Four Plays Read online

  CHAIRMAN: Oh, I don’t think we need that, do you?

  CHAP: I don’t know, I should think we probably do.

  CHAIRMAN: Always used to sneer at it, I remember.

  GIRL: Still do, some of them.

  OLDER LADY: Rather good ballet music, don’t you think?

  CHAIRMAN: Oh Christ! (To the CHAP) Anyway, ask him to turn it down, will you?

  FATHER: I can do a passable Melville Gideon.

  GRANDFATHER: Now he really was good.

  GIRL: Don’t start yet.

  CHAP: I like barrel organs.

  CHAIRMAN: Yes, I know what you mean.

  GIRL: Oh, do get on with it!

  CHAP: (To the CHAIRMAN.) Yes, you are the Chairman and she wants her pay packet.

  GIRL: I’m just thinking about what I’m going to have to eat afterwards.

  CHAIRMAN: Why should I be the Chairman?

  CHAP: You know perfectly well.

  GIRL: Yes.

  CHAP: You’re the best equipped academically, apart from which you’re a brilliant promotionalist, an eyes upward grown-in Committee Man. OLDER LADY: Very good actor too.

  GIRL: What do you mean, good actor? He’s a bloody amateur. Always has been. That’s why people think he’s so good.

  CHAP: That’s why he thinks he’s so good too.

  CHAIRMAN: (Rising.) Well, if you’re going to be like that…

  CHAP: Of course we’re going to be like that.

  GIRL: Oh yes, don’t be faux naif Just get on with it.

  CHAP: Oh, is that how you pronounce it?

  GIRL: What?

  CHAP: Faux naif you avaricious little berk.

  CHAIRMAN: Right, we’ll start.

  GIRL: Thank God for that. I’m hungry already.

  CHAP: You would be.

  CHAIRMAN: (Addressing the audience.) Er…

  GIRL: Ladies and gentlemen!

  CHAP: That lot?

  CHAIRMAN: What else do I call them?

  GIRL: Who cares?

  CHAP: Perhaps some of them are ladies and gentlemen.

  GIRL: I doubt it.

  CHAIRMAN: Try not to be too censorious.

  GIRL: I don’t know what that means.

  CHAP: Bitchy.

  CHAIRMAN: (Addressing the audience again) Some ladies and gentlemen and the rest…

  (There is an enormous commotion as the MAN IN THE STAGE BOX stumbles in noisily, looks around at the stage and leers drunkenly at the audience. He is wearing an enormous fake fur coat, a striped football scarf and cap.)

  BOX MAN: What’s all this then?

  CHAIRMAN: (Burying his face in his hands) Oh no, not that old one!

  CHAP: Yes, running short I’d say.

  BOX MAN: Running short? We’ve been running short – all the brown ale we’ve had. Up Chelsea!

  CHAP: And up you too!

  GIRL: I never understand these gags. Exclusively male, I suppose.

  CHAP: (In mock imitation of her) Oh yes, I dare say that’s very true. Very true. Exclusively male.

  BOX MAN: What’s she then? Women’s Lib? (He snorts at his own joke.)

  GIRL: I knew it was a mistake.

  BOX MAN: It’s a bloody mistake all right. Your mother’s mistake!

  GIRL: (To the CHAIRMAN) Such an amusing theatrical device.

  BOX MAN: I’M IN THE WRONG BLEEDING THEATRE!

  CHAIRMAN: We’re all in the wrong bleeding theatre.

  BOX MAN: Is this Drury Lane?

  GIRL: No, and it’s not Fiddler on the Roof either.

  OLDER LADY: What did he say?

  BOX MAN: You can drop ‘em for a start!

  OLDER LADY: I suppose you think I wouldn’t?

  BOX MAN: All right, don’t bother. Is there a change of scenery?

  CHAIRMAN: No, but I’m afraid there will probably be some music.

  GIRL: If you can call a barrel organ music.

  BOX MAN: Go on, Grandad, give us a tune!

  GRANDFATHER: No respect left.

  OLDER LADY: Why should they?

  BOX MAN: I can’t make head or tail of this lot.

  GIRL: And you won’t. No tits.

  CHAP: Oh, he’s not such a bad idea.

  BOX MAN: (Standing up and addressing the audience) Well, if you’re going to fuck the chicken, I’ll dangle my balls in the pink blancmange.

  GIRL: Now what’s he talking about?

  CHAP: Does it matter?

  (The INTERRUPTER enters from dress circle)

  INTERRUPTER: Rubbish! I want my money back.

  BOX MAN: Yes, well I’m going to go and have a slash.

  GIRL: Yes, we know, after all that brown ale.

  BOX MAN: Oh, I could do something for you, Daisy.

  GIRL: My name’s not Daisy and you couldn’t.

  (The INTERRUPTER disappears. The GRANDFATHER gets up slowly and plays the barrel organ gravely. The BOX MAN joins in with the song and encourages the audience to join him)

  BOX MAN: (Singing) I don’t care who you are

  Make yourself at home

  Put your feet on the mantelshelf

  Draw up a dolly and help yourself.

  GRANDFATHER: (Addressing the BOX MAN) Those are not the words.

  BOX MAN: Well, you don’t have to be like that. I’ve paid my money, haven’t I?

  GIRL: No.

  BOX MAN: Listen, you don’t have to get all toffee-nosed with me. Or any of these other good people. We make you, the likes of you. Mr John Public, that’s what we are. Mr and Mrs John Public.

  GIRL: I hope you’ll be very happy together.

  BOX MAN: We are – what’s wrong with that I’d like to know? It’s all right for you lot, sitting down there, looking all pleased with yourselves, getting paid hundreds of pounds.

  CHAP: (To the GIRL) There you are.

  BOX MAN: Where would you be, I’d like to know –

  GIRL: You’re repeating yourself.

  CHAP: (To the GIRL) So are you.

  BOX MAN: Thank you, sir. Now you’re a gentleman, I can see that.

  GIRL: He can’t even…

  BOX MAN: That’s enough of your lip. Don’t think I wouldn’t come down there and smack your bottom – and enjoy it!

  GIRL: I’ve no doubt, you poor old thing.

  BOX MAN: All I said was he was civil and a gentleman.

  GIRL: He’s no more of a gentleman than you are.

  CHAP: Good.

  BOX MAN: Like some of these people here tonight. Look at them. Beautifully-dressed, attractive women, lot of respectable people out there, including some of your real clever ones.

  GIRL: Who do you think he’s talking about?

  CHAIRMAN: Yes, well I think we’ve had enough of that, too.

  BOX MAN: What’s that?

  CHAIRMAN: I suggest, sir, that you come back later.

  GIRL: Oh, no, please!

  BOX MAN: I don’t care what you say, I’ve paid my money and I’m going out for a slash.

  CHAP: Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea.

  (The BOX MAN stumbles out of the stage box with a maximum of noise and so on.)

  CHAIRMAN: Shall I sit in the middle?

  CHAP: Lucky Pedro, in the middle again.

  GIRL: I suppose that’s another joke?

  CHAP: Masculine.

  (The BOX MAN returns noisily. He shouts down at actors)

  BOX MAN: That’s not funny, old man! Give yourself a kick in the pants!

  CHAP: He pinched that from Peter Nichols.

  CHAIRMAN: Actually, he pinched it from George Doonan.

  BOX MAN: You’re all a bloody lot of thieves and robbers! (He staggers out.)

  CHAIRMAN: Well, as you seem to have suggested that my personality is best suited to imposing some order on this chaos –

  CHAP: Or chaos on this order.

  GIRL: As the case may be –

  CHAIRMAN: I shall try to make a beginning.

  INTERRUPTER: (From the auditorium) And about time, I say!

  CHAIRMAN: Of sorts. Well
, ladies and gentlemen and so on. The programme first, I suppose… Overpriced, as usual. Full of useless information. Like what part of Buckinghamshire the actors live in, how many children they’ve got, what their hobbies are and the various undistinguished television series that they’ve appeared in. On the front, there’s the title.

  GIRL: Awful.

  CHAIRMAN: Yes, I’m afraid that will have to be changed.

  CHAP: Too late now.

  GIRL: Actually, Too Late Now”s not a bad title.

  CHAP: It’s too late all right. GIRL: Wasn’t there a song called ‘Too Late Now’?

  CHAP: (In a TV chat-show voice) Ah yes, ‘a rather predictable exercise in somewhat facile nostalgia’.

  GIRL: Oh, do stop knocking everybody. Let him get on with it.

  CHAP: You still won’t get paid till Friday:

  CHAIRMAN: As I was saying – what was I saying?

  GIRL: The programme.

  CHAIRMAN: Oh yes, well we’ve agreed that the title will have to be changed.

  CHAP: The author’s name is far too big.

  CHAIRMAN: So is the director’s, come to that.

  CHAP: And who cares who presented it? What’s that – just making a lot of phone calls, having long lunches and getting secretaries to do all the work.

  GIRL: Don’t talk to me about directors. If ever there was a bogus job, that’s one all right.

  CHAP: Just letting all the actors do the work, like finding where the doorknobs are, finding out what the play’s about by getting up and doing it, while they tell you what a genius you are.

  CHAIRMAN: I don’t think that’s entirely fair.

  CHAP: Like doing Hamlet as a Pre-Raphaelite queen.

  GRANDFATHER: I used to like the old musical comedies…

  FATHER: And a good revue.

  GIRL: Well, you ain’t going to get it, either of you.

  OLDER LADY: I quite like it when they take all their clothes off.

  CHAIRMAN: I’m sorry, but shall I go on or not?

  (The BOX MAN returns noisily.)

  BOX MAN: I suppose you went to Oxford and Cambridge.

  CHAIRMAN: No, actually I was only at one of them. Oh, dear, I suppose one shouldn’t be so rude.

  BOX MAN: Toffee-nosed pouf! (He goes out.)

  CHAIRMAN: I agree with you that I may be occasionally and unforgivably toffee-nosed, but I am not a pouf.

  GIRL: Oh come off it – we all know about you.

  CHAP: You either likes one thing or the other, that’s what I always say.

  BOX MAN: (Off.) Hear, hear!

  CHAIRMAN: (To the GIRL.) If I may correct you, my dear –

  GIRL: Oh now, he’s really being the Chairman.

  CHAIRMAN: Yes, as a matter of fact, I am, and I would point out to you that you are out of order.

  BOX MAN: (Off.) Hear, hear!

  CHAIRMAN: You do not ‘know all about me’, as you put it, neither will you do so.

  CHAP: I would like to support the Chairman on that.

  GIRL: You would, but we’ll have a right gusher of North Sea Gas out of you and your dreary life before this is over. I know that.

  BOX MAN: (Returning.) Do you want me to sort him out, Missus?

  GIRL: No, just shut up.

  CHAIRMAN: (To the BOX MAN.) Did you have an enjoyable slash?

  BOX MAN: Are you taking the mickey?

  CHAIRMAN: No, I was asking what I thought was a friendly question.

  BOX MAN: Well, I tell you, doesn’t half pong in there!

  CHAIRMAN: Yes, well I’m afraid we’ve been trying to put that right for years.

  BOX MAN: When I think of what ordinary working-class people like me –

  GIRL: You’re not working-class, you’re just a loud mouth.

  CHAP: As well as pissed out of your arsehole.

  GRANDFATHER: Oh dear, I wish you wouldn’t.

  OLDER LADY: I rather enjoy the freedom of expression of these young people.

  GIRL: What do you mean young – he’s middle-aged!

  BOX MAN: When I think of what people like us, people like us who do a real job of work, not like you, you’ve never done a job of work…

  GIRL: Piss off!

  BOX MAN: …pay for their seats with their hard-earned money, and don’t you use that filthy language at me.

  GIRL: Why not?

  BOX MAN: Because you’re an educated woman, and you ought to bleeding well know better.

  GIRL: Well, I’m not educated and I don’t know any better.

  CHAIRMAN: (To the BOX MAN.) I think you’ve made your point, sir.

  BOX MAN: Sing us a song! Oh Christ, I’ve got to go back to that stinking hellhole again! (He blunders out)

  CHAP: (Sings) Oh God our help in ages past,

  Our hope for years to come,

  Our shelter from the stormy blast

  (ALL join in)

  And our eternal home.’

  GIRL: Hymns!

  CHAP: Sort of scraping the barrel.

  CHAIRMAN: To get back to the agenda, if that’s what you can call it – I think we have dealt or at least spent enough time on this dull programme, the cupidity of the author and director –

  CHAP: (At the GIRL.) And the actors.

  CHAIRMAN: I will only add that as you will see, or have seen, or predicted, that this neither is nor was an entertainment –

  CHAP: (In an American accent.) Nor a significant contribution to the cultural life of Our Time.

  GRANDFATHER: Try not to be too nasty about the Yankees.

  CHAP: Very good to us during the war.

  GIRL: Well, they won it, of course.

  CHAP: Yes. Flooded us with food parcels and French letters.

  GRANDFATHER: And after the war.

  CHAP: That’s right. Lease Lend.

  GRANDFATHER: Easy to sneer.

  CHAP: Quite right. At least they didn’t have to ‘Go In’, like ‘Going into Europe’. (Stage lights flash out and either a still or film appears on the projection screen of Mr Edward Heath, smiling and waving to the full blast of the last movement of Beethoven’s ‘Ninth’. They all watch in silence for a few moments, then the picture goes out and the music stops)

  INTERRUPTER: Cheap!

  CHAIRMAN: I quite agree with you, sir.

  INTERRUPTER: He’s doing a good job!

  CHAIRMAN: I quite agree with you about the cheapness aesthetically.

  (The BOX MAN stumbles back)

  BOX MAN: All right for him. What about the poor bloody workers!

  GIRL: (To the CHAIRMAN.) Can’t you get rid of him? I thought you were supposed to have some sort of artistic responsibility or something. BOX MAN: (Shouting down at the GIRL) You know what you need, don’t you?

  GIRL: Don’t tell me, I’ll guess. Not that you could, anyway.

  BOX MAN: I’ll see you later.

  GIRL: Not if I can help it.

  BOX MAN: Here, where’s the bar?

  GIRL: Just leap over the edge of the box, and it’s the first crawl to your left.

  INTERRUPTER: I must say I quite agree! I could do with a good stiff one myself.

  GIRL: It would be the first time.

  (Both the BOX MAN and the INTERRUPTER leave)

  CHAIRMAN: No, it’s not a device I really approve of.

  GIRL: I wish you’d shut up saying ‘device’.

  CHAP: Give him a chance.

  FATHER: I can do Turner Layton doing ‘Transatlantic Lullaby’.

  CHAP: Later. I’m afraid he’s not very good at it.

  GIRL: I thought he was supposed to be dead or something artsycraftsy. (To the CHAIRMAN) Well, isn’t he?

  CHAIRMAN: Oh God, why did I agree to do it?

  GIRL: Because you like pretending you don’t enjoy it.

  CHAIRMAN: Right. That’s the programme. I am the Chairman.

  GIRL: Big deal.

  CHAIRMAN: This girl is a – girl, I suppose. She will – er – do her best –

  GIRL: For the money I’m getting?

  CHAIR
MAN: To stylise, or give some sort of life to, the various personalities – female, I mean – who thread their way through one man’s particular experience.

  GIRL: (To the CHAP) That should send them to sleep all right.

  CHAP: Are they awake?

  CHAIRMAN: Authentic, but not over-explicit, of a man’s lifetime.

  GRANDFATHER: Twentieth century.

  CHAP: (Sings) Booze, twentieth century booze, You’re getting me down.

  OLDER LADY: Well, of course, I was born in the nineteenth century.

  FATHER: I was born in 1900. That’s the same age as the century.

  GIRL: How utterly fascinating.

  CHAP: What the Chairman really means is this young lady –

  GIRL: Thanks.

  CHAP: Will come on with a few bitchy imitations of people she personally dislikes.

  CHAIRMAN: As I was trying to say, I am the Chairman, he is some Chap, she is some Girl, that’s his Father.

  CHAP: Died 1940.

  FATHER: Taught myself to play by ear so I’m not very good.

  CHAP: Oh, I like the way you used to do There’s an Old Fashioned House in an Old Fashioned Street’.

  GIRL: I thought he was supposed to be dead.

  CHAP: Like you.

  (The BOX MAN and the INTERRUPTER return.)

  BOX MAN: Come on then, let’s put a bit of life into it then!

  GIRL: You put a bit of life in it. You haven’t done anything up till now.

  CHAIRMAN: (Pointing to the GRANDFATHER) And this gentleman is this chap’s Grandfather. Except that he’s alive still, and this Chap’s Father’s dead. (Pointing to the OLDER LADY.) As for this lady, she appears to be quite attractive, but as for the rest, I am not sure. At least, not yet.

  CHAP: (To the audience) So sort that out on your tambourines.

  BOX MAN: Jolly good!

  INTERRUPTER: I suppose we needn’t ask if there’s a plot or not!

  CHAIRMAN: Quite correct, sir, you need not. However, I dare say we’ll stick in some safe bit for the audiences, so that they can delude themselves that there is some intention and continuity.

  GIRL: Either way they won’t know.

  CHAIRMAN: Of course.

  BOX MAN: Sing us a song!

  INTERRUPTER: Well, I’m going to complain to the Manager.

  GIRL: Good. You do that.

  INTERRUPTER: What’s more, I shall go and see my MP.

  CHAP: Some southeast Tory, or right-wing Labour timeserver.

  BOX MAN: What about the old-aged pensioners?

  CHAP: You should get an old prick’s pension.

  BOX MAN: They told me it was a musical.