A life time fan and Prisonerologist of the 1960's series 'the Prisoner', a leading authority on the subject, a short story writer, and now Prisoner novelist.
Friday, 3 October 2014
The Cat & Mouse Night Club
Is aptly named considering the cat and mouse games between Number 6 and Number 2. A game in which the cards are heavily stacked in 2’s favour, even though he does say all cards on the table!
So people are allowed out after dark, and some like to spend their evening in the Cat and Mouse, a night club of sorts, puts one in mind of a Jazz club. In parts it has a nautical theme. Fishing nets suspended from the walls, a ships wheel, and a mermaid as a ship’s figurehead. The music is piped through black loudspeakers, and yet there is a mechanical drum kit playing, with two dogs on plinths rotating back and forth. There is a bar, and a waitress service, but no alcohol is served. Gin, whisky, vodka, looks the same tastes the same. But if the drink is non-alcoholic, how are we to account for Number 6’s apparent state of intoxication? Perhaps it’s a side-effect of the drug he has been given, or the mind conditioning. Or on the other hand, he could always be affecting being drunk, pretending! There was once the idea that there was more in that incense burner we see carried about by that woman. But if that is the case, then everyone besides Number 6 would be affected by it.
The Cat and Mouse night club is situated just a few steps from Number 6’s cottage. And its like most things in The Village, once you’ve seen it, it’s gone. After all you only ever see the human chessboard set up on the lawn in one episode. Speedlearn comes and goes, and is never made mention of again. The Café in ‘Arrival,’ since the advent of the new café facilities first seen in ‘The General,’ nothing further is seen of the original café. The Village cat, not seen again after ‘Dance of the Dead.’ Ah but Number 2 must have left the Village and taken her cat with her, after all she did say the cat was hers.
Mind you there might not have been the need for the Cat and Mouse nightclub, not if the Palace of Fun had existed as it does on the Map of The Village. Drinking, gambling, amateur dramatics, and all manner of entertainment was to have taken place there. But of course instead there is the Recreation Hall, with its arts and crafts exhibition. Exhibitions of entertainment and mine, not to mention the folk music concert and gymnasium.
The Cat and Mouse nightclub, aptly named, and quirky enough to suit The Village down to the ground. It’s just a pity we see it only the once.
Be seeing you
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