Hogfather

Blak Yak's Librarian is certainly not a gorilla, but strictly speaking (you're right) he's not an orang either. When he was made - back in 1997 - Geraldine and I did the best that we could, being of a dress-making persuasion, rather than animal-facsimile-creators. The fur is too dark for an orang and not long enough either, but that is all that was available (and in our price range) back then.

I think it was more the sound than the look of the critter. Orangs are pretty quiet animals, apart from the occasional "Ook" of course and I think if the Librarian hadn't made his presence known with gorilla-type noises, we may have missed seeing the hairy arm reaching towards to the chimbley.

We did have an opportunity to hire an orang suit from one of the fancy dress places round Perth - but that one doubled as a wookie - so we would've been in the same boat.

In the words of the Librarian in, (I think) Lords and Ladies, "Somebody would pay for this." Being portrayed by a Wookie????

Anyway - he serves a purpose. And he's cute. And the actor loses a lot of weight during a season, by sweating it off.....

Hmmmm....I see a unique marketing opportunity.

As with all Pratchetts, whether they be books or shows, you need to suspend your belief in a lot of things. We were just hoping like crazy that we would never get an expert in the audience that would notice!

You mean the world really isn't suspended on the backs of four elephants? The expert didn't actually comment at all.

And Hsing-Hsing's agent wouldn't return our call. :(

Hsing is currently supervising the construction of new quarters and keeping an eye on the workmen from his tower. Actually, I wouldn't fancy being the poor soul who had to sweep up all that hair from the stage. And I'm not really sure you'd want something that only weighed 40kg+ plus but had the strength of somebody four times the size systematically taking apart the scenery. Which is what he did to his bunk one night. He'd been observing workmen removing a bunk from across the night quarter raceway and did the same to his own bed. Only they needed equipment and he just used his fingers.

If you have any suggestions on how to turn our hairy suit into something that looks a lot more like an orang, (the sort of orang that would pass muster) please email me and let me know. All ideas will be listened to.

Dreadlocks! Long orange dreadies. Actually, I'm not really sure if Pratchett portrays the Librarian as a fully grown male with cheekpads and dreadlocks. Maybe you could just change the colour a little with that spray on temporary hair colouring.


Pamela, who loved the God of Rats and the Raven and the kids!

(God! Do you think that means someone has noticed that DEATH is not really a skellington?)

Yes he was! I saw his bony feet.