Bad Robot

fembot 1 (7MB)

post haste

Okay, I have been drinkinanidge, and it's not a good ideato be abloggin' at this late hour: but I've been thinkinanidge, on my long walk back from Bentley's,- about how best to explain things about a child-centered and over-analysed science-fiction film series as I see it:

and I have this to say:

In terms of creating a good story, full of elements that serve to enhance it and make it interesting, and then returning to that story and trying to pretend that the elements of the origonal story were part of some 'bigger picture' that you had in your mind all along and that those elements had some other function apart from making the origonal film cool:

StarWars prequels = HighlanderII












StarWars prequels=HighlanderII

remember that people

images stolen from b3ta

The Untenable Missionary Position

There’s a John Grisham novel, (I won’t mention by name; it’s really not important anyway).
There’s a John Grisham novel, about a will left by the gazzzilionist richest man in the world, and his remaining family, what with having been bizarrely over-privileged all their lives, are a bunch of warped amoral parasites,

(I don’t actually hang out with any wealthy trust-fundy people and so I can’t comment on what they’re really like but I will say that Mr Grish paints a believable assembly of monstrously selfish relatives).

In contrast to this odious family; we have a recovering alcoholic lawyer and ‘the distant relative'; who's actually named as the beneficiary.

Alcho-lawyerman must go deep into the jungle and find her where she has been working alone as a missionary with the ‘Hoodafuckarday’ tribe for a number of years. I don’t know if a half-remembered plot from an old John Grish that I got for 50 cent in a charity shop qualifies as ‘a spoiler’; just in case it does, spoiler ahead.

Dipso-solicitor finds her living with the ‘hoodafuck’; apparently in blissful splendid isolation, away from the back-stabbing, double-dealing machinations of the material world. But soon it emerges that all is not as idyllic as it seems: she is caught in a dangerous theological war with the medicine men and their old ways: her position and respect have been bolstered so far by her ability to actually heal the sick, but cut-off and alone for so long she has finally run out of medicine and now when she is called for on for her healing abilities,she can only pray, so nobody is recovering any,ore and she's losing converts…

Oh Dear.

WTF? The family are presented as monstrous ‘Eddie Barzoom’ caricatures, even the Tippler-attorney is flawed, the whole flavour of the story is that this brave girl alone in the jungle is 'the-moral-paragon-untouched-by-the-evils-of-modern-western-civilisation' so honestly John, Mr Grisham, Grish me ol’ pal, ‘the Grishmeister’ WHAT THE BLINKING FLIP IS THIS MELON_FARMER?

Now look, if a person wants to be a missionary and go sell Jesus, I’m not sure I can stop them.( I do feel that there’s something akin to disobeying the main directive about it, but we had St. Patrick so: ‘what-the-hey?’)- But if you go off, to sell Jesus and prayer; then that’s exactly what you should be selling.

Using anti-venom and penicillin and taking advantage, of the understandable assumption (made by those who know no better); that your 'God' helped out in some way is a confidence-trick, plain and simple. It's not moral, it's amoral.

Why is Grish-boys' heroine such a wagon and a half? Well she's not. At least she's not meant to be, I don't think. I mean: It might have been the intention of this book to leave you feeling that ‘people they aint no good’ but I doubt it (says Croker).

I just don’t think 'the Ol' Grisharoo' noticed. That's just probably the way the man thinks'
‘Missionary = good/ Rich folk = bad’.

It's not the way I think, and that's probably why I wanted to throw the book against a wall, but I didn't. I kept reading....

I thought that maybe the ‘Hoodafuckarday’ would just snap and eat her eventually; but no…

That would’ve been to much like a happy ending.

Safe Home

Well the last Post was so very long and wordy that I've decided, as a change of pace, to simply provide you with pictures today.

Below are the nine good pages of a photocopy/zine/comic I put together back in 1994.called 'Organgrinder'.

They were all originally in Black and White but I did a bit of colouring with MSpaint on the first page just for jolly.

What it came out of was a chap wrote a short story, which I (working from a 2000ad annual) translated into a panel-by-panel comic script which was then drawn, I thought brilliantly, by Mike Smyth A.K.A. Mike McGabhann and there you have it.

Not exactly blog friendly- (You'll have to Clicky-to-embiggen I'm afraid) but if I say so meself 'tis definately worth the perusing. My part in making it was the smallest, (I think Mike completely ignored the script after the first four pages, and the story-telling improved dramatically).

Here it is, and SLÁN ABHAILE!

one


two


three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

When Fembots Dream of Electric McGuffins:original

Okay folk, first download this mp3 and while you're doing that, I'll explain:


I'm trying something different today; having sworn off flesh and blood women, for obvious reasons;- I took a couple of food-pills, hopped into my flying car, and went out and bought myself a couple of sexbots, (why not? after all this is 2011).

They're working out so well, in fact, that I have even let them write the blog:
So, without further eloquence; todays' 'Things and also Stuff' was inspired by the fembots' horror when they heard R2D2 described as a 'McGuffin' on the commentary of the Star Wars DVD.

You can listen to their version or read my version, but I recommend you do both at the same time

When Fembots dream of Electric McGuffins

'Sense and Sensibility' is a meaningless title, it just more or less means the same thing twice. This was not always so.

It seems to be that 'Sensibility' used to mean something more akin to 'Sensitivity' and vice versa.*, so the title of the Jane Austen novel: 'Sense and Sensibility' would be more readily comprehensible in modern English if it were re-named 'Sense and Sensitivity'.( One sister is all prudent and careful-like: 'Sense', and the other is all about emotions feelings: 'Sensitivity').

Why and how the words 'Sensible' and 'Sensitive' so dramatically changed meanings since the 1800's ,I have no idea. But they definitely did, and they retain their original meaning in their French, Spanish and Italian counterparts; leading to occasional confusion.*

I'm only bringing it up today to demonstrate that I am aware that words can dramatically change their meaning over a fairly short period of time.

So, you may ask; if I can accept that language is organic and fluid, and that words change meaning over time; can I ever accuse anyone of using a word 'incorrectly',- simply because they attribute a different meaning to it than the one that I have assigned?

Yep. I think I can.

I mean, I think dictionaries are there for a reason: it's all well and good for language to develop, but I do think we should take some pains to slow down this process.
We should slow it down as much as possible so that language maintains it's comprehensibility for as long as it concievably can. We should resist the temptation to happily bounce along tolerating lazy writing, just because it feels less formal.

Don'tcha think?

Getting back to Jane Austen again, isn't it wonderful that we can read something as bitchy and as perfect as:

"Elinor agreed with it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition."

and understand it perfectly?

So I wish today to discuss the sad corruption of one the loveliest elements in the modern story makers' jargon; the 'McGuffin'( corrupted and abused by such greats as George Lucas and Harrison Ford, no less).

We all know what a McGuffin is, right?
Well at least we've all heard of one ,No?
Well at least the term is half-way familiar, Yes?

Oh sod it.

Okay books and films and plays and comics have stories, and, as well as 'lost love' and 'personal relationships' and 'punishment from the gods for saying or doing something silly in the first act', sometimes stories have 'McGuffins'.


The McGuffin is the name for a story element coined by Alfred Hitchcock, the importance of the McGuffin lies usually in its' perceived importance; a McGuffin is... a McGuffin should be....ummm ...er... they get the figs and they get the dough and they kind of....

Oh never mind: here's a couple of definitions culled from the electric tube omni-brain we call the web:

"a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction"
^ MacGuffin, Princeton University, WordNet 3.0


" a device or plot element that catches the viewer’s attention or drives the plot. It is generally something that every character is concerned with."
^http://www.essortment.com/all/alfredhitchcoc_rvhd.htm



"a term for a PlotEnablingDevice, i.e., a device or plot element in a movie that is deliberately placed to catch the viewer's attention and/or drive the logic of the plot, but which actually serves no further purpose - it won't pop up again later, it won't explain the ending, it won't actually do anything except possibly distract you while you try to figure out its significance. More specifically, it is usually a mysterious package or superweapon or something that everyone in the story is chasing."
^http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?McGuffin

Main Entry: McGuffin
Part of Speech: n
Definition: in film, a plot device that has no specific meaning or purpose other than to advance the story; any situation that motivates the action of a film either artificially or substantively; also written MacGuffin
Etymology: Alfred Hitchcock's term, based on a story where this device was used in a story set on a Scottish train
^Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon


I could get more but I'm sure that basically you get it by now.I'm also sure that you've noticed that definitions of this word fall into two types: a general one and a specific one, and that these differ on one important point,i.e. is a McGuffin a catch-all term for all plot devices such as diamonds, the microfilm, unobtainium e.t.c.? - or does it only refer to things which seem important but never are?In other words; to qualify for true Mcguffin status, must they invariably transpire to be not as important as they seemed?

A dictionary will not help us here, because the fact is this is contested ground. Hitchcock invented the word, but he did not give it a specific definition.

He said:

"It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?", and the other answers "Oh that's a McGuffin". The first one asks "What's a McGuffin?". "Well", the other man says, "It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands". The first man says "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands", and the other one answers "Well, then that's no McGuffin!".

So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all..."

Oh Hitch, you lovable old wind-bag. Only you could be so maddeningly enigmatic and so completely specific at the same time. Don't give us such a great word and such a central term to your whole philosophy of storytelling and then tell us that it means nothing at all! Unless...

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what I believe to be of paramount importance in this anecdote, is the setting. Why? I ask you, did Alfred set his illustrative parable on board a train? Perhaps you feel that it's for no other reason than that's as good a place as any for strangers to discuss luggage. You may be right.

I do not concur.
Let us listen to the evidence again and consider the setting and the interchange in situ:

"It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?", and the other answers "Oh that's a McGuffin".

Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack,Clackety-clack,...

The first one asks "What's a McGuffin?". "Well", the other man says, "It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands".


Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack,...



The first man says "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands",
and the other one answers

Clackety-clack,Clackety-clack,Clackety-clack,

"Well, then:

Clackety-clack,Clackety-clack,

that's no McGuffin!"

Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack,...

Whistle and steam

The train enters a tunnel and the carraige is plunged into darkness.

When it emerges back into the light, the scotsman, his mysterious package and his interrogative companion are nowhere to be seen: in their stead, a portly middle aged man in a black suit with a large bow fiddle case. He undoes the clasps on the case and opens it revealing... nothing. Not even a bow fiddle. He turns, looks directly into the camera and with a dead-pan expression says:

"So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all..."

Okay so I overdid it on the end bit, so really just consider the MacGuffin as far as the tunnel. From the time that our Caledonian traveller places his strange parcel on the rack it becomes the focus of the story.
We are then told a name and we get to wonder what the name means.
We anticipate new knowledge, and not until we hit that tunnel are we aware that we've simply met a Scotsman who has a roundabout way of telling people to mind their own business.

It matters not a jot.

Why? Because simply speculating on the elusive McGuffin has already taken us miles into our journey.

That, as I see it, is the true nature of the Hitchcockian McGuffin. To simply lend an interest and focus as the story begins; simply to get us past those first few train stations,and suburbs and deep into unknown territory.

With this in mind as a McGuffin we can see what a perfect example we have in Psycho. A woman steals money and skips town. The audience wonder:'Will she get away with it?', 'Will she just bring it back?','Will she get caught?', nobody wonders 'Will she get chopped up in the bathroom by a lunatic transvestite when she's taking a shower?'
This is because we are every bit as distracted by the McGuffin, as the traveller was intrigued by the parcel.

It's like telling someone to pay specific attention to the fact that 'T.S. Eliot' is an anagram of 'toilets', and that when T.S. Eliot described the the ‘meaning’ of a poem - he compared it to a bone thrown by a burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind while the poem goes about its own, deeper business: he was describing his version of a McGuffin and the anagram of his name is of no importance.

I hope I have gone someway to illustrate the McGuffin as I interpret it and why I believe it is erroneous of George Lucas to describe the plans for the Death Star as a McGuffin.

And why neither 'the Ark' nor 'the crystal skull' nor the 'holy grail's is a McGuffins no matter what Harrison Ford claims.

Hitchcock left us with a parable, not a definition, so the borders of McGuffindom are hard to patrol; between 'diamonds', 'rosebud', 'secret formulae' and 'letters of transit' there are a lot of maybes and few 'pure' examples of what he was getting at, but one thing I am sure of:

Death Star plans aint it. Whatever the man on the train was up to, he wasn't looking for Ould Ben Kenobi.

It can be argued that McGuffin has been so widely mis-used for so long that the word no longer actually means what it meant and that it has now gone the way of 'sensibility'.

If this is true, I can think of nothing more tragic:
The McGuffin gone: the loss of a great word, from a great man, for a great concept


and a victory to ignorant indifference.

Maltese Falcon part five

THE THRILLING CLIMAX OF 'THE MALTESE FALCON MAY BE ALREADY TAKEN':

FOUR: (to five) How y’getting on?

FIVE: What? yeah, I’m just…you’ve taken it into some strange areas.
I don’t know what it is your tryin to say…

FOUR: Finish it. Let me know what you think of the endin’

(pause)

THREE: Okay not a play, but Leo Colgan right? He had a great idea for performance art…

ONE: Performance art is called Live art now they changed it.

THREE: Yeah?

ONE: Yeah like Windscale to Sellafeild.

THREE: What’s windscale?

ONE: Sellafeild is Windscale.

THREE: What’s Sellafeild then?

ONE: Look never mind, go on with your story.

THREE: Okay! Leo Colgan Right this was his idea:, you come out. No wait, there’s a flame like a candle or a bottle of gas or anyway there’s a ‘pilot’ flame.

ONE: Yeah

THREE: And then this guy comes out on all fours right? And he’s totally naked with one candle say there, in between his fingers and another candle sticking out of his hole. And he lights the candle out his hole and then he turns around and he lights the one in his hand and says, y’know like ‘Groucho Marx’: "Who says you cant burn the candle at both ends?" and then he waddles off.

FOUR: Genius.

ONE: And what’s that got to do with anything?

THREE: I’m just sayin’

TWO: Tell-you-what? Do you have any black insulation tape?

FOUR: I’ve some in the kitchen why?

TWO: Where? Can I have a bit?

FOUR: Sure one second (he gets up) Why?

TWO:( standing)No tell me where it is, I’ll get it.
(five takes out a pen and starts making notes)

FOUR:Okay I think there’s some in the tool box- What d’you want it for?

TWO: Yeah, in the toolbox yeah?

FOUR: There’s some in the toolbox, in the top of it, and the toolbox is in the red press.

TWO: (leaving)In the red press in the kitchen?

FOUR: Yeah but c’mere…

ONE: Leave’em off.

FOUR:(to five:) Whaddya doin’?
FIVE: Give us a minute.(pause)

FOUR: Wine anyone?

THREE: How are we for more?

FOUR: I think I should have one more hang on…(moves toward kitchen)

TWO: You can’t come in!

FOUR: What?

TWO: No please. One second. I’ll be out one second only you can’t come in…

THREE: What’s happenin?

FOUR: I dunno.

ONE: Loo-lah. (pause)

FOUR: Look, can I go into me own Kitchen please, we need wine here.

TWO: ONE SECOND!

FOUR: I liked that Leo Colgan thing.

ONE: (to three)You should do it!

THREE: Ah no it’s his thing, besides it’s a lot of trouble to go to for one gag. Plus.

ONE: Nudity

THREE: indeed. plus

FOUR: Plus hot candle wax dribbling down your nether regions.

THREE: Zactly.

ONE:(taking out a fag and pointing it) Here’s one thing y’don’t see

FOUR: What?

ONE: In plays nowadays. You should put a fag in it.

FOUR: What like a fag fag?

ONE: Hear me out.

THREE: As a character?

ONE: No for smokin’

THREE: I think it’s been done.

ONE: OR HAS IT?

THREE: No. I think the ground-breaking innovation of a smokin’fag in a play is a bit of a convention by this stage.

ONE: OR IS IT?

THREE: Are you just gonna keep doing that?

ONE: No hear me out. It’s against the law.

THREE: It’s against the law.

ONE: Yes it is, OR IS IT?

THREE: Stop. Just stop.

ONE: What I mean is, what happens nowadays… no honestly…what happens nowadays if you go and see a play and there’s a bit where someone is havin’ a fag?

FIVE: I dunno they have a fag. What’s the point?

ONE: When someone has a fag, when someone had a fag in the beforetimes YES! and I agree right enough but in the nowtime they wont do it. They wont do it because the law, you see so instead they have these- what do they make them out of? really really really horrible stinky herbal things.

THREE: oh yeah.

FOUR: oh yeah they’re rotten.

ONE: they are, they are rotten and even if you sit far back they really.

FOUR: They stink out the place.

THREE: They stink out the place yeah.

ONE: They stink out the place and not only That but like for five or ten minutes even afterwards oaaaaaak! rotten.

THREE: Rotten.

ONE: And the smell just hangs around then.

FOUR: Those herbal fags do stink.

ONE: They stink and they undermine the actor because They try and accent and costume an’ all, I mean nobody believes but the point is convincing.

FOUR: Convincing.

ONE: And a stinky herbal fag is not only unconvincing, it’s… It’s a reminder y’know?

FOUR: yeah.

ONE: worse than a pantomime horse. So, ‘what-would-happen-IF…?

(two goose-steps in from the kitchen, trousers rolled-up, hair slicked to one side. Under their nose is a small square of insulation tape. two Sings:)

TWO: Zerse a flahr zat grows in the meadow!
hapapabommebomme,
Unt her name
hapapabommmebomme,
Erica!

(one: claps)
TWO: Ein Volk! Ein Reich! I’ne losing me moustache hang on a second.
(goes back to the kitchen)

THREE: What the fuck was that?

ONE: Priceless.

FIVE: Sorry , what’s goin’ on?

TWO: (offstage) All the glue gone off… hang on I’l clip another bit.

FOUR: You’re grand ,you’re grand.

THREE: We get it!

TWO: (re-emerging)What you think?

ONE: Brilliant!

TWO: Yeah?

THREE: That was the best Charlie Chaplin I’ve ever seen.

TWO: How was it Charlie chaplin?

THREE: Because you were better back in the days when you were silent.

TWO: no it was Hitler.

ONE: Y’don’t say?

FOUR: Hitler

THREE: Hitler. Look. call me a purist.

ONE: No. It was good.

THREE: Why was he singing? You never, Hitler’s not normally singing.

TWO: I know that’s just me kind of… developin’ the character.

FOUR:(to two:) Well develop yourself back into the kitchen and bring in the vine. Mein Herr

ONE: What was I sayin’? yeah. Fags. What-would-happen If…

THREE: If?

ONE: Smoke real fags.(two returns)

TWO: There’s the wine.

FOUR: Smoke real fags?

ONE: Yeah.

FOUR: That’s the innovation.

ONE: Just light it up (he lights the lighter)

FOUR: Hang on wait a second.(three: blows out the flame)

ONE: Honestly why don’t they? Seriously, Who’s gonna go up in the middle of a play and go "You can’t smoke here, stop the show"

FOUR:That’s not the point.

ONE: That is the point.
FOUR: No the point is, People have allergies and sinuses and half-a lung-to-begin-with or whatever . They might not interrupt the show but you’re making them uncomfortable, and you’re breaking the law. At least one of which is wrong but only one of which you can be prosecuted for.

ONE: ah well, Fuck it, If I cant smoke onstage might as well have one here.(lights lighter)

THREE: Actually do you mind?

ONE: What?

THREE: I have sinus problems that are aggravated by cigarette smoke.

ONE: (extinguishing lighter) Are you serious?

THREE: No. (ONE: relights lighter)

FOUR: Even if you’re not, I am.

ONE: What?

FOUR: No smokin’ in the gaff.

ONE: Ah c’mon!

FOUR: No I’m serious the flatmates’ll go ballistic.

FIVE: You know what you need?

FOUR: A balcony, I know.

FIVE: Allow me to re-phrase, you know what this play needs?

FOUR: What?

FIVE: A point.

FOUR:A Point?

FIVE: yes. a point. Banter is all very well, and you do make some points, you make some valid points about the medium. But I’ve read this. I’ve finished it.(to two:) There is some crying.(to four:) not crazy about the way it ends. Can I ask you a question?

FOUR: Sure.

FIVE: Do You hate theatre?

FOUR: You think I hate theatre?

FIVE: Well yeah that’s just the impression. I don’t I mean. This, I’m sorry to tell you but this isn’t a play. This is not what a play is. That’s not to say I didn’t get a kick out of readin’ it. Or people wouldn’t enjoy it. parts anyway. but god if ever anything insisted upon itself…

FOUR: What d’you want me to do?

FIVE: I want you to think about your audience. An’ I want you to think about realism.

FOUR: I’m thinkin’ about them.(pause) I’m sorry I really need to go to the jax.

ONE: I’m next.

FOUR: There’s another bathroom under the stairs.

ONE: Deadly.

THREE: I’m after you.

(four:,ONE: and three: exit. Pause. Sound of ONE pissing like a racehorse)

TWO: I’m gonna need to go soon.

FIVE: Oh have you somewhere?

TWO: No. I mean if I don’t want to wet myself.

FIVE: Oh right.

(The sound of(ONE) stops. four: returns)

TWO: is it free? (ONE: returns)

ONE: Under the stairs is free.

TWO: Thank god (two: exits)

(The sound of somebody(two) pissing like a racehorse)

FOUR: God it’s really loud in here, is that from under the stairs?
(pause) we hardly ever use that one.

FIVE: I can see why.
( two’s wee sound stops .three: returns)
FOUR: I was to think about my audience.

FIVE: Yes. do. Is there one free?- back in a moment. But here’s a question, How much realism is necessary?(exits)

FOUR:Realism.

ONE: realism.

FOUR: how much is too much? (two stops pissing)

ONE: I’m getting another can.(exits)

FOUR: How much is too much?

( The sound of grunting and the smell of ammonia fills the air)

THREE: Christ!

FOUR: What? (shouting) Ah Close the door!

(muffled sound of two:) It is closed!

THREE: Jesus Christ! I’m goin to the kitchen.

(ONE: returns)
FOUR: Open the windows in there.

ONE: what? What’s the smell?

THREE: Never mind. I think now’d be a good time to go out and have that fag.

ONE: Yeah?

THREE: I’ll join you

ONE: I didn’t know you smoked.

THREE: I don’t.

(FOUR: reads the script that five: has been writing on)

(five: returns)

FOUR: I’m just readin’ your notes.

FIVE: What’s the whiff?

FOUR: You don’t wanna know.

FIVE: Smells like

FOUR: You don’t wanna know.

FIVE: Where’s?

FOUR:Out havin’ a fag.

FIVE:Are you alright?

FOUR:Yeah.

FIVE:Are you cryin? (He is)

FOUR:Fuck! Smell’s actually makin’ my eyes water.

FIVE:D’you wanna go outside?

FOUR: Nah I think the worst of it’s over.

FIVE: I don’t think you should read the notes

FOUR: How come?

FIVE: I was only writin’ that to get my thoughts straight. I didn’t mean for you to read it.

FOUR: Sure what other way would you write?

FIVE: What?

FOUR: What you write in private is all the more valuable isn’t it?

FIVE: depends

FOUR: on what?

FIVE: Depends on you, depends on how interested people are in you. Getting’ back to Hitler, Mein kampf is a pretty shitty read, but y’know even though that was the form everyone wanted to buy the Hitler diaries.

FOUR:(gesturing to script) It’s dire isn’t it?

FIVE: It’s a bit of a wank, but it has potential.

FOUR: yeah.

FIVE It just doesn’t say anything.

FOUR: Yeah.

FIVE: What do you want to say with it?-D’you want to say, "Look at me I’m so clever?" Innovation for it’s own sake’s not much of a statement.

FOUR: That’s not what I want to say.

FIVE: Then what do you want to say?

FOUR:I want to say ‘Look at this’ because this is all it is. All it is is this and that shouldn’t take from it. I want to say ‘check out what’s really happenin’ here. Reality in counterfeit. Yes.But.… Plot. Any number of plots any number of stories. Like when you’re a kid, a film is real. There all real people, and you get older and you start to notice, I dunno ‘Camera-work’ and ‘isn’t that your man from that carry-on film?’ And it’s not real anymore and you still enjoy it.

FIVE: But you enjoy it for different reasons.

FOUR: For different reasons exactly. You see enough stuff and examine it and then after a while you see it’s all formula. And then it’s like peppy le pew.

FIVE: Speakin’ of which…

(two: returns.)

TWO: Where is everyone?

FOUR: Havin a fag. In peppy le pew it’s always the same. There’s a skunk and a cat and the cat gets a white stripe and the skunk spends all his time trying to seduce her and in the end, the skunk has his smell masked and the cat is chasin’ him and he’s not interested. The same. Always. But after you’ve seen it twice, you know what’s gonna happen so you ask other questions: not ‘How’s it all gonna turn out’ ‘cos you know that. You ask, How is the cat gonna get it’s stripe this time? When and how will the turn-around be?


FIVE:And?

FOUR:
There’s no plot.

FIVE:

I know there’s no plot.
FOUR:
There’s no plot in this play here.

FIVE:
That’s what I’m sayin’.

FOUR:
Because maybe we’re beyond that.

FIVE:
Somehow I doubt that very much.

FOUR:
Maybe it’s time to stop tryin’ to manipulate peoples opinions with false emotion.

FIVE:
Maybe you just don’t have the ability?

FOUR:
Well alright there’s that too but plots, go see a film if you want to see a plot. Films, Films have replaced Theatre, they have. Long time ago, but only the way electric lightbulbs replaced candles. People still like ,want and use candles. They’re not important anymore, the way they used, to be but, lightbulbs… not the same. There’s things you can only do with candles and plots isn’t it.

(three returns)
THREE:
Is the smell gone?

TWO:
What smell?

FOUR:
don’t mind’m

THREE:
is the wine all gone?

FOUR:
Just about.

FIVE:


There’s such a thing as too much realism, and there’s such a thing as being too naked.

FOUR:
There’s some baileys if anyone wants…

FIVE:
The truth is, what this whole thing boils down to, is basically admitting, you’re basically admitting with somethin’ like this that you don’t have enough interest in the world around you to be a writer.

FOUR:
What if this is the world around me?

FIVE:
Well alright if the only problems you have to face in life are aesthetic ones but don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for you.

ONE:
(coming back from the fag break) Oh lads will you ever shut up about it?

FIVE:
I’ne tryin to help my friend.

ONE:
Are you though?

TWO:
I think I’ll try that Baileys. Where is it?

FOUR:
Over the red press,and bring in some more glasses. should be on the sink.

FIVE:
You just need,You just need.

THREE
: You need a drink!

FIVE:
No listen to me. Concentrate. This important.

(one: belches)

THREE
: Oh very lady-like

ONE:
Fuck off.

FIVE:
You need to think about, seriously.

FOUR:
what?

FIVE:
Okay. On your own. On your own, up! up!

FOUR:
(getting up) Up where?

FIVE:
Not you. Everybody else, Up!(one: and three: rise)

ONE:
What’s goin on?

THREE:
Don’t ask me.

FIVE:
Now there!(he gestures to the audience) Blank wall. see? That’s your audience.

(two: returns with the tray in his hand, there are four glasses of baileys on it.)

THREE:
Ladies and Gentlemen a toast! – to the audience!

ONE:
Huzzah!

FOUR:
Hang on what’s goin on?

(two: looks at the tray)
TWO:
hang on I have an idea!

(two: goes back to the kitchen)

FIVE:
An audience, sooner or later- you have to face them. An’ account for yourself. So this is just, Just an exercise. WE’ll go.

ONE:
To the kitchen!

THREE:
Huzzah!

FIVE:
We’ll go to the kitchen, and you think.

ONE:
and we drink.

FIVE:
And no, listen, talk to ‘your audience’. We won’t listen, talk to your audience and just simple statement. Say what you want to say. When you know what that is, then you can give it a bash. So you just say it. Whatever it is, and then maybe, how will we know? Then you say: ‘The End’ only loud. And we can come back in.

FOUR:
I don’t see the point.

FIVE:
Shushsh,do it, you need to do it. For yourself. ‘The End’ and then we come back in and we’ll all bow.

FOUR:
Why?

FIVE:
To the audience.
(two: emerges with. a larger insulation tape moustache and a floppy chef’s hat on Holding the tray like a palette and dipping a chopstick into it, as if it were a paintbrush.)

TWO:
I ham leonarrdo da veeenchy! I know very many feeelosophy and syanse, I learn eet froomaybook!

FIVE:
Come on out! everyone out!

THREE:
This place is a fuckin’ madhouse.

TWO:
I know naatheeeng

(everyone leaves)

(four: looks at the audience and is about to speak, then sighs.

To kitchen,)
You’re too quiet, I know you’re listening.

THREE:
We’re not!

FIVE:
Shut up!- We wont listen, I’ll tell you what,- we’ll sing!

ONE:
We’ll sing?

TWO:
I know naatheeeng

THREE:
What’ll we sing?

ONE:
Dunno you start it.

THREE:
me?

FIVE:
Just do something anything.

ONE:
Okay Okay,(sings)
If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me

(one:three: two: and five: all together)
Woooooo no baby please don’t go.
(one,two AND three continue to sing all through the next bit, but don’t know the words)

FOUR:
(to audience)Hello audience (back to the kitchen) Ah no I cant!

FIVE:
Just do it!

FOUR:
(to audience) Okay then the truth. The truth is. The truth is I don’t have anything to tell you. Nothin’ that you don’t already know anyway. I just hope you don’t get bored. (back to the kitchen)Okay you can come in now!

FIVE:
‘THE END’

FOUR:
WHAT?

FIVE:
You forgot to say ‘THE END’

(Shouts) THE END!

(one:,two:,three: and five: come in from the kitchen and bow obsequiously)