UPPER CLASS ASBOS. A sketch
CAST:
A man 
20-30s, casually dressed for the weekend
20-30s, casually dressed for the weekendA duffer60+ years old, tweed, cravat, brogues, white hair, ‘tache
60+ years old, tweed, cravat, brogues, white hair, ‘tacheEXT: Day. A bus stop in England. Man stands, reading a daily paper. He is clearly wearing an iPod and singing along,to some ABBA, with gusto but not much lyrical knowledge.
MAN
(adlib singing) Money money money, always sunny, in a rich-man’s world. Money money money, stew a (beat) bunny? In a (beat) something world. (ludicrous falsetto and awkward skipping on the spot)Ah-AHHHHHH! AH-AH-AH-AHHHHH! I could (beat) skip to the loo! If my (beat) botty got all runny. Something rich-man’s world . . .
ENTER: CRUSTY OLD DUFFER
As the singing ends, he totters on, elderly, not to good on his feet. Stands next to man. Clearly barmy.
DUFFER
Good day to you sir. A goodly day. Pip pip and whatnot.
MAN
(removing earphones) Sorry what?
DUFFER
A greeting dear chap, a mere how does thee do. Fear not, I’m no mugger. And despite appearances, no rapist neither. Although, I did once nudge up against Thora Hird at the Imperial War Museum.
MAN
Right. Hello (goes back to his earphones)
DUFFER
May I ask, what you’re enjoying with such merriment on your wireless?
MAN
(removing earphones, irritated now) On what?
DUFFER
The wireless, old boy. Your portable doodah. Whatever you whippersnappers call them. Your Walkabout Transistor.
The Stroller-ma-tune.
MAN
“Mamma Mia.” The movie soundtrack.
DUFFER
Ah, “The ABBAs” is it? My godmother – God rest her feet - is a huge fan of The ABBAs. Enormous. 32 stone in her kagoule. Brassiere like Rick Waller’s Hammock. She saw that er Momma Dearest -
MAN
Mamma Mia.
DUFFER
That’s the chap. Saw it on stage in – where was it -?
MAN
New York?
DUFFER
No no, the other one. Nantwich. Loved it. Goes every year. Anyhap, we were at the picture house last week. I forget what we were watching. Porn if I recall. And we saw a preview for the film whassit. Mia Farrow.
MAN
Mamma Mia.
DUFFER
And back again. To which I spiritedly responded, “Mamma Mia - Here we go again!”
MAN
Literally priceless
DUFFER
She punched me in the gums of course but then, it’s no more than I deserved. Not my thing at all, The ABBAs, No offence. Give me an old 78”. Glen Miller. Louis Armstrong. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.
MAN
Is there something I can help you with? A Wether’s Original. I might have a packet of Euthanasia if you’re peckish?
DUFFER
Well yes, but to a lesser extent – yes. See, that’s the rub my dear. I’d absolutely hate to be a bore. Or indeed to be the drummer in Matt Bianco. But dash it all, I’ve come out without the old wallet. Plum duff forgotten it. I’ve a head like a sieve. Like a sieve.
MAN
Forgetful?
DUFFER
Aluminium. What I’ve done, incontinent old duffer that I am, I’ve given my wallet to my brother. Leathery looking thing, broken zip, tan coloured, smells a bit of snuff.
MAN
Your wallet.
DUFFER
My brother. Not Howard, you understand. Hector. Wouldn’t trust my wallet with Howard.
MAN
Right. (big sigh. Losing patience). Shifty, is he?
DUFFER
No, he’s dead. Dead and buried. Well (beat) definitely buried. Japs got him. Snipers. Took his skull right off.
MAN
In the war?
DUFFER
In the Arndale Centre.
MAN
I’m going to walk away now.
DUFFER
So what I’m wondering old sport, old bean, old fruit, (sings in booming baritone) Old maaaan riverrrr. Is, as I’m temporarily light (pats pockets) if I could impede on you for some cash?
MAN
You need some money?
DUFFER
One stout, beef and Yorkshire pudding Englishman to another. In the name of camaraderie, Coleman’s mustard & a one day test match.
MAN
(beat) Is there someone who looks after you?
DUFFER
Might you spare farthing for a crusty old duffer. Be a good egg.
MAN
(Takes out wallet - just to be rid of him) If you promise you’ll stop (beat) breathing.
DUFFER
Ahh, splendid fellow. You remind me of my brother Hector. Very good at cake decorating he is. Masterful. Or is it masturbation? Hmmn. Which is the thing where you squeeze the bag and all the cream comes out of the top?
MAN
That depends. Does Nigella Lawson creep down at night and scoop bowlfuls into her fat mouth?
DUFFER
Yes.
MAN
That’s masturbation.
DUFFER
Thought as much old chap.
MAN
(opening wallet) Fifty pee?
DUFFER
Fifty -? (incredulous) Oh dearie me no. No no. (beat). Yes. But then scribbled out, because no. That’s won’t do. (cross) Is that all you’ve got?
MAN
All I’ve got? No, I’ve got about forty quid, but I mean –
DUFFER
That’ll do it. I’ll have that. And your credit cards. Your VISA-ma-jig, your Masterful card. And let’s have your telephone. And that handsome wristwatch. And that portable disc-jockey oohja.
MAN
Are you kidding me?
DUFFER
Kidding you? Hardly m’boy. I am, howe’er, and here’s where you’re getting befuddled – mugging you.
MAN
Mugging me?
DUFFER
Isn’t it obvious?
MAN
Not screamingly, no.
DUFFER
Why? Because I am bereft of switchblade, afro and kickerboots? Because I was educated at Harrow and enjoy the pleasures of a light operetta over (beat) Britney Minogue?
MAN
(beat) Are you sure there isn’t someone who looks after you?
DUFFER
Here I am on His Majesty’s Highway, demanding your worldly treasures. Do you wish me to accost you? Is that it? Very well! (makes feeble jestures). Accost! Accost!
MAN
(barely noticing) Yes, can you stop doing that?
DUFFER
Scaring you am I? Well, fear is the tool o’ the brigand! And what a tool it is! Have you e’er witnessed such a tool?!
MAN
I think I can honestly say –
DUFFER
So! Wallet, timepiece, telephonic receiver and your stereogram!
MAN
Or -?
DUFFER
(stops silly accosting dance. Hushed, as if off-script)
Beg pudding?
MAN
Or what? Where’s your threat? Mugging by definition requires violence or the threat of violence.
DUFFER
Uhh! For the love of Mike and His Mechanics. Must you force me to lower myself to the act of a cutpurse? Very well. (sighs)
(He spits on his forefinger, wipes it clean. Examines it. All is well. He clears his throat).
Ahem.
(and - sharply and without emotion - pokes the man in one eye).
MAN
Ow! You fuck! (rubs eye) My eye!
DUFFER
It’ll be a nipple tweak before bedtime unless you make good with the booty. Now cough it up before I set brother Howard on you.
MAN
(Very annoyed now) I thought Howard was dead?
DUFFER
Yes, yes, true. Apologies. Brain like a colander.
MAN
Full of holes.
DUFFER
Tupperware.
MAN
I’m walking away now.
DUFFER
But -
MAN
(Lost patience) No. You’re barmy. And I don’t believe you’ve ever mugged anyone in your life. (beat). Have you.
DUFFER
(embarrassed) I mugged my godmother
MAN
You mugged her?
DUFFER
Well, I hugged her. (beat) But yes you’re right. I’m no mugger. Not a burglar, pickpocket, highwayman, pirate or swindler, I. I don’t know what I was thinking. I apologise.
MAN
Forget it. (Man plugs his earphones back in).
AN AWKWARD PAUSE
DUFFER
(tugs on man’s sleeve. Man removes earphones)
I am, however a maniacal suicidal terrorist.
MAN
(frustrated sigh). No. No you’re not.
DUFFER
(cheeky) I am too.
MAN
(final straw.) You want to kill yourself?
DUFFER
Have you never wanted to take your own life?
MAN
Remarkably, not until today
DUFFER
By jove I will take my life even if it kills me. I will take my life in the name of – (thinks)
MAN
(helping along) Islam’s traditional?
DUFFER
No. (ridiculously grandly) For the views of my people. My kin. My brethren. Any kith hanging about the place, in the hall or so on. For we dream. We dream of a time when, on BBC1, Blue Peter will once again have a display by the metropolitan police dog handling team. We dream of a proper Blue Peter tortoise and demand the excitement of seeing it being put in a box full of straw for 6 months. We dream of a day when the presenters shout “I don’t know if you can hear us” over the noise of a military band marching in through the big studio-doors at the back.
And we dream . . . we dream of proper presenters, men’s men. In vests. Who do not retire but go on. ON! To proper spin-off shows such as Go With Noakes (beat) and to a lesser extent, Duncan Dares. (beat) And I will die to see this dream a reality!
MAN
(beat) What happens now.
DUFFER
Now! (beat). I will take an overdose, thus as a martyr, bringing the country to its knees. It’s knees!
MAN
Blimey.
DUFFER
However! It is with regret and no small amount of embarrassment that I realise I have left my Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil Capsules in my wallet. (overly tearful and downcast). Damn you Fate, you fickle mistress.
MAN
(going to comfort him) Now now.
DUFFER
I will not be thwarted! I choose . . . death by (beat) not taking my medicine regularly!
MAN
How long will that take.
DUFFER
(checks watch) I shall be gone in five or ten years.
MAN
Righto. Well, (beat) I’ll uhm, leave you to it. (wanders away, putting headphones back in)
DUFFER
You choose not to remain? Not to stand and witness day after day, year after painful year, the slow steady decay of flesh, the weeping sores, the stench of fungus, rot, blistering pustules and the inevitable slow slow descent to wormy death?
MAN
Er, no thank you. (motions to earphones) The choice between that and listening to Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan singing “Fernando”? Well . . . (beat – thinks - then wanders back to the duffer, settling in). So, tell me more about this “GO With Noakes.”
END
Routine.3 16/11/07
Nice to see you all.
I’m glad you’ve come out. As a comic, it makes things better for me. Without you wonderful people, the audience, the populace, what I do becomes, well, just me alone, shouting in an empty room. Bellowing my opinions at the four barren walls.
Which isn’t something I’m used to doing. Well, not for 20 minutes anyway. My experiences of such things if I recall are normally I get about 5 minutes of paranoid yelping done before 2 burly black male nurses come in wrestling me to the floor and inject Ritalin into my gums.
So once again, thank you. Because you could have stayed home, but you’re out. You’re here. You have chosen to invest your hard earned £3 on the best night of comedy this side of…well the road frankly.
You could, if you were nicer have stayed in. In front of BBC1, munching Doritos and pledging your precious £3 to Children In Need? You could have done that. Like kind people.
Because children are in need. Right now. All over the country. All over the world. Your £3 could have got enough food to keep a Rwandan orphan alive for a month. Closer to home your £3 could keep a bored Swansea teenager in text messages for a whole afternoon.
But no. You’re here.
“It’s my £3, I’ve earned it. I choose to blow it on weak German lager and chuckles. They’re not my children. My children aren’t in need. My kids are fine. Screw ‘em. Children In Need? Lazy pinko draft-card burning sponging parents on the scrounge more like. Fuck ‘em and their mewling offspring. What? Well, maybe your kid wouldn’t be autistic if you’d spent your pregnancy having organic smoothies in Pontcanne instead of standing in the rain with a double buggy outside Spar chain-smoking Rothmans. It’s my £3 and I’m keeping it.”
And God bless you for that. No, I respect that. I truly do.
I’d like to say a fast word about “Children In Need.” Joking aside, children are in need. Most of the children I’ve met are in need certainly. Need of a decent tailor. Need of a strong paternal guide. Need of a slap mostly.
But I do have a problem with Children In Need that I just can’t get past. It’s the frontman. The spokeperson. The face of the show. That fat, ruddy, cheeky smiling stupid face that’s been fronting it for as long as I can remember.
Not Terry Wogan, no. Loveable Terry. I’m actually a fan. Say what you like about Eurovision, which for most people is “nothing.” But Terry does rescue it. 28 countries, 14 hours, every song a belly-dancing wail of jingly-fingered Shakiralikes – but by the time we’re on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tez is on his fifth sweet-sherry and he’s just a drunken Irish pensioner shouting at the telly. “What the fook is this now. Is that a man or a woman. Jesus Mary n Joseph, our Saints Preserve us from these gollywogs and their ongo-bong music.”
I’m talking about Pudsey. Pudsey Bear. Loveable cuddly yellow Pudsey Bear. With his poorly eye and his little cloth spotted bandage. Now I’m reasoning that l’il Pudsey is meant to represent the child in need. They couldn’t use an actual child. That would not only be cruel and exploitative, but merchandising wise, nobody’s going to want a 7 year old paedophile victim complete with bleeding rectum and weeping cold sores as a pin badge, balloon or five foot cuddly plush doll. “Pull the string on his back and he doesn’t say anything. Just like you warned him, eh?”
So what I’m saying is, Pudsey is a representation. An image. Symbolic. An every-child if you wish, and you’re a Chapter Arts crowd, so I expect you do. The charming yellow fluffy bear is symbolic, representing the kind of cause we’re being asked to pledge for. But I won’t. I don’t trust him.
Let’s look at the evidence.
Firstly, the name. Pudsey. Pudsey. That’s not a name. Pudsey. That’s a nickname. Real name? He’s not telling.
What do you do to get a nickname like Pudsey? First, you gotte be called Dave Puds, or Chris Pudsworth or Frank Pudsford. Something like that. Then it’s off to the Terraces at Anfield for you.
“’ello mate, who we got ‘ere den eh?”
“Chris Pudsworth.”
“Pudsford? Puddo? Pudsey? Eyyy, Pudsey! Fellahs! Tarby, Giggsy, Colesy, Waddsy, Twatsy. Eeyyy! It’s Pudsey.”
Little bear’s been hangin’ out in Liverpool. The land of the scrounge. The duck, the dive. The land of the Scouser. Sink a pint / Kick a ball / Punch a Manc / Cry for dad. Home of the popular benefit-cheating Boswells in 74 episodes of “Bread.”
“Heyy we fiddle the sosh!” Well done. “Sink a pint / Kick a ball / Punch a Manc / Cry for dad.”
And what has Pudsey learned from his time in ver pool. Firstly he’s nowhere to be found 364 days a year. The one day a year he does turn up to work, it’s a Friday afternoon. And there he is, milking his lifelong injury, looking for a handout.
A handout for an injury he hasn’t even got! His eye’s fine! Look at it! He’s claiming long term sick, earning millions for sitting on his arse. He ain’t getting £3 out of me.
(approach stage – mic on stand)
Good evening, thank you for that applause. That’s very (beat) optimistic.
My name is Richard Asplin and I’ll be your comedian for the next few minutes, at this, the finest open mic night this side of (beat) well, this side of these chairs here in the front.
I like a bit of chit-chat from the audience if people want to join in, so let’s check you’re in fine voice. “Good evening Balham!”
(response)
Well that was all right I suppose. Not great. It’s okay, some of you are still settling in with your drinks. Some of your are clearly wondering why you’re spending your Monday night being yelled at by Egon out of Ghostbusters.
And the rest of you I assume are estate agents, thinking “Balham? Outer Upper West Dulwich Village I think you’ll find.”
So let’s try that again: “Good evening Outer Upper West Dulwich Village!”
(response)
That’s better. Let me hear you say “yeah!”
(response).
And finally, let me hear you say “Get on with it you speccy twat.”
(response)
Marvellous.
(remove mic from stand and place stand to one side)
I’ll get rid of this. A big hand for Victoria Beckham for holding that for me there. Thanks Vicky. Are you putting on weight? Careful. Remember what they say in Los Angeles. A moment on the lips (beat) and spit. Urgh, nutrition.
Anyway, I should apologise (make twisty, achey motions). I’m a little stiff and achey tonight. I did that thing – we’ve all done it – I woke up in an awkward position. (beat) I was in bed with my mother.
Well come on, somebody has to. She’s all alone now. My father, which is typical of him, is dead. Really, that’s classic dad. That’s him all over. (beat) Literally now of course. He’s . . . all over.
My father actually died when he was just 64 years old. Which is young, right? But what’s worrying is his brother, my Uncle Dennis, dies at the age of 58. And their father, my granddad, actually died – this is true – at his 60th birthday party. (beat). Came as a relief actually, for about 4 hours we all stood looking at him thinking “blimey, granddad’s taking musical statues a bit fucking competitively.”
But for me, this is a worry. Because if dying young is something all the men in my family have in common, along with being tall, wearing glasses and having people shout “heh-heh, it’s the Proclaimers!” when we walk into pubs, then this means that I am now officially, since my last birthday, I can announce to you Balham, (beat) middle Aged.
It’s okay, I don’t need your applause. I do now obviously need a shed and some Werthers Originals, but I don’t need your applause.
There are plusses to being middle aged of course. I’m pretty much my own man now. I can do what I want. Nobody tells me when to go to bed. I can, if I wish, stay up late scaring myself shitless watching terrifying, relentless and harrowing things on television. Things like (beat) Tonight With Trevor McDonald.
Christ that show terrifies me. You know how programmes these days are sponsored by products? “Brought to you in conjunction with Cadburys or Powergen?” Tonight With Trevor McDonald should be sponsored by Chubb, Kevlar and Mace. Kindly Trevor has single handedly made me terrified to leave the house.
(voice) “Tonight, online internet Polish Joyriding Mobile Phone Masts.”
He’s like the fourth newsman of the apocalypse. I don’t go out any more. I just sit in, every night. Terrified. In my hall, on a chair. Bottled water, canned foods, police scanner, a rifle. One of those yellow bodysuits they wore in Outbreak, listening at the door. “What’s out there Trevor? What’s coming to get me tonight?”
(voice) “Tonight? Gypsy holiday home endowment shortfall bird-flu.”
They should get rid of the show. They don’t need the reporting, the half hour. They should cut it right back to the basics. 5 minutes, on the hour, every hour, every channel, every night.
Kindly Trevor pops up: “Do not go out of the house. Stay home. It is not safe. Lock your doors, barricade your windows. Smoke ‘em if you gottem, the world has come to an end. (beat) A report next.”
There are downsides to middle age of course. I now don’t feel able to go to a Multiplex Cinema. No no. I don’t belong there anymore. Not now a Saturday afternoon has become basically an ASBO crèche.
I’m sat there. In m’scarf. I’ve got my Minstrels. My copy of Empire. A bottle of water. Still water. Not sparkling. This isn’t fucking Hollyoaks. And in they come. 16 of them. Four foot tall, hoods up, in a big gang. They’re like Jawas with ringtones. And they sit, yes, behind me. They’re flicking my ears, flicking popcorn at each other, flicking pick and mix on the floor, flicking the V’s at the screen. Why it’s called “going to the flicks” I suppose.
No, I have to go to an Art House Cinema now. That’s where I belong. Although fuck knows why. Sitting infront of 16 prepubescent tracksuited twerps playing the Crazy Frog and shouting “hu-huh, gaylords” during Brokeback Mountain is actually LESS annoying than spending £9 on a wooden bench, no drink, nothing to eat but carrot cake and having some cunt next to me bang me on the knees with his cello case and go “A-hnnn-hnnn-hnnn” everytime someone onscreen makes a joke (beat) in French.
(to audience) We got any arthouse cinema virgins in? Anyone yet to get dragged to Clapham or fucking Hampstead? Well let me warn you. Infact, there should be adverts warning you like there are for piracy:
(Scottish accent) “There’s nothing to beat the big screen excitement of seeing X-Men at the cinema. But some middle-class twats will insist on seeing it at an Art House cinema. The picture will be shit because the screen will be a duvet draped over a couple of chairs. They’ll miss out on the stereo sound because they only have one crackly speaker that they’ve got from a 1978 Grundig Music Centre. And the view will be ruined by some twat who keeps getting up an unfolding his Guardian. Art House Cinemas – no match for (beat), well no match for watching through the window of Currys, frankly.”
But middle age is a time when men should really start getting their life in some kind of order. And when I say “life” I mean “eyebrows.”
I don’t know what the FUCK mine are up to these days.
It’s as if over night, one long spindly wise grey one – the Gandalf of my eyebrows, if you will – saw that my hairline was receding and deided to gather together a merry band of misfits for a quest north.
(Ian McKellen voice) “Come! Come spidery one, come thick one, come strange gingery one, come pubey one that sticks out at an angle. Let us go. Go. Let us travel north across the wide plains of Fore-dor and meet up at the top in a straggly tangled homosexual bundle. “Froooh-dooooh!”
Not that my hairline has any sense of fellowship. Back it creeps, inch by inch, year by year, until one morning morning in the bathroom mirror – bang. One hair. Somehow completely fully grown. But not back here (point at hairline). No, not with the others. HERE. (point to mid forehead). Ba-doinggg. I look like fucking Billy Whizz.
You know those stories they used to tell about Japanese Soldiers in WWII? The ones who got separated from their troop and lost in the jungle, and are still there. No idea the war is over. No idea what year it is? Out on their own? That’s what these hairs are like.
They’re out on their own in no-man’s land and all the troops are calling them back. “Retreat! Retreat! You’re all alone out there! It’s 2008, we haven’t held that position for years! Come back!”
But no, there it is, swaying in the wind, still thinking it’s 1986.
(sing) “I was happy I the haze of a drunken hour . . .”
We’ve got some middle aged people in the audience tonight. Let’s have a show of hands if you’re over 35?
(response)
Excellent. Well I’m glad you’ve come out. I’m glad you’ve made the effort. Because I’m realising that’s what middle age is. It’s making the effort. Going to the movies instead of just watching the DVD. Going to restaurant instead of just going to Tesco every night and picking up a pizza. Or rather “A finest Italian Meal Solution.” Jesus.
I can’t go to restaurants myself. Because I like a cup of tea. They don’t want tea drinkers in restaurants.
You order coffee? Oh they LOVE it. They bend over backwards for the coffee drinkers.
(poncy voice) “Would you like to see the coffee menu sir?”
Coffee menu? Oh I say. Look at that! Filter, cappuccino, macciato, espresso, Americano.”
And it’s made with such care! When it arrives, A big white saucer, a huge white cup. And a dome! A dome of foam! A big foamy domey foam dome! Oh and chocolate sprinkles! It smells so good! And -?What’s this? A biscuit! I didn’t order a biscuit? It’s a gift! A free biscuit! And they’ve gift wrapped it! Oh you’re too kind!”
However – you order tea? You might as well have ordered the fucker flat-packed from IKEA.
(grumpy waiter) “Tea is it mate? Tch. Well awright. Here’s a saucer, there ya go. There’s a cup, that’s upside down, sort that out. Ere’s some hot water, that’ll burn ya. Here’s some milk there, here’s some lemon. There’s yer teabag, that’s in a wrapper, you can sort that out. Here’s some sugar, open that y’self. Napkin, there ya go, some instructions – they’re in Swedish – and a fuckin’ allen key. DO it ya self.”
And I’m always the same.
“Uhm, I ordered tea? I’ll make it shall I? Infact would anyone else like tea? I’m making tea, anyone? I’ve got a brew on.”
And they say “Well, everyone likes different tea don’t they.” And I say “No! No, I just want a cup of tea. Go away, make me a nice cuppa in a mug and bring it over and I’m sure it will be lovely. You’re a barista! An expert in your field. Years of training! Just make me a cup of tea!”
“But we don’t know exactly how you like it.”
“True, but then you don’t know exactly how I like my SOUP either, but when I ordered that you didn’t bring me hot water and a fucking chicken.”
(fetch mic stand, return mic to stand and centre stage)
Before I go, I would like to reassure you about middle age. There are some good points. For example, call it experience, call it wisdom. When you get to your mid-thirties you do find the answers to the big questions of life that troubled you as an adolescent. Questions such as: (beat) Why didn’t Artoo Deetoo have a face?
Threepio? He got a face. Lovely smiley gold shiny face. Glowing eyes. Deetoo? No face.
This unfairness upset me as a teenager. Why was poor Deetoo denied a face?
But then, as I say, you get a little older, a little wiser, and the answer becomes clear.
Of course Threepio got a face. He was an interpreter. A protocol droid. He was mixing with humans, princesses, politicians. He needed the nuances of expression and eye contact.
Deetoo? (beat) Fuck him, he’s a mechanic. We just need to make sure he can do the only 2 things that mechanics need to do: Shake his head, and whistle.
“Pheeeeeweee. X-Wing Fighter is it mate? (shakes head). Aven’t got the parts.”
That’s it.
You’ve been Balham, I’ve been Richard Asplin.
Thank you very much indeed.
(bow, exit).
END
