INTRODUCTION

A Sense of Detachment
The End of Me Old Cigar
Jill and Jack

Helen Osborne

These plays were written in the early 1970s and, contrary to hearsay-history, very dispiriting years they were. With Heath and Wilson as regnant Gauleiters, the miners struck, the lights went out and the Three-Day week came in. Everyone felt miffed.

The infant Women’s Movement not only had a toe in the door but its knees under the table and a knife up its knickers. In the theatre the gleeful celebrations at the long overdue removal of the Lord Chamberlain’s blue pencil had deteriorated into a manic free-for-all. The harmony of language was an early victim. Stuck for an image? Shove in a ‘shit’ or a ‘screw’. ‘Audience Participation’ was the buzz. ‘Happenings’ were hip. No use sitting there with a box of chocs when a hairy actor might crash into your lap. Get up. Join in. And never mind the B.O.

It was not a time for meticulous or passionate wordsmiths. But behind his redoubt, Osborne watched and listened. A Sense of Detachment was his first salvo, and he flipped the futilities of the ‘Theatre of Antagonism’ – accompanied by its smug ‘device of insult’ – upside down.

How the critics hated it, their mimsy, dumpy noses twitching at this rank abuse of an already incipient Political Correctness. Not only the jokes but the ‘joke’ itself blithely passed them by. They were right behind the Girl when she declares, ‘He really has got a bit too predicable now, hasn’t he?’

But not too predictable for some of the punters. ‘I suppose it’s all really about things like music and fucking,’ said Rachel Kempson’s Older Lady as, with crystal elocution, she waded through a pile of ever-more explicit porn catalogues. One evening, a woman in the audience threw her boot at Lady Redgrave, who hurled it back. This was no ‘device’.

The word went out that subversive anarchy, the genuine article, was happily rampant once again in Sloane Square and the limited run quickly sold out. There was a spontaneous party for ‘S’ of ‘D’ fans, led by the cast, on the Royal Court stage. We danced and sang and then whooped off into the night and illicit liaisons. The play made you feel young, cheeky, unfashionably enthusiastic – about undying poetry, romantic music, the tender mystery of love between men and women – and really liberated. Although, as the Chap reminded us, ‘It’s only a vision.’

This is a true piece of theatre. It wouldn’t transfer to film or television. Even the stage directions could only have been written by an actor… (‘As the audience returns, if indeed it does return…’). Pure John Osborne.

You only have to read A Better Class of Person, his first volume of autobiography, to realise how much he plundered his inner life in A Sense of Detachment, how personal it was to him, this stylised threnody to the loss and erosion of English character, genius and gentleness by a concerted and strident coarsening. ‘Woman is dead! Long live woman!’ cries the Chap. And then, ‘I do not believe it. She has always triumphed in my small corner of spirit. Being in love! What anathema to the Sexual Militant!’

The same oblique ‘vision’ feeds The End of Me Old Cigar, with its conventional County House Weekend setting which disguises a Garsington of lechery, and much besides. Regine, the Madame of this militant bordello, and her Amazon troop of call-girls, are working up to Bastille Day when they will blow up not only the reputations of their famous clients but the very notion of ‘Mankind’.

‘Remember,’ says Regine, when issuing her battle directives, ‘it’s the last time over that timeless top and then a New World waits for us.’ The Sisters are assured they are about to ‘re-enter Paradise. On our own terms.’ But hormones and heartbeats are stronger than propaganda, and messy old love gets in the way, as it always will.

At this distance, what I find most moving about these plays, along with their unique voice, their fun and larkiness, is the use of music: Mozart, Mahler’s Fifth, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Handel, ‘Rosenkavalier,’ which would become so familiar, day by day, when John and I were married. Snatches from the Music Hall, of course…and Osborne’s soupy old favourites like ‘In a Little Gypsy Tearoom’ or ‘I’m Only a Strolling Vagabond.’ Gone, but not quite forgotten.

Helen Osborne
Shropshire, 2000

A SENSE OF DETACHMENT

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements are due as follows for permission to quote from copyright material:

For ‘Change Partners’ by Irving Berlin, Irving Berlin Ltd.

For ‘In a Little Gypsy Tea-Room’ by Joe Burke, Campbell, Connolly & Co. Ltd.

For ‘Booze, Twentieth Century Booze’ by Noel Coward; ‘I’m on a See-Saw’ by Vivian Ellis; ‘Room 504’ by George Posford; ‘But Not for Me’ by George Gershwin; and ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’ by Cole Porter, Chappell & Co.

For ‘Call Around Any Old Time’, ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’, ‘Goodnight’, ‘Yankee Doodle Boy’ reproduced by permission of B. Feldman & Co. Ltd., 64 Dean Street, London WIV 6AU.

For ‘The Isle of Capri’ by Wilhelm Grosz, Peter Maurice Music Co. Ltd.

For ‘Goodbye’, ‘Five O’ Clock Shadow’, ‘Meditation on the A30’ and ‘Ireland’s Own’ by John Betjeman, John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.

For ‘Jean’ by Rod McKuen, Twentieth Century Music Ltd.

Characters

CHAIRMAN

CHAP

GIRL

OLDER LADY

FATHER

GRANDFATHER

SHIFTING PLANTED INTERRUPTER

SHIFTING PLANTED INTERRUPTER’S WIFE

MAN IN THE STAGE BOX

STAGE MANAGER

STAGE MANAGEMENT

STAGE HANDS

A Sense of Detachment was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London on 4 December 1972, with the following cast:

ACT ONE

The curtain rises on a virtually empty stage except for a projection screen at the back, a barrel organ downstage and an upright piano. After a slight pause, the principal actors walk on carrying light bent-wood chairs. The actors are the CHAIRMAN, a man in his mid-forties, the CHAP, who is slightly younger, the GIRL, who is younger still, the FATHER, who is about seventy, the GRANDFATHER, who is about ten years older and the OLDER LADY, who is about the same age. They place their chairs in position and look around them, at each other, the stage and all parts of the auditorium.

CHAIRMAN: Well, this looks like a pretty unpromising opening.

CHAP: Blimey, you’re telling me. The Stage Management look more interesting than we do. Or that lot out there. (Indicates the audience.)

CHAIRMAN: Oh, dear, what does one expect?

CHAP: Nothing, I suppose.

CHAIRMAN: True.

(The CHAP goes up to the projection screen)

CHAP: Oh, not one of those.

GIRL: I suppose you realise I haven’t said anything yet?

CHAIRMAN: You will, you will.

CHAP: And paid for it.

GRANDFATHER: Overpaid, I expect.

CHAP: Right.

GIRL: (Pointing to the barrel organ) I hope no one’s going to play that bloody thing. I can’t stand barrel-organs.

CHAP: Oh, we’ll have the bagpipes before we’re finished, I expect.

GIRL: I can’t stand the Scots either.

CHAP: I thought you were Scotch.

GIRL: Scots, you ignorant little bastard.

GRANDFATHER: Oh…is it going to be that sort of language?

GIRL: What sort of language?

CHAP: He means vaguely dirty, like we all use.

GRANDFATHER: I hope nobody’s going to take all their bloody clothes off.

GIRL: Christ, so do I! All those limp, dangling dicks.

CHAP: And tits down to the knees.

OLDER LADY: Oh, I rather like all that.

GIRL: You would, you filthy old woman.

OLDER LADY: What did you say?

GIRL: You heard.

CHAP: Cloth ears. (Points to the FATHER.) I hope this old sod isn’t going to just sit there in his 1930s suit looking mysterious.

FATHER: I shall probably play the piano.

CHAP: You never played it very well.

GIRL: He’s quite attractive.

CHAP: He’s probably another ‘exercise in nostalgia’.

GIRL: Oh, don’t. Those boring TV chat shows!

CHAP: I shouldn’t say that. You might find yourself on one.

GIRL: For what they pay?

CHAP: All you seem to do is talk about money.

GIRL: And why not? You don’t think I get much from this bloody mean management, do you?

CHAP: Well, it’s boring.

INTERRUPTER: (From the stalls.) Hear, hear!

GIRL: Piss off!

GRANDFATHER: I may be old-fashioned…

GIRL: You are –

GRANDFATHER: But I still don’t think young girls should talk like that.

CHAIRMAN: Not as old-fashioned as some of us.

INTERRUPTER: Dead right.

OLDER LADY: What did that man say?

GIRL: Some balls.

OLDER LADY: Who is he? Do we know him?

CHAP: Oh, I think he’s participating, or something.

CHAIRMAN: No, just an obvious over-familiar theatrical device.

CHAP: Won’t be the last one, either.

GRANDFATHER: Do you think we should offer him his money back?

GIRL: No, I don’t!

CHAIRMAN: He’s lucky to be here.

CHAP: He doesn’t think so.

GIRL: He doesn’t think anything just as long as he gets his salary at the end of the week. Can’t wait for mine.

CHAP: Watch it. Or we may not be here tomorrow night at all.

GIRL: They’ve still got to give me two weeks’ money.

CHAP: God, you are a Scot, aren’t you?

CHAIRMAN: I don’t think we should be nasty about the Scots. They’ll think we’ve got it in for them, or something.

CHAP: Why not?

GIRL: Who cares?

CHAIRMAN: Exactly. Who cares?

GRANDFATHER: Good malt whisky.

GIRL: You’re not going to burble on like that all the time, are you?

OLDER LADY: He’s never been very interesting, I’m afraid.

CHAP: Ah, ‘the theatre of antagonism’.

CHAIRMAN: The ‘device of insult’.

GRANDFATHER: Oh, what a piece of work is Man…’

CHAP: Oh, belt up.

GIRL: I must say quoting Shakespeare is pretty cheap.

CHAIRMAN: Let’s face it, it’s all pretty cheap.

CHAP: We’re pretty cheap.

GIRL: I’m not.

CHAP: Yes, we know about you. You’re expensive.

GRANDFATHER: ‘Oh, what a piece of work is Man…’

CHAP: Alas, poor old prick, I knew him well.

GRANDFATHER: How does it go on?

CHAP: ‘A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy’ He has bored the arse off me a thousand times.

GIRL: Who?

CHAP: (In a Shakespearean yokel type voice.) Why, he that is mad and sent into England!

GRANDFATHER: I suppose all life is a theatre.

CHAP: And all theatre is laife.

GIRL: What a profound insight!

CHAP: You mean obvious?

GIRL: Naturally.

INTERRUPTER: Is it all going to be as formless as this?

CHAIRMAN: Yes.

CHAP: I expect so.

GIRL: You try learning the bloody stuff. I’ve forgotten half of it already.

INTERRUPTER: (From the stalk) You’re trying to have it all ways, aren’t you?

GIRL: As the actress said to the bishop.

INTERRUPTER: Do you think we can’t see through this?

GRANDFATHER: I shouldn’t think he’ll sit through it.

GIRL: He will.

CHAP: We know, he’s paid for it.

CHAIRMAN: Yes, I think we’ve had enough of him for a bit, don’t you?

CHAP: Bit of your old Pirandello, like.

CHAIRMAN: (To the INTERRUPTER) Yes, I should go to the bar and have a drink.

GIRL: Don’t think the Management will pay for it!

CHAP: I suppose that’s a character trait, is it?

GIRL: What?

CHAIRMAN: Well, I suppose we’d better make some sort of start, though I don’t know why.

GIRL: You either freeze to death or boil your knickers off.

INTERRUPTER: (Walking out of the auditorium) Bloody right! Load of rubbish!

CHAP: (In a pompous voice.) Hear, hear!

INTERRUPTER: My small boy could do better than this.

CHAP: Yes, I bet he likes small boys an’ all.

(NOTE: If there are any genuine interruptions from members of the audience at any time, and it would be a pity if there were not, the actors must naturally be prepared to deal with such a situation, preferably the CHAIRMAN, the CHAP or the GIRL. These can be obvious, inventive or spontaneous, apart from the obvious responses like ‘Piss off, ‘Get knotted’, ‘Go and fuck yourself if you can get it up, which I doubt from the look of you ‘, etc.

These could he adapted to the appearance or apparent background, like:

‘Get back off to the shires, you married poufr,’

‘If you’ We Irish, get out of the parlour.’

‘And I hope the ship goes dozen in Galway Bay.’

‘Get back to Golders Green, you hairy git.’

‘Why aren’t you in the West End, watching some old tatty expensive shit?’

The INTERRUPTER can return at any of these with any of the following abusive lines:

‘What we want is family entertainment.’

‘When you’ve had a hard day’s work, you don ‘t want to sit and listen to a lot of pseudo-intellectual filth.’

‘Bourgeois crap.’

‘Do you expect to get the young people into the theatre this way?’

‘Who cares about them ? What about us?’

‘All too obvious, I’m afraid.’

‘Like it doesn’t do anything for me, man.’

‘I hope that the women are being paid the same as the men.’

Like what’s it all for, man?’

‘They did all this in the 1930s, only better.’

‘I’m glad I haven ‘t got any money in the show.’

And so on)

CHAIRMAN: Now where were we?

GIRL: Nowhere.

CHAP: Absobloodylutely nowhere.

(From the loudspeakers comes the lush sound of the Adagietto from Mahler’s ‘Fifth’. They all listen in silence for a while.)

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?

CHAIRMAN: 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.