The Force From The Norce Viking Appreciation Society have swapped their blades for deck-chairs, axes for cash registers, and furs for leathers and macs.
Included in the ticket price is a pair of grey tinted spectacles so you can pretend you're watching it from inside the television.-- theleopard, Jan 13 2007 Brighton 1964 http://news.bbc.co....2511000/2511245.stmThe riots... [theleopard, Jan 13 2007] Inspired during 'The Who' Moditor _27The_20Who_27_20ModitorThanks to [Hippo]. [theleopard, Jan 13 2007] Quadrophenia http://www.quadroph...thestory/story.html [skinflaps, Jan 15 2007] Battle of Orgreave http://www.historic...es.com/orgreave.htmCops vs Miners [oneoffdave, Jan 16 2007] Excellent idea (+)-- hippo, Jan 13 2007 Similar re-enactments could be staged of the Brixton riots of '81, and the Battle for the Beanfield of June 1st 1985.
I'm sure there are other incidents of note that might, in years hence, be remembered by groups of costumed enthusiasts. [+]-- zen_tom, Jan 13 2007 Genoa, 2001 ?-- Trickytracks, Jan 13 2007 L.A. riots? That would be good. Most of the Force of the Norce are white however, so half of them would have to black themselves up. But not in an unnecessary King Kong way, in an historical accuracy kind of way.-- theleopard, Jan 13 2007 You're suggesting that they go into downtown LA in blackface? I'd pay to watch that.-- david_scothern, Jan 13 2007 nice +-- nomadic_wonderer, Jan 13 2007 ///Included in the ticket price is a pair of grey tinted spectacles so you can pretend you're watching it from inside the television.//
[+++++++]-- wagster, Jan 13 2007 You could have the sound track to Quadrophenia blasting out through ice-cream van speakers seeing as Franc Roddam directed the fight on Brighton beach in the film and big ol' rubber Townsend noses for everyone.-- skinflaps, Jan 15 2007 [Ian], what do you think to scaling down the historical event that gets re-enacted whilst scaling up the number of bodies per side needed to accurately portray it to its full emotional impact? Kind of like the opposite of Monty Python's Women's Guild with their re-enactment of Nazi war atrocities.
2000 warriors battle arduously in a 2 day epic representing the gruelling struggle between Barry Scab and Joseph Punerberry on August 4th 1989 as they fought tirelessly for 4 and a half minutes over the last bag of Revels in the Wycombe Centre petrol station.-- theleopard, Jan 15 2007 They filmed all the running up and down the beach scenes for Quadrophenia right in front of the rock stall that I used to work on during the summer.-- DrBob, Jan 15 2007 You were a rocker?-- hippo, Jan 15 2007 You were?! [Gets switchblade out...]-- DrCurry, Jan 15 2007 Looks like our resident physicians have more than just a professional rivalry going on.
[Curry], I'm with you, let's have 'im!-- theleopard, Jan 16 2007 [theleo], sure you could renact the Revels Incident on a Cast of Thousands! scale but, if the 2000 split into 1000 pairs and re-enact the battle as pairs, you'll essentially have recreated nothing more than a typical bank holiday pub car park, just after closing. Instead, have the 2000 group together at a large flat expanse of land, hand out coloured costumes and have the re-enactors join together to perform what would look from the ground like a graceless and frankly tedious ballet but, from the basket of your gonflable, thousands of feet above the verdant English countryside, is revealed to you a slow motion, giant-scale, representation of said fight, or other such memorable action (Churchill's V's, Howard goosing her Maj, George Michael baring his arse in a public convenience, whatever) with each re-enactor being but one "pixel" of this image.
Couple this technique with Top Secret knowledge of satellite movement patterns to arrange your troops in a field, perhaps in the form of a large dobber, so that your future googlemaps fame is assured.-- calum, Jan 16 2007 I certainly like the idea of a human pixel landscape viewed from above, and its subsequent fame implications, but I wasn't thinking of 1000 pairs of warriors re-enacting exactly the Revels Incident independantly of each other. Rather they would all have a massive scrap using revels shaped weaponry (like maces, cannon balls and catapults) with one army representing Barry Scab and the other Joseph Punerberry. It would be more of an abstract representation of their internal struggle and the strain that their conflict had on that poor doomed revels bag.
Poor, dear revels bag. <sniff>-- theleopard, Jan 16 2007 You'd think that with Revels containing all those different flavours (and yes, you can tell which they are, because they all have slightly different shapes) that Barry and Joseph might be able to come to some mutually beneficial agreement where, for example, Barry gets the orangey ones, the raisins and the peanuts, while Joseph gets the coffee and Malteser ones.-- zen_tom, Jan 16 2007 Unfortunately Barry Scab was a rocker, so Joseph was having none of it.-- theleopard, Jan 16 2007 //[Gets switchblade out...]// I hope you kept the instruction leaflet with that.-- DrBob, Jan 16 2007 ..It's probably a comb anyway.-- skinflaps, Jan 16 2007 The 'Battle of Orgreave' from the Miner's strike has been reenacted [link] so I can't see why other civil disturbances can't be done.-- oneoffdave, Jan 16 2007 I find it fascinating to think how closely rioting and civil disturbances in general match our view of the way battles were fought in antiquity; Lines of men advancing behind shields, cavalry charges, flaming projectiles, the profligate use of sticks, lots of running away - it really is just like the real pitched/running battle stuff of old.-- zen_tom, Jan 16 2007 Not all battle re-creation performers smell like that [Anathema].-- theleopard, Aug 24 2007 random, halfbakery