Tallamby Of Mulch Analysis

BARNABY OF MULCH (A TALL TALE) is an entertaining tale of a small town. The tone blends a nice combination of comedy and drama. There’s an ensemble cast of delightful characters and a small town feeling to the storyline.

There’s definitely a lot to like about this script including the offbeat characters and the mystery surrounding the town Mulch. As much as one really likes the characters, the script would benefit from more development.

The story opens establishing the backstory. It’s a creative opening, which easily engages. The idea of a play within the story recreating the past has merit. With that said, however, it’s not always easy to follow given the ensemble cast, characters playing other characters, and following several subplots.

They share really nice chemistry with each other. It’s easy to like both of them. The subplot about his finger is sadly delightful. It’s one of the major highlights of this script. It provides for some genuinely funny, but “touching” moments, especially when Ben supports and comforts Sam (pages 59 & 60).

There’s no doubt the characters are delightful. Each one is bright, colorful, and eccentric. Each is very original and refreshing. The audience roots for each other.

Ben is “stuck” in Mulch. For some reason, he doesn’t believe he can make it out in the real world. One would like to understand why he feels this way. Maybe it’s related to his parents and the idea of him leaving “them” behind. Consider making this connection. At the end, he arcs when he’s ready to move on and one feels as if he matures and grows up. He’s a storyteller struggling with making up the facts versus telling the real story. Now he has to move forward to tell his own life story, but he needs to experience it first. Make sure the audience understands

The dialogue nicely reveals information about the characters and is consistent to each one. The dialogue has a good rhythm and contains subtext. The dialogue during the audition is especially appealing. Some of the VO dialogue is not needed.

As stated, the tension is more focused on Will and Jim rather than Ben. This brings one to the ending in which both Will and Jim die. Ben makes the point that the story wouldn’t be fun if it all ended happily and perfectly. There’s some merit to this, but overall the audience does want a happy ending. It might have been fun to watch the two men plan their duel only for the discovery of the oil beneath Mulch to interrupt their plan or for Ben to stop them perhaps revealing another twist. It’s a creative choice, but it doesn’t feel fully satisfying given how much the audience cares about these characters.

The script is professionally presented, although occasionally there are some formatting flaws regarding capitalizing names etc. On page 41 a typo is noted: it should be “by yourself” vs.