At a Christmas 70’s Slade concert, a ‘teenage’ Cupid celebrates a little too hard, accidentally pricks himself with his own arrow, falls on to the dance floor and there, is Mary.  Feeling love for the first time, he begs his Mum (Venus, God of Love) and Dad (Mars, God of War) to let him live a mortal life with Mary and experience, rather than match make love.  They warn him that he’ll forget who he is, grow old and have to live out his mortal life with all the pain and suffering that brings.

He naively agrees.

30 years of happy, loving family life later, every thing changes and his former powers start to stir and his Mum and Dad: Mars and Venus re-enter his life.  He must live out his mortal body, but, also go back to work as Cupid and sort out some of the damage, leaving couples to sort out their own love life has caused.

But Cupid is changed by the experience of mortal love.

For one thing he understands the joys and pain of long term love – not just the point where Cupid’s arrow strikes and matches are made, so, is as keen to repair relationships as to make them. And that includes the hopeless boy next door, his own daughter, fellow gardener and his warring parents.

Jeff, now Cupid  believes if he can just sort out those around him, he can persuade Mars and Venus to give him back the only thing he wants.

He’s got a lot to learn.

Rachel  15
 Jeff and Mary’s beautiful daughter – she’s the unobtainable girl next door we’d all want to be with, but masks her shyness with an aloof pretence at cool.    Though she’ll never know it, she is of course Cupid’s daughter and therefore a demi-god, a Siren luring those around her to fall in love through the songs of love and loss she writes, performs and posts, with huge success to YouTube

Mars
A Buff, Gruff Northerner with a penchant for a toga or a centurions outfit to show off his pecks.  He believes a good old fisticuff is probably always the answer, but is all too often reined in by Venus. Hard knocks, tough love and quick judgements are his approach.

Venus Beautiful, in her prime,  ageless. If being God of Love was tough – being Married to the God of War is tougher.  Having let her son go to follow his heart, Venus watches over him from afar and can be caught (if you’re really looking) in the back of many a scene.  She can’t help herself sometimes guiding him from afar and will undermine Mars’ command if she believes he hasn’t thought it through.  We want her to kick out or sort out her wayward husband – and give Cupid a motherly guiding hand.

Amy  9  Jeff’s youngest daughter, is a relatively minor role. She too is unknowingly a demigod and is largely ignored when she claims to understand animals. (she can) This results in a house often irritatingly full of ‘pets’,  she’s ‘helping’ and Jeff and Rachel  are permanently tripping over.  She’s happy to be misunderstood, completely in her own world, and because she believes her mum to be re-incarnated as a tortoise, she’s spared the rigours of grieving by chatting to ‘Mama T’. Her best friends are Will and Kate’s children.

Josh his song would be “Creep” by Radio Head. 15Is the awkward (gawky, though we see how attractive he is) teenage boy next door hopelessly in love with Rachel and only able to be his very witty funny self when interacting online as ‘Farmboy99’.  His every attempt at cool is a disaster throughout the series especially when Rachel’s on the scene.  We adore him – there’s a little bit of us all in him.

Will Jeff’s business partner and friend.  Comic, hapless and a loveable loser, he and Jeff daily set the world to rights over a scotch egg picnic on the dashboard of their white works van.  Will, will regularly solve things for Jeff – but lacks the brains to realise it.  Married to Kate who is a class above, he’s that most unusual of things – happy with his lot.  Kate’s parents think he is a wet, pushover but we understand exactly why she loves him.

Kate
Currently reading “I don’t know how she does it”  She may have married beneath her parents upper class designs, but her neurosis driving a high profile career and perfect family life is secured by Will. Kate’s got it all, cares too much what everyone thinks and finds happiness just ever so slightly unobtainable.

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The Cupid Concept from beth davies on Vimeo.

Over the next few days/weeks, we will continue spreading the love over Britain.

We will be distributing a whole load of red heart-shaped balloons all over the nation, and its your job to find them!

Once one is found, we would love to hear from you!

Even better, send us a picture of where it was found for the opportunity to win some great treats!!

Get in touch with @thecupidconcept or thecupidconcept@yahoo.co.uk

Want to make your own Lushmob?

Click here for a Message to a stranger tag (PDF File)

(Tip: Instead of balloons, why no to use chocolates or flowers… or anything you can get your hands on!)

See the video of the first balloon sharing event

Click here to view the embedded video.

What would your message be?

All Across South Wales, Secret Cupid are leaving balloons with messages for strangers.

All across the UK people have been leaving little gifts care of the Cupid Concept – with these tags

AND! WHO IS THIS MAN? IS HE STEALING OUR BALLOONS?

releasetag1

Have you found one? and if so where? – we’ll map your findings and just as a little something extra for telling all, – your name will go into our treat friday gifts draw

Do tell.

After several months the Earth began to grow old and Venus eventually conceded to Cupid’s demands lifting the curse she held over Psyche. This was on the condition that Cupid returned to his work and so life was restored to Venus’s Temple.

In the mortal world worried by the fact that despite her beauty no one desired Psyche as their wife her parents consulted an Oracle. The Oracle instructed them to leave Psyche on the nearest mountain as she was too beautiful for mortal men. The west wind blew Psyche to a magnificent palace where she was attended by invisible servants until nightfall and then in the darkness of night, the promised bridegroom, arrived and consummated the marriage without ever revealing his true identity.

Cupid allows the west wind to blow Psyche back to her home town and then to return her and her two sisters to the Palace. As she does not know his true form the jealous sisters convince Psyche that her husband is a great and terrible serpent that will devour her and her unborn child when it is time for it to feed. They manage to persuade the unwilling Psyche to hide an oil lamp and dagger in her bed chamber and to stab her husband while he sleeps after she has seen his ‘true’ form. In the lamp night Psyche recognises her husband to be Cupid and accidentally pricks herself with one of his arrows filling herself with desire for him. The desire for her husband consumes her and she begins to kiss him but as she does a drop of oil from her lamp drops onto his shoulder and awakens him. He immediately flies away furious at her for revealing his true identity.

She falls out of the window, sick at heart and finds herself back in home city where she tells her sisters that Cupid chose her as his wife on the mountaintop and that they should do the same. However, the west wind did not carry them to the Palace and they both feel to their deaths.

Psyche searched far and wide for her lover with little success. She stumbled upon an old temple that was in disarray and began to clean and tidy it. The god of the temple Ceres appeared and advised Psyche to call directly on Venus as she caused all the problems in the first place. So Psyche found a temple to Venus and entered it. Venus then ordered Psyche to complete a succession of difficult trials the last of which lead Psyche to the Underworld to ask the Queen of the Underworld Proserpina to place her beauty in a box to give to Venus.

Upon leaving the Underworld Psyche decided to open the box and take a little of the beauty for herself. It turned out that the box was full of sleep which overcame her. Having forgiven Psyche, Cupid flew to her rescue and wiped the sleep from her eyes. He set her on her way before flying to appeal to Jupiter to aid them. Jupiter called a formal council and declared it his will that Cupid married Psyche. He then ordered Psyche to Mount Olympus and gave her a drink to make her immortal. Thus Cupid and Psyche we able to endure in a loving marriage in which they had a daughter Voluptas who became the Goddess of Sensual Pleasures.

The Importance of the Legend

Cupid’s own love story is fraught with difficulties and complications yet the love between him and his wife Psyche manages to overcome these barriers. Thereforem this story can, in many ways, be seen as the source of the legends surrounding Cupid and his meddling mischief in matters of love.