Slings and Arrows

You may be looking for Slings and Eros, a Blake's 7 story.

Fandom
Name:	Slings and Arrows
Abbreviation(s):	S&A
Creator:	Susan Coyne, Mark McKinney, and Bob Martin
Date(s):	2003-2006
Medium:	television
Country of Origin:	Canada
External Links:	IMDB
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Canon Overview

Slings and Arrows was a Canadian television series that ran for three seasons of six episodes each, from 2003 to 2006 (the last season aired in the US in 2007). The series first aired on Canada's Movie Central and The Movie Network channels in 2003, and later received wide acclaim in the US when it was shown on the Sundance Channel.

The show was co-created and co-written by former Kids in the Hall member Mark McKinney, playwright and actress Susan Coyne, and comedian Bob Martin, the Tony-award winning co-creator of The Drowsy Chaperone. All three appear in the series as well.

Slings and Arrows is the story of the fictional New Burbage Festival in Ontario, a struggling Shakespearean theater similar to the real-world Stratford Festival.

The Fandom

Slings and Arrows is generally considered to be a 6 Degrees of Canada fandom, starring many familiar Canadian actors such as Paul Gross, Don McKellar and Sarah Polley.

It is also a popular Yuletide fandom.

Fanworks

A lot of Slings & Arrows fanfic is Geoffrey-centric, unsurprising as Geoffrey has much angst (and Paul Gross is a major fannish BSO). Popular genres of Geoffrey-fic include:

• Geoffrey gen, often dealing with his nervous breakdown
• Geoffrey/Ellen, Geoffrey/Oliver and/or the messy Ellen/Geoffrey/Oliver triangle
• Geoffrey/Darren, often set when they were both students.

Darren Nichols is also a popular character for fanwriters, who often write fic describing various ridiculous and over-the-top productions he might direct.

Fanfiction

• I Would Rather Be Anywhere Else Than Here Today written by spuffyduds, podficced by zabira

From a review of the podfic by iamsab: "I hadn't read this before I heard the podfic, and since then it's been haunting me. Spuffyduds wrote an amazing, just, gogglingly amazing story about the washed up and pervy Oliver Welles, trying to stop himself from making mistakes and getting off on performing the tragedy of his life to a local and sympathetic bartender (an original character who positively sings).

Zabira's reading is low, and slow, and sort of snarky in a "this is my sarcastic face" kind of way, and transported me right smack into that bar, right there on a stool next to Oliver listening to him tell Neil precisely how he plans to continue sabotaging himself till he's dead. The reading's clear and quiet and unglamorous, just like Oliver, and a little tired, and a little miserable. It's perfect."

• The Heir of My Invention by Sage, podficced by DesireeArmfeldt

What if Ellen got to be Hamlet, both onstage at New Burbage that fateful year, and in the S&A plot's Hamlet-mirror world? All the gendered changes that cast Ellen as Hamlet and Geoffrey as Ophelio seem to expose the "machinery" of how the original S&A storyline relates to the play structurally.

Sage also notably created a full-text Hamlet adaptation with a female Hamlet and a male Ophelio to go along with this story.

• Inclusively Players by Petra, podficced by DesireeArmfeldt

"Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, both staged by and starring Darren Nichols and Geoffrey Tennant, March 3-8, 1981. Call 555-3954 or visit the university box office for ticket information."

Fanvids

• Sea Fever by heresluck

A gorgeous Geooffrey-centric ensemble vid made for Vividcon 2009.

• Shake It Off by trelkez

"A Slings & Arrows / Darren Nichols fanvid made for sweetestdrain in Festivids 2014-15."

External Links

• Melancholy Danes: A Slings & Arrows Community
• ds_6degrees, a LiveJournal fanfic community
• Slings & Arrows fanwork tag on Archive of Our Own
• slings and arrows podfics on Audiofic Archive