Day 49: Dark by H

I play Ned Kelly sometimes at the Old Melbourne Gaol. As part of a show they put on for the tourists on Saturdays. Much of it is played for laughs, despite his story being a pretty dark one.
Unlikely as it seems this is not my first job in a gaol. I used to work at Fremantle Prison as a "screamer". This job consisted of throwing a life-sized dummy over the 3rd floor railing and down on to the suicide-netting over the heads of the tour group, while letting out your best blood-curdling scream. The punters would scream, and then laugh at themselves. There were marks drawn on the walls of the cell I waited in, some of them left by prisoners counting out the days (the prison didn't close until 1991), others made by 'screamers' counting off to tours. (We got paid per tour). Amazing how a place of so much misery, violence, and despair can be re-invented as a place to bring the kids for a few laughs. It always makes me think of the quote, "Comedy is tragedy plus time." There were no working lights in the cells either, so it was pretty dark in that sense too.