Setting

Physical setting

Fiona Maazel’s short story “Let’s Go to the Videotape” is set in the United States of America. Nick and Gus live in Rhode Island as the cycling video is “sent in by Nick and Gus Slocombe from Providence, Rhode Island” (l. 61).

The events of the story take place in various settings. Most of them are pretty normal, although the TV studio is not. The story begins inside a cramped studio where the America’s Funniest Home Videos TV programme is filmed: “The studio was warm. Sweat dribbled down the host’s neck, which someone kept blotting with a paper towel (…). The audience sat on padded bleachers arranged as if someone had tossed them there.” (ll. 27-30). It is not a positive description, which suggests that Nick and Gus perhaps should not be there. Instead, they should be dealing with their problems together, in private.

The story also takes place in Nick’s home, where he spends a lot of time c...