By Nigel Auchterlounie
1952
Interior a 1950’s home
Julia, a well to do, upper middle class housewife in her late twenties, moves through her beautiful home. Cleaning as she goes.
As she cleans we are shown (In a slightly heavy handed way) many of the 50s style mod cons, the telephone, cooker, fridge, phonograph (record player) TV etc. As Julia does this she sings to her self, a song from the period.
It is obvious that she is happy in her role.
After breezing into the living room, Julia sits on the settee to straighten the magazines on the coffee table. After doing so, she sits back and stares blankly into space (longer than anyone might normally do so in a drama).
The camera slowly moves in on her face until all that can be seen are her eyes. They flicker slightly, before the camera pulls back to reveal that she is now sitting on a couch in a contemporary home. It takes a moment for her to come to her senses and realise that things have changed.
Interior a modern interior in an average home
Suddenly Julia jumps to her feet. Her eyes dart around the room. She is in a different house! The proportions of the room have changed but the layout has remained the same. The doors and windows are on the same walls. The TV is in the same corner. There is even a coffee table with magazines on in front of her, but the magazines are now filled with articles like “101 sex tips for girls” etc. She picks one up and flicks through it her eyes widen.
Julia looks over to the huge TV where a tiny black and white set ought to be, and the DVDs on the shelves where books aught to go. She moves into the kitchen the cooker, the washer, the entire kitchen, is strange. Apart from the fridge, which is 50s style.
Back in the living room Julia investigates one of the smaller devices in the room. She presses a button on the front of it.
The CD player bursts into life with the “la la la” part from Kylies can’t get you out of my head.
“…I just can't get you out of my head. Boy your loving is all I think about. I just can't get you out of my head. Boy it's more than I dare to think about. La la la. La la la la la…”
Shocked, Julia panics and pushes buttons until it goes quiet again.
Julia runs outside.
Exterior. a quiet street on an housing estate
The street is deserted. The house she was in is an average “new build” type estate house, on a quiet winding street. Almost identical to a ten thousand other streets on a thousand different estates built in the last 30 years up and down the country. The only difference being that there is no one there. No one at all.
Julia knocks on doors, rings bells but no one answers. She’s extremely confused and afraid.
She then spots a man walking towards her. He’s in his early thirties well built, as if he has a physical job. As he gets near he looks directly at her. We can see from her face that she is very wary of him, but she stands her ground.
The man speaks to her…
Carl
“Excuse me love, can you help me?
(She doesn’t answer, just stares intently at him)
Carl
“I’m a bit lost, I wanted to get to the precinct, I thought I could just cut through the estate, but I, er, I can’t seem to find my way out or back to where I was for that matter, all these houses look the same. I’ve been walking around for, like, half an hour now with no luck. How do you get to the precinct?”
Julia
“…”
Carl
“Are you alright love?”
Julia
“I’m okay. I just…”
Carl
“Just what?”
Julia
“Nothing.”
Carl
“Whatever, can you tell me how to get to the precinct then?”
Julia
“I’m not from here.”
Carl
“Right sorry, thanks anyway.”
Carl walks off down the street. Julia watches him as he goes. She walks across the road and knocks on the door of the house opposite. Again, there’s no answer. She looks in through the front window. Everything inside is just as strange as the other house.
Julia sits on the step not knowing what to do next. After a while Julia sees Carl again walking down the street going in the same direction he was earlier. He spots her.
Carl
“Hello again, how did you manage to get ahead of me? This estates huge isn’t it.”
Julia
“I haven’t moved since you left me… I don’t know where I am.”
They give each other a look.
Fade to black
Interior. The house Julia woke up in
. Julia is sitting on the couch back inside the house Carl is standing in the middle of the living room, looking at the CD player.
Carl
“…And you woke up sitting there?”
Julia
“Well I don’t think I was asleep exactly, but yes I suppose, and look, look at these magazines, they’re full of filth, but it’s not for men, it’s directed towards women. (Holds up a copy of new woman or something similar) And the television set, look at it!”
Carl
“What about it?”
Julia
“It’s enormous!”
Carl
“Well it is a bit big I suppose, and wide, maybe they just like their TV here.”
Julia
“But everything is so strange here can’t you see that? In here and out there. Except the fridge for some reason that looks normal”
Carl
“Er, look I’m not the guy to sort this out. Maybe we should call the hospital or something. I was just trying to get some beers.”
Julia
“Why would you want to call the hospital?”
Carl
“Whatever, all I need is a compass or something. You seem to be a little more lost than that”
Julia
“I’m not mad.”
Carl
“I’ll give you one thing this phone’s weird. There’s no wire going to the main bit of it, it’s like one of those mobile phones only a hell of a lot smaller.
Julia
“Mobile phone?”
Carl
“Yeah, you know those things those rich bastards carry around in the city. Because they’re so important”
Julia
“You can’t carry a telephone around with you where ever you go. What about the wire?”
Carl
“Are you serious? Have you been asleep since the seventies or something?”
Julia
“Seventies?”
Carl
“The nineteen seventies.”
Julia
“It’s 1952.”
Carl
“Ha ha, you really have lost it haven’t you darlin’ it’s 1983.”
Exterior. A back garden filled with Childs toys dominated by a giant trampoline
A sports black bag is thrown over a fence in a nearby back garden. John jumps over the fence after it. John is in his 50s, greying. His manner suggests that the contents of the bag are stolen.
He picks up the bag, stands upright and stares quizzically at the giant trampoline that is almost filling the back garden. He shrugs then walks up the path at the side of the house and out on to the street. All the while trying not to look guilty.
As he walks up the street Julia and Carl come out of one of the houses. Carl spots John and walks up to him.
Carl
“Excuse me mate. Can you help us? We’re a bit lost. Do you know how to get to the precinct?”
John
“Sorry, mate I’m not from around here.”
He side steps Carl and walks past Julia.
Julia
“What year is it?”
Carl
“Heh heh, she’s a bit confused today”
John
“It’s 1974 pet.”
John walks briskly off down the street.
Julia
“Did you hear that? He thinks that it’s 1974!”
Carl
“He was just taking the piss that’s all.”
1999
Interior. A large bathroom
Megan, a slightly over weight woman in her early forties is having a bath. Someone tries the doorknob but the door is locked there then comes a barrage of knocks on the door as if the person on the other side is using both hands. This then gets louder as if the person is now kicking the door. Megan’s eyes roll skywards.
Megan
“I’m having a bath! Use the one down stairs!”
Child
“OK.”
The sound of little feet charging down stairs.
Megan
“And I’ve told you before, don’t kick the doors!”
Megan lays down in the bath, to submerge her hair, in order to wash off the shampoo. She closes her eyes as she goes under the water. She stays there for a while, holding her breath. Finally coming up for air, wiping the water from her eyes, and openings them.
She’s in a different bathroom!
Megan comes out of the bathroom, with a towel wrapped around her. She is naturally very disturbed and confused by what has just happened. She quickly looks around her and down over the banister expecting someone to jump out at her at any time. Slowly she creeps across the landing and tentatively pushes open a bedroom door. It’s a Childs bedroom the bed is unmade toys litter the floor. Megan carefully opens another door it’s the main bedroom. She moves over to the wardrobe, and finds in it, clothes that fit her.
Exterior. Back outside on the street
Julia
“Something is seriously wrong here, can’t you see that? That man wasn’t from here. There is no one here who’s from here. All the houses are empty. And up until this morning it was 1952.”
Carl
“What are you saying? That you’ve magically jumped forward, like, thirty years?”
Julia
“I don’t know but you said yourself you’d never seen a telephone like that before had you….The magazines on the table. They will have dates on them won’t they?”
Julia runs back into the house.
Carl
“I told you, that guy was just trying to be funny. (Then under his breath) nutter.”
Megan comes out of the house over the road. The same confused expression on her face that Julia has been making use of recently. Her hair is still wet. Her eyes dart left and right perhaps looking for somewhere to run.
Carl
(To himself) “Look here’s someone now.” (To Megan) “Excuse me, could you help me out, this estate is like a maze or something I was trying to get to the precinct, but I can’t seem to...”
Megan
“Where am I?”
Carl
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Megan
“…”
Julia comes out of the house clutching some magazines.
Julia
(To Carl) “Who’s this?”
Carl
“Dunno she just came out of that house opposite.”
Megan
“Do you know the people who live there? I was, erm…”
Julia
“What’s your name?”
Megan
“Megan.”
Julia
“Hello Megan I’m Julia. What year is it?”
Carl
“Oh here we go again.”
Megan
“What?”
Carl
“She’s a bit mixed up darlin’”
Julia
“The dates on these magazines all say 2008. July, August 2008.”
Carl
“What?”
Megan
“This isn’t funny,… did you people put me in that house?”
Julia
“Were you in a different place, and then suddenly here?”
Megan
“…”
Julia
“Is it 2008?”
Megan
“This isn’t funny; you both know it’s 1999.”
Long silence. While every one gives each other looks.
Julia
“He’s coming back.” (Pointing down the street at John, who was now coming up the street from the left, despite having previously walked off to the right.)
Megan
“Who?”
Julia
“The man from 1974.”
Carl
“This is some candid camera bollocks. It has to be.”
John
“Hello again. You’ll not believe this… but I think I’m lost…. I er, can’t understand how I got back here…. I was walking down hill all the way. I’m sure I was.”
Megan
“What year do you think it is?”
John
(To Julia)”She with you is she?”
Carl
“Answer her.”
John
“It’s February 1974”
Julia
“Isn’t it a little hot for February?”
John
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Megan
“It’s March 1999.”
Carl
“It’s August 20th or there abouts 1983.”
John, Carl and Megan both look at Julia, waiting for her answer.
Julia
“May 1952”
David comes running out from the side of a nearby house, to the left of the group. He looks young, late teens, early twenties. He’s wearing blue, oil stained overalls. His eyes are wide open and he is covered in a film of sweat. He sees Julia, John, Megan, and Carl as they turn to look at him. Then David turns and runs off in the opposite direction.
Julia
“He looks like he just got here.”
John
“Well if he has the same problem as me, he’ll come running up there in a couple of minuets.”
John points down towards the right.
Carl
“Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on here?! (To John) I was like you. Walking in circles but not. I mean I was sure I was going pretty straight, but I still kept ending up back here. How is that even possible?”
Exterior. Further down the street
David is running and running. Looking left and right noticing everything that appears unusual to his eyes. Suburbia looks like a nightmare to him.
Megan
“I was in the bath. I put my head underwater and when I came up I was in a different bathroom. A different house. My husband’s down stairs. Pretty soon he’s going to find out that I’ve somehow disappeared from a locked bathroom… It’ll be like an episode of Jonathan Creek or something.”
Carl
“What’s Jonathan Creek?”
Megan
“It’s just a TV show, mysteries, that kind of thing.”
Julia
“Frank won’t discover I’ve gone until he gets home from work.”
Carl
“Yes but gone where?
David comes running up the street from the direction John predicted. He stops dead in his tracks when he sees everyone, and starts to run back the way he came from.
Julia
(Shouting) “We’re all very frightened! We don’t know how we got here. We don’t know where here is! We were all alone when we came here!”
David stops running and turns around to face the others.
The camera moves in on his frightened face
Fade to black
Interior. The house
Back inside the house Julia first arrived at the group are all sitting or standing around in the living room. It looks a little like a neighbourhood watch meeting. Carl is pacing the room biting his nails looking very agitated. John is sitting back in the armchair. David is sitting on the couch in-between Julia and Megan. His head in his hands.
David
“I were in the garage, working on the car. Under the car. I’d gotten it cheap because it needed a lot doing…. I was tried though. I…I rubbed my eyes and when I opened them up again…. Everything had changed. The car weren’t my car no more. The tools were gone. It weren’t me dads garage anymore… And that car… I’d never seen out like it before in me life. It were too big to be a car really. More like a truck or a bus or something. With these really big tires on it, like off of a tractor or something but it looked too posh to drive on fields. Me mum’s gonna pop in to the garage with a bacon sarnie soon. She said she would. May have already. What’s she gonna do when she finds me not there?”
Megan
“What year is it David?”
David
“What?”
John
“Answer her will you kid. From the teddy boy hair I’d say 55.”
David
“It’s 1961 init?”
John shrugs
Carl
“Did that car look like it was from 61 to you mate?”
David
“It looked like a rocket ship or something to me. Half the stuff in this room looks like it’s off of a rocket ship or something… what’s happening?”
Carl
“I think we’re all dead or something. We must be. How else do you explain the screwed up road out there? That kind of thing is impossible in the ‘real’ world.”
Julia
“This isn’t heaven. And neither is it hell.”
Carl
“How do you know what there is after we die? You been there have you?”
Julia
“No, obviously not but this can’t be where you go when you die. There’s only five of us here for a start. And anyway no one here remembers dieing do they? I think maybe this is all a dream. And pretty soon we’ll all wake up.”
Carl
“We’re all sharing a dream are we? That’s your answer! I’m from 1983, you’re from 1952. Explain that.”
Julia
“Well I like it a lot better than ‘we’re all dead’.”
Megan
“My head was under water before I came here. If I am dreaming then I’m probably dead too.”
John
“This IS a dream. I can’t just suddenly be in the future for no real reason, but we can’t all be sharing the same dream. I’m the only one here dreaming. I know me, I know I’m real. The rest of you are all just a part of my dream. When I wake up, that’s it. You all disappear.”
Julia
“It can’t be your dream, I was here before you.”
John
“You only think you were here before me.”
Julia turns away from John. She understands the concept, but doesn’t accept it. She is also a little afraid of coming to believe that john is actually right.
Carl
“What do we do though? How do we get out? We shouldn’t just be sitting around in here talking we should be doing something, anything. I don’t know, trying to find the exit or something. If there’s a way in there must be a way out. There has to be.”
Megan
“Maybe one of the doors in one of the houses goes to somewhere else. We should search all the houses, open all the doors look everywhere.
John
“That sounds like a good idea.”
Carl
“I thought that this was all just your dream. Shouldn’t we just pinch you and then you’ll wake up.”
John
“Yeah but this dream’s getting a bit boring. We could all sit here forever talking around in circles. Let’s open some doors.”
They all stand up, and look at each other, as if looking for someone to take charge, and come up with a plan.
Megan
“Should we split up? It would be faster that way.”
Carl
“Yeah okay, er, me and, (Carl talks directly to Julia) Erm sorry love, I’ve forgot your name.”
Julia
Julia.
Carl
“Right, Julia. Me and Julia will look in the houses over the road, and you guys can look this side.
Carl moves towards the door. There’s a skinny teenage redhead standing in the doorway. Everyone just stares at her.
Mary
“Er, hello, not interrupting anything am I?”
She smiles
Fade to black
Interior, a Childs bedroom. Judging from the décor and the toys. A girls, around six years old.
No one is in the room. The door opens and Carl sticks his head around the corner. He looks around, sees that its just a Childs bedroom and closes the door again.
Outside on the landing Carl, Mary and Julia continue their conversation…
Mary
“So you weren’t asleep, both of you. You must have seen the change then.”
Carl
“How’d you mean?”
Mary
“Well you know, when you were transported here.”
Julia
“No, not exactly. I was in a sort of day dream.”
Carl
“I don’t know, what happened with me. I was just walking along I don’t remember being in a daydream, but I suppose I don’t remember not being in one ether. The estate I was on looked the same as this one, but I guess they all do don’t they.
Mary
“Not really, not from where I come from.”
Carl
“1969?”
Mary
“Yeah.”
Julia
(As she closes the door to the main bedroom.) “Nothing, just another bedroom.”
Mary
“Where are the people who lived here? All these houses are full of peoples stuff. Where did they all go to?”
Mary Julia and Carl all go down stairs.
Carl
“Maybe no one ever lived here. Maybe its just like a film set or something.”
Julia
“If it is a film set where are all the cameras?”
Carl
“Maybe you can’t see the cameras of the future.”
They come out of the house and walk along to the next house.
Exterior. The street
Julia
“So who are you Mary? We may be spending a while together we should get to know each other I suppose. What did you do in 1969?”
Mary
“Erm, I‘m an art student. Graduate next year. Hopefully. If I ever get back that is.”
Julia
“You’re going to be an artist are you?”
Mary
“No. I don’t think so. It’s just something I’m doing until I figure out what I want to do. What about you Carl. Who are you?”
Carl
“I’m a scaffolder.”
Carl doesn’t want to talk too much. Doesn’t want to make friends. He just wants to find the way out. There’s a long awkward pause.
Julia
“Is that it? I couldn’t go up a scaffold. I’m not that good with heights.”
Carl
“Well I do this self defence class on Thursday afternoons as well. I wouldn’t mind doing that full time actually.”
Julia
“What’s ‘self defence’?”
Carl
“How to fight off an attacker, and get away. It’s mainly for women.”
Julia
“Are the 1980s dangerous for women?”
Carl
“A bit, sometimes I guess.”
Mary and Julia share a look.
Interior.
The next house. Down stairs hallway. Carl Julia and Mary enter.
They wander through the house talking as they go.
Carl
“What about you Julia? What do you do?”
Julia
“I’m a housewife.”
Carl
“I guess most women were housewives back then were they?”
Julia
“Well yes a lot of women are. What do women do in the future.”?
Carl
“Most work.”
Mary
“Doing what?”
Carl
“Anything,…. you know,…. jobs.”
Julia
“Who looks after the home and the children? Does everyone have maids?”
Carl
“ha ha, no all the housework’s done by robots in the future.”
Mary
“Really?”
Carl
“No not really although I would have thought that by 2008, or when ever this is meant to be, there would have been a few robots knocking about by now.”
Mary
“Yes this is a bit disappointing. It’s supposed to be nearly thirty years in the future and nothings really changed has it. Things are different shapes and sizes but its all still the same stuff isn’t it.”
Julia
“Maybe everything that can be invented has been invented. And robots and rocket cars can’t ever really be made.”
Carl
“The human race has gone about as far as it can. There’s nowhere else to go. I don’t like the sound of that.”
Mary
“What was that woman from 1999 called again?
Julia
“Megan.”
Mary
“Maybe she can tell us why the future didn’t happen.”
They finish their search of the house and walk outside.
David and John come running over form the other side of the street.
They both look very worried.
John
(Out of breath) “Is Megan with you?”
Carl
“No. Why what’s happened?”
David
“We were just looking in that house over there and then she wasn’t with us.”
Carl
“How’d you mean?”
John
“She was behind us, and then she wasn’t. We turned around and she wasn’t there anymore. I think we should all stay together from now on. Is Julia still inside? You should go get her.”
Mary
(Looks round) “She came out with us. She was just here.
Carl
“Maybe she went back in.”
Carl goes back in a shouts.
Carl
“Julia! Julia! Where are you? Julia!”
He comes back out.
Carl
“She’s not there… Where’s the mechanic kid? I thought you were gonna stick together?”
John and Mary both spin round and look at the space where David used to be.
Mary
“He was just there! I was looking at right at him, and then I looked at you when you came out. And now he’s not there anymore.”
Carl
“Is that how it happens is it? You disappear when no one’s looking at you?”
John
“What the hell is this place? Did they go back or go somewhere else?”
Exterior. Further up the street.
Elsewhere, Jeff a young man in a sharp suit carrying a brief case walks quickly (Almost running)
Along the street. He is lost, worried. His eyes dart around the street. He loosens his tie as panic starts to
Set in. Suddenly he spots Carl, Mary and John standing in the street. A smile breaks out across his
Face. They will be able to help him.
Jeff
Shouting down the street) “Excuse me,” (They turn to look at him) “Am I glad to see you,… anyone in fact.”
Jeff breaks into a run, but his brief case is knocked by his knee, spins around out of his hand and falls to the ground. He stops to bend down and pick it up. When he stands up straight again. The others have gone!
The camera pulls back, up and away from Jeff and keeps on going leaving Jeff alone in the street.
1999
Interior. A large kitchen. Filled with mod cons.
Megan’s husband Mark is chopping vegetables.
Megan comes in rubbing her hair with a towel.
Megan
“Oh look at you. Are you doing the dinner?”
Mark
“I thought I’d give it a go. How hard can it be eh?”
Megan doesn’t answer.
But looks thoughtful as if she’s trying to remember something.
Mark
“Are you okay? You look like you were a thousand miles away just then?”
Megan
“I don’t know. I was in the bath just then and I erm, thought of something or remembered a dream or something. It seemed important but then I forgot it again.”
Mark
“Well if it was important I’m sure you’ll remember it sooner or later.”
Megan
“Yeah, I guess so. Where’s Bailey.”
Mark
“Watching Xena warrior princess I think.”
1952
Interior Julia’s 1950’s home.
Julia is sitting on the settee. In a daydream.
She snaps out of it shakes her head a little, stands up and continues to do the dusting. As she does she sings to absent-mindedly herself, happy in her work…
Julia
“…I just can't get you out of my head. Boy your loving is all I think about. I just can't get you out of my head. Boy it's more than I dare to think about. La la la. La la la la la…”
End of episode one
What is “Fading”?
Fading might best be described as a sci-fi soap. A sort of time hopping neighbours. But while the sci-fi element might at first seem to be the greatest factor in the show. It’s really about recent history and the people from that history.
What would a liberated woman from the sixties have to say to a housewife from the fifties?
What would an environmentally conscious man from 2004 tell a brash young stock market dealer? Knowing full well that black Wednesday is just around the corner?
What would the nineties stock market dealer tell sixties hippy about their peace and love revolution?
Unfortunately for all these people, upon returning to their own times, the memories they have of what you might call the “temporal hub” quickly fade. All they are left with is a feeling that they have forgotten something. But never quite remember what.
There is a part of them though that does retain something from the hub. They don’t know anything more, but they do feel something.
Having talked to a sixties woman lib activist, the fifties housewife begins to feel that maybe she could do more with her life. The eighties stockbroker still buys and sells like he always did but with an ever growing feeling of dread in his stomach as black Wednesday approaches.
Their increasing knowledge of both the past and future starts to effect their decisions more and more without them ever knowing how.
Upon returning to the hub their memories of previous times in the hub also return. Relationships begin to build there and a new “family” is formed.
Over time, how and why they are repeatedly returned to the hub becomes unimportant to some. While others are driven mad by the mystery. Some visit the hub often sometimes spending days there. Others may only visit once or twice.
Most at first are stereotypes that typify the time, chosen to go in the hub for that reason. It’s only after they are affected by the hub that they become more complex people.
The hub also acts as a confessional for those there. Because the others there won’t remember anything back in the real world.
Who is everyone?
Julia
Julia starts out (like most) a stereotype. A typical 50s housewife, content and secure in her role. This security is shattered when her husband loses his job and starts beating her.
Eventually (with the help of those in the hub) she finds the strength to fight back.
Later she becomes an author.
She is attracted to Carl.
David
David is a young mechanic from 1961 serving his apprenticeship. David likes cars more than people because he knows how they work. He has trouble dealing with the complexities of the hub.
His simple exterior hides a jealous streak. David is in love with Emma.
Mary
Mary starts as a stereotypical hippy. (Hasn’t yet dropped out, but it is only art college so it doesn’t really count). Her belief in the peace and love revolution seems unshakable.
Until it is shaken by learning that by the eighties that revolution has all but been forgotten.
John
A 53-year-old thief from 1974, still a child basically, avoids work, and responsibility at all costs and resolutely refuses to grow up or develop as a character.
Angela
An outwardly happy and jovial receptionist form 1978. Whose main concerns seem to be hair, nails and clothes.
Inside couldn’t be more different. An habitual self-harmer, things are exasperated by the fact that she can’t conceive. For this she blames her husband, (although she has never been told this by a doctor) in an effort to get pregnant she has numerous affairs.
Carl
A scaffolder from 1983 aged 33 also teaches self-defence to women because he likes being in charge of a group of women, and the physical contact with them.
The hub infuriates Carl because he has no control over it.
Jeff
A 29-year-old stockbroker from 1995. Loves money, and only money. More of a stereotype than even Julia at first. But the brash exterior hides deep insecurities. Money to Jeff equals security, the more he has the safer he feels. He tells people that he could retire in a few years, but never will. For Jeff there is no such thing as enough money.
Emma
A 19-year-old traveller from 1993. Emma prides herself on doing what she wants when she wants to do it. At first this seems the same as Mary’s 60s style peace and love thing, but its more about her being selfish and self centred. She discovers from someone in her future that in three years time she will be working in a bank. She can’t imagine why.
Megan
Megan is a 44-year-old supermarket manager from 1999. Perhaps the most well adjusted of the group. Confident and successful. A natural leader.
Chris
Chris is a law student from 2002. A law student because he hasn’t got any better ideas.
Everything is easy for Chris he’s intelligent; his parents are rich and pay for every thing. It’s obvious that he’s going to have a comfortable life. If he can avoid meeting Emma.
Susan
A housewife from 2008 the group look to her for all the answers about the future. She remembers most from the hub. Recognises faces, knows history better than she should, without knowing how. And more than anyone she discovers the futures of the others. Should they know?
Future episodes.
2
Plagued by feelings of de ja vu and forgotten memories Julia and the others try to carry on with their lives as we learn something about who they really are. Every one concerned faces problems in their lives none of which are solved just yet. Upon returning to the hub we meet more new characters until the gaps in the last sixty years are filled.
Back in the hub it is discovered that a fridge or cupboard will replenish it’s self whilst closed.
Theories about hub abound. None are proved to be wrong.
3
Julia discovers that her idyllic fifties life may not be every thing she thought it was, when she accidentally finds out her husband lost his job weeks ago. She doesn’t confront him but starts to, without knowing why, think that there would be nothing wrong in her going out to work instead.
Meanwhile (Twenty years later) John begins to take notice of computers.
As black Wednesday draws near Jeff continues to buy and sell with a growing feeling of unease.
Back in the hub people begin to form friends (And enemies) and they also discover that night never seems to come.
4
The group are shook by the arrival of a two-year-old girl. It seems as if there is no age limit for hub. The girl can’t talk yet, and can only be comforted by Angela, (A childless receptionist from 1978) who calls her Abigail after initially being distant, Angela opts to look after her. She quickly grows to love her just before, during a game of peek-a-boo she disappears.
In an attempt to find out more about the hub Carl climbs on top of a house with a pair of binoculars. All that can be seen from this high vantage point is nothing but housing estate stretching out to every horizon. As Carl scans across the horizon he eventually comes to see the back of his own head.
5
Julia’s relationship with her husband Frank begins to crumble as she confronts him about his lost job.
David begins to take a modern people carrier to bits to see how it works. To take his mind off Annie, the object of his affections in 1961, who he can’t even talk to.
Just as things are starting to get a bit “soapy” a psychopath goes to sleep in his cell and wakes up in a Childs bed inside the hub. Being crazy he doesn’t question this too much and goes on a killing spree. Killing almost everyone in the hub. He is confused by the fact that when he’s not looking at a body it disappears.
He is then shocked to see people he’d previously killed eventually reappear. It seems that you can’t die in the hub.
6
After an absence of weeks for Angela, Abigail returns, this time however she is nine and informs Angela her real name always was Abigail and that she is (Or at least will be) her mother, which explains why she went to her as a toddler.
Angela is overjoyed because she thought she couldn’t have children.
Julia’s relationship with her husband collapses when he turns violent.
David is amazed when Emma (an unemployed traveller from the early nineties) takes his virginity without him having to even ask.
Upon returning to 1961 he finds himself, for some reason, more relaxed around Annie the object of his affections in 1961. He’s no longer a virgin, but doesn’t know it
7
Just as another beating starts (As Julia’s husband Frank pulls back his fist for the first punch) Julia is returned to the hub and asks Carl to teach her how to defend herself. They train without a break for a week. Whilst doing so they discover that sleep in the hub, while possible, isn’t actually necessary. During training they grow closer.
Upon returning to 1952 Julia actually catches Franks fist. Jumps to her feet and successfully, and spectacularly, defends herself without knowing how she knows how to fight.
Frank moves out, and Julia’s friend asks her what she plans to do next. Julia points out that she learnt typing in school. The friend presumes that Julia will become a secretary, but Julia wants to write a book.
The final shot is back in the hub, in one of the houses. On a shelf in one of the rooms the camera moves in on one book. The book written by Julia. It’s called the fading.
8
A husband and wife appear in the hub but from different points in their relationship. The husband is from a point early on in the marriage when as far as he knows they will be happy forever. The woman, however, is from a point eight years later where she believed that every thing was fine up until the day he popped out for milk and never came back.
Both have no idea why he would do such a thing.
9
Out in the real world Emma meets Chris in 2002. For the Chris in the hub this is happening in his present, but it is three years into Emma’s future. Emma is no longer a traveller and now works in a bank (Much to the disgust of the Emma in the hub)
Because they know each other in the hub they feel something when they meet and start a relationship. Inside the hub, however, Emma is seeing David (David has never told her about Annie in 1961) and Chris has secret feelings for Angela.
Feelings of anger and jealousy grow in the hub whilst outside Chris begins to feel as if something is wrong, that he shouldn’t be doing this but doesn’t know why. From Emma’s point of view, in the real world this relationship will start in three years time
10
Someone discovers the Julia’s book in one of the houses. In the blurb it describes the hub almost perfectly, and then goes further to say that one of the group is not what they seem. That one of them created the hub for their own entertainment.
Is Julia right? She was unaware that the hub even existed when she wrote the book. And the Julia we know hasn’t begun to write it yet.
It’s possible that Julia got the idea that the hub was created by one of them from the book itself.
To Julia the book she will write is a disappointment. The characters in it seem to be two-dimensional stereotypes, the sixties hippy, the eighties stockbroker, even the fifties housewife (Herself) seem like fictional characters.
And as she looks at the people around her they seem fictional too.
Have they all been created from the book? Is the real world just a dream?
1952
Interior a 1950’s home
Julia, a well to do, upper middle class housewife in her late twenties, moves through her beautiful home. Cleaning as she goes.
As she cleans we are shown (In a slightly heavy handed way) many of the 50s style mod cons, the telephone, cooker, fridge, phonograph (record player) TV etc. As Julia does this she sings to her self, a song from the period.
It is obvious that she is happy in her role.
After breezing into the living room, Julia sits on the settee to straighten the magazines on the coffee table. After doing so, she sits back and stares blankly into space (longer than anyone might normally do so in a drama).
The camera slowly moves in on her face until all that can be seen are her eyes. They flicker slightly, before the camera pulls back to reveal that she is now sitting on a couch in a contemporary home. It takes a moment for her to come to her senses and realise that things have changed.
Interior a modern interior in an average home
Suddenly Julia jumps to her feet. Her eyes dart around the room. She is in a different house! The proportions of the room have changed but the layout has remained the same. The doors and windows are on the same walls. The TV is in the same corner. There is even a coffee table with magazines on in front of her, but the magazines are now filled with articles like “101 sex tips for girls” etc. She picks one up and flicks through it her eyes widen.
Julia looks over to the huge TV where a tiny black and white set ought to be, and the DVDs on the shelves where books aught to go. She moves into the kitchen the cooker, the washer, the entire kitchen, is strange. Apart from the fridge, which is 50s style.
Back in the living room Julia investigates one of the smaller devices in the room. She presses a button on the front of it.
The CD player bursts into life with the “la la la” part from Kylies can’t get you out of my head.
“…I just can't get you out of my head. Boy your loving is all I think about. I just can't get you out of my head. Boy it's more than I dare to think about. La la la. La la la la la…”
Shocked, Julia panics and pushes buttons until it goes quiet again.
Julia runs outside.
Exterior. a quiet street on an housing estate
The street is deserted. The house she was in is an average “new build” type estate house, on a quiet winding street. Almost identical to a ten thousand other streets on a thousand different estates built in the last 30 years up and down the country. The only difference being that there is no one there. No one at all.
Julia knocks on doors, rings bells but no one answers. She’s extremely confused and afraid.
She then spots a man walking towards her. He’s in his early thirties well built, as if he has a physical job. As he gets near he looks directly at her. We can see from her face that she is very wary of him, but she stands her ground.
The man speaks to her…
Carl
“Excuse me love, can you help me?
(She doesn’t answer, just stares intently at him)
Carl
“I’m a bit lost, I wanted to get to the precinct, I thought I could just cut through the estate, but I, er, I can’t seem to find my way out or back to where I was for that matter, all these houses look the same. I’ve been walking around for, like, half an hour now with no luck. How do you get to the precinct?”
Julia
“…”
Carl
“Are you alright love?”
Julia
“I’m okay. I just…”
Carl
“Just what?”
Julia
“Nothing.”
Carl
“Whatever, can you tell me how to get to the precinct then?”
Julia
“I’m not from here.”
Carl
“Right sorry, thanks anyway.”
Carl walks off down the street. Julia watches him as he goes. She walks across the road and knocks on the door of the house opposite. Again, there’s no answer. She looks in through the front window. Everything inside is just as strange as the other house.
Julia sits on the step not knowing what to do next. After a while Julia sees Carl again walking down the street going in the same direction he was earlier. He spots her.
Carl
“Hello again, how did you manage to get ahead of me? This estates huge isn’t it.”
Julia
“I haven’t moved since you left me… I don’t know where I am.”
They give each other a look.
Fade to black
Interior. The house Julia woke up in
. Julia is sitting on the couch back inside the house Carl is standing in the middle of the living room, looking at the CD player.
Carl
“…And you woke up sitting there?”
Julia
“Well I don’t think I was asleep exactly, but yes I suppose, and look, look at these magazines, they’re full of filth, but it’s not for men, it’s directed towards women. (Holds up a copy of new woman or something similar) And the television set, look at it!”
Carl
“What about it?”
Julia
“It’s enormous!”
Carl
“Well it is a bit big I suppose, and wide, maybe they just like their TV here.”
Julia
“But everything is so strange here can’t you see that? In here and out there. Except the fridge for some reason that looks normal”
Carl
“Er, look I’m not the guy to sort this out. Maybe we should call the hospital or something. I was just trying to get some beers.”
Julia
“Why would you want to call the hospital?”
Carl
“Whatever, all I need is a compass or something. You seem to be a little more lost than that”
Julia
“I’m not mad.”
Carl
“I’ll give you one thing this phone’s weird. There’s no wire going to the main bit of it, it’s like one of those mobile phones only a hell of a lot smaller.
Julia
“Mobile phone?”
Carl
“Yeah, you know those things those rich bastards carry around in the city. Because they’re so important”
Julia
“You can’t carry a telephone around with you where ever you go. What about the wire?”
Carl
“Are you serious? Have you been asleep since the seventies or something?”
Julia
“Seventies?”
Carl
“The nineteen seventies.”
Julia
“It’s 1952.”
Carl
“Ha ha, you really have lost it haven’t you darlin’ it’s 1983.”
Exterior. A back garden filled with Childs toys dominated by a giant trampoline
A sports black bag is thrown over a fence in a nearby back garden. John jumps over the fence after it. John is in his 50s, greying. His manner suggests that the contents of the bag are stolen.
He picks up the bag, stands upright and stares quizzically at the giant trampoline that is almost filling the back garden. He shrugs then walks up the path at the side of the house and out on to the street. All the while trying not to look guilty.
As he walks up the street Julia and Carl come out of one of the houses. Carl spots John and walks up to him.
Carl
“Excuse me mate. Can you help us? We’re a bit lost. Do you know how to get to the precinct?”
John
“Sorry, mate I’m not from around here.”
He side steps Carl and walks past Julia.
Julia
“What year is it?”
Carl
“Heh heh, she’s a bit confused today”
John
“It’s 1974 pet.”
John walks briskly off down the street.
Julia
“Did you hear that? He thinks that it’s 1974!”
Carl
“He was just taking the piss that’s all.”
1999
Interior. A large bathroom
Megan, a slightly over weight woman in her early forties is having a bath. Someone tries the doorknob but the door is locked there then comes a barrage of knocks on the door as if the person on the other side is using both hands. This then gets louder as if the person is now kicking the door. Megan’s eyes roll skywards.
Megan
“I’m having a bath! Use the one down stairs!”
Child
“OK.”
The sound of little feet charging down stairs.
Megan
“And I’ve told you before, don’t kick the doors!”
Megan lays down in the bath, to submerge her hair, in order to wash off the shampoo. She closes her eyes as she goes under the water. She stays there for a while, holding her breath. Finally coming up for air, wiping the water from her eyes, and openings them.
She’s in a different bathroom!
Megan comes out of the bathroom, with a towel wrapped around her. She is naturally very disturbed and confused by what has just happened. She quickly looks around her and down over the banister expecting someone to jump out at her at any time. Slowly she creeps across the landing and tentatively pushes open a bedroom door. It’s a Childs bedroom the bed is unmade toys litter the floor. Megan carefully opens another door it’s the main bedroom. She moves over to the wardrobe, and finds in it, clothes that fit her.
Exterior. Back outside on the street
Julia
“Something is seriously wrong here, can’t you see that? That man wasn’t from here. There is no one here who’s from here. All the houses are empty. And up until this morning it was 1952.”
Carl
“What are you saying? That you’ve magically jumped forward, like, thirty years?”
Julia
“I don’t know but you said yourself you’d never seen a telephone like that before had you….The magazines on the table. They will have dates on them won’t they?”
Julia runs back into the house.
Carl
“I told you, that guy was just trying to be funny. (Then under his breath) nutter.”
Megan comes out of the house over the road. The same confused expression on her face that Julia has been making use of recently. Her hair is still wet. Her eyes dart left and right perhaps looking for somewhere to run.
Carl
(To himself) “Look here’s someone now.” (To Megan) “Excuse me, could you help me out, this estate is like a maze or something I was trying to get to the precinct, but I can’t seem to...”
Megan
“Where am I?”
Carl
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Megan
“…”
Julia comes out of the house clutching some magazines.
Julia
(To Carl) “Who’s this?”
Carl
“Dunno she just came out of that house opposite.”
Megan
“Do you know the people who live there? I was, erm…”
Julia
“What’s your name?”
Megan
“Megan.”
Julia
“Hello Megan I’m Julia. What year is it?”
Carl
“Oh here we go again.”
Megan
“What?”
Carl
“She’s a bit mixed up darlin’”
Julia
“The dates on these magazines all say 2008. July, August 2008.”
Carl
“What?”
Megan
“This isn’t funny,… did you people put me in that house?”
Julia
“Were you in a different place, and then suddenly here?”
Megan
“…”
Julia
“Is it 2008?”
Megan
“This isn’t funny; you both know it’s 1999.”
Long silence. While every one gives each other looks.
Julia
“He’s coming back.” (Pointing down the street at John, who was now coming up the street from the left, despite having previously walked off to the right.)
Megan
“Who?”
Julia
“The man from 1974.”
Carl
“This is some candid camera bollocks. It has to be.”
John
“Hello again. You’ll not believe this… but I think I’m lost…. I er, can’t understand how I got back here…. I was walking down hill all the way. I’m sure I was.”
Megan
“What year do you think it is?”
John
(To Julia)”She with you is she?”
Carl
“Answer her.”
John
“It’s February 1974”
Julia
“Isn’t it a little hot for February?”
John
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Megan
“It’s March 1999.”
Carl
“It’s August 20th or there abouts 1983.”
John, Carl and Megan both look at Julia, waiting for her answer.
Julia
“May 1952”
David comes running out from the side of a nearby house, to the left of the group. He looks young, late teens, early twenties. He’s wearing blue, oil stained overalls. His eyes are wide open and he is covered in a film of sweat. He sees Julia, John, Megan, and Carl as they turn to look at him. Then David turns and runs off in the opposite direction.
Julia
“He looks like he just got here.”
John
“Well if he has the same problem as me, he’ll come running up there in a couple of minuets.”
John points down towards the right.
Carl
“Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on here?! (To John) I was like you. Walking in circles but not. I mean I was sure I was going pretty straight, but I still kept ending up back here. How is that even possible?”
Exterior. Further down the street
David is running and running. Looking left and right noticing everything that appears unusual to his eyes. Suburbia looks like a nightmare to him.
Megan
“I was in the bath. I put my head underwater and when I came up I was in a different bathroom. A different house. My husband’s down stairs. Pretty soon he’s going to find out that I’ve somehow disappeared from a locked bathroom… It’ll be like an episode of Jonathan Creek or something.”
Carl
“What’s Jonathan Creek?”
Megan
“It’s just a TV show, mysteries, that kind of thing.”
Julia
“Frank won’t discover I’ve gone until he gets home from work.”
Carl
“Yes but gone where?
David comes running up the street from the direction John predicted. He stops dead in his tracks when he sees everyone, and starts to run back the way he came from.
Julia
(Shouting) “We’re all very frightened! We don’t know how we got here. We don’t know where here is! We were all alone when we came here!”
David stops running and turns around to face the others.
The camera moves in on his frightened face
Fade to black
Interior. The house
Back inside the house Julia first arrived at the group are all sitting or standing around in the living room. It looks a little like a neighbourhood watch meeting. Carl is pacing the room biting his nails looking very agitated. John is sitting back in the armchair. David is sitting on the couch in-between Julia and Megan. His head in his hands.
David
“I were in the garage, working on the car. Under the car. I’d gotten it cheap because it needed a lot doing…. I was tried though. I…I rubbed my eyes and when I opened them up again…. Everything had changed. The car weren’t my car no more. The tools were gone. It weren’t me dads garage anymore… And that car… I’d never seen out like it before in me life. It were too big to be a car really. More like a truck or a bus or something. With these really big tires on it, like off of a tractor or something but it looked too posh to drive on fields. Me mum’s gonna pop in to the garage with a bacon sarnie soon. She said she would. May have already. What’s she gonna do when she finds me not there?”
Megan
“What year is it David?”
David
“What?”
John
“Answer her will you kid. From the teddy boy hair I’d say 55.”
David
“It’s 1961 init?”
John shrugs
Carl
“Did that car look like it was from 61 to you mate?”
David
“It looked like a rocket ship or something to me. Half the stuff in this room looks like it’s off of a rocket ship or something… what’s happening?”
Carl
“I think we’re all dead or something. We must be. How else do you explain the screwed up road out there? That kind of thing is impossible in the ‘real’ world.”
Julia
“This isn’t heaven. And neither is it hell.”
Carl
“How do you know what there is after we die? You been there have you?”
Julia
“No, obviously not but this can’t be where you go when you die. There’s only five of us here for a start. And anyway no one here remembers dieing do they? I think maybe this is all a dream. And pretty soon we’ll all wake up.”
Carl
“We’re all sharing a dream are we? That’s your answer! I’m from 1983, you’re from 1952. Explain that.”
Julia
“Well I like it a lot better than ‘we’re all dead’.”
Megan
“My head was under water before I came here. If I am dreaming then I’m probably dead too.”
John
“This IS a dream. I can’t just suddenly be in the future for no real reason, but we can’t all be sharing the same dream. I’m the only one here dreaming. I know me, I know I’m real. The rest of you are all just a part of my dream. When I wake up, that’s it. You all disappear.”
Julia
“It can’t be your dream, I was here before you.”
John
“You only think you were here before me.”
Julia turns away from John. She understands the concept, but doesn’t accept it. She is also a little afraid of coming to believe that john is actually right.
Carl
“What do we do though? How do we get out? We shouldn’t just be sitting around in here talking we should be doing something, anything. I don’t know, trying to find the exit or something. If there’s a way in there must be a way out. There has to be.”
Megan
“Maybe one of the doors in one of the houses goes to somewhere else. We should search all the houses, open all the doors look everywhere.
John
“That sounds like a good idea.”
Carl
“I thought that this was all just your dream. Shouldn’t we just pinch you and then you’ll wake up.”
John
“Yeah but this dream’s getting a bit boring. We could all sit here forever talking around in circles. Let’s open some doors.”
They all stand up, and look at each other, as if looking for someone to take charge, and come up with a plan.
Megan
“Should we split up? It would be faster that way.”
Carl
“Yeah okay, er, me and, (Carl talks directly to Julia) Erm sorry love, I’ve forgot your name.”
Julia
Julia.
Carl
“Right, Julia. Me and Julia will look in the houses over the road, and you guys can look this side.
Carl moves towards the door. There’s a skinny teenage redhead standing in the doorway. Everyone just stares at her.
Mary
“Er, hello, not interrupting anything am I?”
She smiles
Fade to black
Interior, a Childs bedroom. Judging from the décor and the toys. A girls, around six years old.
No one is in the room. The door opens and Carl sticks his head around the corner. He looks around, sees that its just a Childs bedroom and closes the door again.
Outside on the landing Carl, Mary and Julia continue their conversation…
Mary
“So you weren’t asleep, both of you. You must have seen the change then.”
Carl
“How’d you mean?”
Mary
“Well you know, when you were transported here.”
Julia
“No, not exactly. I was in a sort of day dream.”
Carl
“I don’t know, what happened with me. I was just walking along I don’t remember being in a daydream, but I suppose I don’t remember not being in one ether. The estate I was on looked the same as this one, but I guess they all do don’t they.
Mary
“Not really, not from where I come from.”
Carl
“1969?”
Mary
“Yeah.”
Julia
(As she closes the door to the main bedroom.) “Nothing, just another bedroom.”
Mary
“Where are the people who lived here? All these houses are full of peoples stuff. Where did they all go to?”
Mary Julia and Carl all go down stairs.
Carl
“Maybe no one ever lived here. Maybe its just like a film set or something.”
Julia
“If it is a film set where are all the cameras?”
Carl
“Maybe you can’t see the cameras of the future.”
They come out of the house and walk along to the next house.
Exterior. The street
Julia
“So who are you Mary? We may be spending a while together we should get to know each other I suppose. What did you do in 1969?”
Mary
“Erm, I‘m an art student. Graduate next year. Hopefully. If I ever get back that is.”
Julia
“You’re going to be an artist are you?”
Mary
“No. I don’t think so. It’s just something I’m doing until I figure out what I want to do. What about you Carl. Who are you?”
Carl
“I’m a scaffolder.”
Carl doesn’t want to talk too much. Doesn’t want to make friends. He just wants to find the way out. There’s a long awkward pause.
Julia
“Is that it? I couldn’t go up a scaffold. I’m not that good with heights.”
Carl
“Well I do this self defence class on Thursday afternoons as well. I wouldn’t mind doing that full time actually.”
Julia
“What’s ‘self defence’?”
Carl
“How to fight off an attacker, and get away. It’s mainly for women.”
Julia
“Are the 1980s dangerous for women?”
Carl
“A bit, sometimes I guess.”
Mary and Julia share a look.
Interior.
The next house. Down stairs hallway. Carl Julia and Mary enter.
They wander through the house talking as they go.
Carl
“What about you Julia? What do you do?”
Julia
“I’m a housewife.”
Carl
“I guess most women were housewives back then were they?”
Julia
“Well yes a lot of women are. What do women do in the future.”?
Carl
“Most work.”
Mary
“Doing what?”
Carl
“Anything,…. you know,…. jobs.”
Julia
“Who looks after the home and the children? Does everyone have maids?”
Carl
“ha ha, no all the housework’s done by robots in the future.”
Mary
“Really?”
Carl
“No not really although I would have thought that by 2008, or when ever this is meant to be, there would have been a few robots knocking about by now.”
Mary
“Yes this is a bit disappointing. It’s supposed to be nearly thirty years in the future and nothings really changed has it. Things are different shapes and sizes but its all still the same stuff isn’t it.”
Julia
“Maybe everything that can be invented has been invented. And robots and rocket cars can’t ever really be made.”
Carl
“The human race has gone about as far as it can. There’s nowhere else to go. I don’t like the sound of that.”
Mary
“What was that woman from 1999 called again?
Julia
“Megan.”
Mary
“Maybe she can tell us why the future didn’t happen.”
They finish their search of the house and walk outside.
David and John come running over form the other side of the street.
They both look very worried.
John
(Out of breath) “Is Megan with you?”
Carl
“No. Why what’s happened?”
David
“We were just looking in that house over there and then she wasn’t with us.”
Carl
“How’d you mean?”
John
“She was behind us, and then she wasn’t. We turned around and she wasn’t there anymore. I think we should all stay together from now on. Is Julia still inside? You should go get her.”
Mary
(Looks round) “She came out with us. She was just here.
Carl
“Maybe she went back in.”
Carl goes back in a shouts.
Carl
“Julia! Julia! Where are you? Julia!”
He comes back out.
Carl
“She’s not there… Where’s the mechanic kid? I thought you were gonna stick together?”
John and Mary both spin round and look at the space where David used to be.
Mary
“He was just there! I was looking at right at him, and then I looked at you when you came out. And now he’s not there anymore.”
Carl
“Is that how it happens is it? You disappear when no one’s looking at you?”
John
“What the hell is this place? Did they go back or go somewhere else?”
Exterior. Further up the street.
Elsewhere, Jeff a young man in a sharp suit carrying a brief case walks quickly (Almost running)
Along the street. He is lost, worried. His eyes dart around the street. He loosens his tie as panic starts to
Set in. Suddenly he spots Carl, Mary and John standing in the street. A smile breaks out across his
Face. They will be able to help him.
Jeff
Shouting down the street) “Excuse me,” (They turn to look at him) “Am I glad to see you,… anyone in fact.”
Jeff breaks into a run, but his brief case is knocked by his knee, spins around out of his hand and falls to the ground. He stops to bend down and pick it up. When he stands up straight again. The others have gone!
The camera pulls back, up and away from Jeff and keeps on going leaving Jeff alone in the street.
1999
Interior. A large kitchen. Filled with mod cons.
Megan’s husband Mark is chopping vegetables.
Megan comes in rubbing her hair with a towel.
Megan
“Oh look at you. Are you doing the dinner?”
Mark
“I thought I’d give it a go. How hard can it be eh?”
Megan doesn’t answer.
But looks thoughtful as if she’s trying to remember something.
Mark
“Are you okay? You look like you were a thousand miles away just then?”
Megan
“I don’t know. I was in the bath just then and I erm, thought of something or remembered a dream or something. It seemed important but then I forgot it again.”
Mark
“Well if it was important I’m sure you’ll remember it sooner or later.”
Megan
“Yeah, I guess so. Where’s Bailey.”
Mark
“Watching Xena warrior princess I think.”
1952
Interior Julia’s 1950’s home.
Julia is sitting on the settee. In a daydream.
She snaps out of it shakes her head a little, stands up and continues to do the dusting. As she does she sings to absent-mindedly herself, happy in her work…
Julia
“…I just can't get you out of my head. Boy your loving is all I think about. I just can't get you out of my head. Boy it's more than I dare to think about. La la la. La la la la la…”
End of episode one
What is “Fading”?
Fading might best be described as a sci-fi soap. A sort of time hopping neighbours. But while the sci-fi element might at first seem to be the greatest factor in the show. It’s really about recent history and the people from that history.
What would a liberated woman from the sixties have to say to a housewife from the fifties?
What would an environmentally conscious man from 2004 tell a brash young stock market dealer? Knowing full well that black Wednesday is just around the corner?
What would the nineties stock market dealer tell sixties hippy about their peace and love revolution?
Unfortunately for all these people, upon returning to their own times, the memories they have of what you might call the “temporal hub” quickly fade. All they are left with is a feeling that they have forgotten something. But never quite remember what.
There is a part of them though that does retain something from the hub. They don’t know anything more, but they do feel something.
Having talked to a sixties woman lib activist, the fifties housewife begins to feel that maybe she could do more with her life. The eighties stockbroker still buys and sells like he always did but with an ever growing feeling of dread in his stomach as black Wednesday approaches.
Their increasing knowledge of both the past and future starts to effect their decisions more and more without them ever knowing how.
Upon returning to the hub their memories of previous times in the hub also return. Relationships begin to build there and a new “family” is formed.
Over time, how and why they are repeatedly returned to the hub becomes unimportant to some. While others are driven mad by the mystery. Some visit the hub often sometimes spending days there. Others may only visit once or twice.
Most at first are stereotypes that typify the time, chosen to go in the hub for that reason. It’s only after they are affected by the hub that they become more complex people.
The hub also acts as a confessional for those there. Because the others there won’t remember anything back in the real world.
Who is everyone?
Julia
Julia starts out (like most) a stereotype. A typical 50s housewife, content and secure in her role. This security is shattered when her husband loses his job and starts beating her.
Eventually (with the help of those in the hub) she finds the strength to fight back.
Later she becomes an author.
She is attracted to Carl.
David
David is a young mechanic from 1961 serving his apprenticeship. David likes cars more than people because he knows how they work. He has trouble dealing with the complexities of the hub.
His simple exterior hides a jealous streak. David is in love with Emma.
Mary
Mary starts as a stereotypical hippy. (Hasn’t yet dropped out, but it is only art college so it doesn’t really count). Her belief in the peace and love revolution seems unshakable.
Until it is shaken by learning that by the eighties that revolution has all but been forgotten.
John
A 53-year-old thief from 1974, still a child basically, avoids work, and responsibility at all costs and resolutely refuses to grow up or develop as a character.
Angela
An outwardly happy and jovial receptionist form 1978. Whose main concerns seem to be hair, nails and clothes.
Inside couldn’t be more different. An habitual self-harmer, things are exasperated by the fact that she can’t conceive. For this she blames her husband, (although she has never been told this by a doctor) in an effort to get pregnant she has numerous affairs.
Carl
A scaffolder from 1983 aged 33 also teaches self-defence to women because he likes being in charge of a group of women, and the physical contact with them.
The hub infuriates Carl because he has no control over it.
Jeff
A 29-year-old stockbroker from 1995. Loves money, and only money. More of a stereotype than even Julia at first. But the brash exterior hides deep insecurities. Money to Jeff equals security, the more he has the safer he feels. He tells people that he could retire in a few years, but never will. For Jeff there is no such thing as enough money.
Emma
A 19-year-old traveller from 1993. Emma prides herself on doing what she wants when she wants to do it. At first this seems the same as Mary’s 60s style peace and love thing, but its more about her being selfish and self centred. She discovers from someone in her future that in three years time she will be working in a bank. She can’t imagine why.
Megan
Megan is a 44-year-old supermarket manager from 1999. Perhaps the most well adjusted of the group. Confident and successful. A natural leader.
Chris
Chris is a law student from 2002. A law student because he hasn’t got any better ideas.
Everything is easy for Chris he’s intelligent; his parents are rich and pay for every thing. It’s obvious that he’s going to have a comfortable life. If he can avoid meeting Emma.
Susan
A housewife from 2008 the group look to her for all the answers about the future. She remembers most from the hub. Recognises faces, knows history better than she should, without knowing how. And more than anyone she discovers the futures of the others. Should they know?
Future episodes.
2
Plagued by feelings of de ja vu and forgotten memories Julia and the others try to carry on with their lives as we learn something about who they really are. Every one concerned faces problems in their lives none of which are solved just yet. Upon returning to the hub we meet more new characters until the gaps in the last sixty years are filled.
Back in the hub it is discovered that a fridge or cupboard will replenish it’s self whilst closed.
Theories about hub abound. None are proved to be wrong.
3
Julia discovers that her idyllic fifties life may not be every thing she thought it was, when she accidentally finds out her husband lost his job weeks ago. She doesn’t confront him but starts to, without knowing why, think that there would be nothing wrong in her going out to work instead.
Meanwhile (Twenty years later) John begins to take notice of computers.
As black Wednesday draws near Jeff continues to buy and sell with a growing feeling of unease.
Back in the hub people begin to form friends (And enemies) and they also discover that night never seems to come.
4
The group are shook by the arrival of a two-year-old girl. It seems as if there is no age limit for hub. The girl can’t talk yet, and can only be comforted by Angela, (A childless receptionist from 1978) who calls her Abigail after initially being distant, Angela opts to look after her. She quickly grows to love her just before, during a game of peek-a-boo she disappears.
In an attempt to find out more about the hub Carl climbs on top of a house with a pair of binoculars. All that can be seen from this high vantage point is nothing but housing estate stretching out to every horizon. As Carl scans across the horizon he eventually comes to see the back of his own head.
5
Julia’s relationship with her husband Frank begins to crumble as she confronts him about his lost job.
David begins to take a modern people carrier to bits to see how it works. To take his mind off Annie, the object of his affections in 1961, who he can’t even talk to.
Just as things are starting to get a bit “soapy” a psychopath goes to sleep in his cell and wakes up in a Childs bed inside the hub. Being crazy he doesn’t question this too much and goes on a killing spree. Killing almost everyone in the hub. He is confused by the fact that when he’s not looking at a body it disappears.
He is then shocked to see people he’d previously killed eventually reappear. It seems that you can’t die in the hub.
6
After an absence of weeks for Angela, Abigail returns, this time however she is nine and informs Angela her real name always was Abigail and that she is (Or at least will be) her mother, which explains why she went to her as a toddler.
Angela is overjoyed because she thought she couldn’t have children.
Julia’s relationship with her husband collapses when he turns violent.
David is amazed when Emma (an unemployed traveller from the early nineties) takes his virginity without him having to even ask.
Upon returning to 1961 he finds himself, for some reason, more relaxed around Annie the object of his affections in 1961. He’s no longer a virgin, but doesn’t know it
7
Just as another beating starts (As Julia’s husband Frank pulls back his fist for the first punch) Julia is returned to the hub and asks Carl to teach her how to defend herself. They train without a break for a week. Whilst doing so they discover that sleep in the hub, while possible, isn’t actually necessary. During training they grow closer.
Upon returning to 1952 Julia actually catches Franks fist. Jumps to her feet and successfully, and spectacularly, defends herself without knowing how she knows how to fight.
Frank moves out, and Julia’s friend asks her what she plans to do next. Julia points out that she learnt typing in school. The friend presumes that Julia will become a secretary, but Julia wants to write a book.
The final shot is back in the hub, in one of the houses. On a shelf in one of the rooms the camera moves in on one book. The book written by Julia. It’s called the fading.
8
A husband and wife appear in the hub but from different points in their relationship. The husband is from a point early on in the marriage when as far as he knows they will be happy forever. The woman, however, is from a point eight years later where she believed that every thing was fine up until the day he popped out for milk and never came back.
Both have no idea why he would do such a thing.
9
Out in the real world Emma meets Chris in 2002. For the Chris in the hub this is happening in his present, but it is three years into Emma’s future. Emma is no longer a traveller and now works in a bank (Much to the disgust of the Emma in the hub)
Because they know each other in the hub they feel something when they meet and start a relationship. Inside the hub, however, Emma is seeing David (David has never told her about Annie in 1961) and Chris has secret feelings for Angela.
Feelings of anger and jealousy grow in the hub whilst outside Chris begins to feel as if something is wrong, that he shouldn’t be doing this but doesn’t know why. From Emma’s point of view, in the real world this relationship will start in three years time
10
Someone discovers the Julia’s book in one of the houses. In the blurb it describes the hub almost perfectly, and then goes further to say that one of the group is not what they seem. That one of them created the hub for their own entertainment.
Is Julia right? She was unaware that the hub even existed when she wrote the book. And the Julia we know hasn’t begun to write it yet.
It’s possible that Julia got the idea that the hub was created by one of them from the book itself.
To Julia the book she will write is a disappointment. The characters in it seem to be two-dimensional stereotypes, the sixties hippy, the eighties stockbroker, even the fifties housewife (Herself) seem like fictional characters.
And as she looks at the people around her they seem fictional too.
Have they all been created from the book? Is the real world just a dream?
2 comments:
WOW!
Youve certainly put a lot of work and thought into that. I read through the whole script and I reckon it would make a good show.
You could try sending it off to the bbc or something but im not sure how that works.
Or you could make it yourself and put it on Youtube and start a cult following wahaha
anyhoo, cool work man!
I LOVE this. Write it, write it, please?
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