by Tom Stoppard
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Yes——
MCTEAZLE: Sorry.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Not at all.
(The CHAIRMAN has hurriedly wiped the board clean and is putting his underpants back into his brief case.)
FRENCH: What is that?
WITHENSHAW: Pair of briefs.
FRENCH: What are they doing in there?
WITHENSHAW: It’s a brief case. Paragraph 5.
FRENCH: What stage are we at, Mr. Chairman?
WITHENSHAW: Second reading of the draft report, Mr. French.
FRENCH: When was the first reading?
WITHENSHAW: Haven’t you gone through it?
FRENCH: Yes. Last night.
WITHENSHAW: That’s when it was. Do you really want me to go through the whole thing again? It’s pure formality.
FRENCH: That may be so, but there is a way of doing things, and if we’re not going to do them in that way let it be shown in the proceedings of this Select Committee that the Committee voted on that point.
WITHENSHAW: Very well.
(Very rapidly.)
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Propose.
MCTEAZLE: Second.
WITHENSHAW: Favour.
ALL (except FRENCH): Aye.
WITHENSHAW: Against.
FRENCH: No.
WITHENSHAW: Carried.
(Even more rapidly, absolute breakneck speed because it’s pure ritual.)
FRENCH: Division.
WITHENSHAW: Division. Mr. Chamberlain.
CHAMBERLAIN: Aye.
WITHENSHAW: Mr. Cocklebury-Smythe.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Aye.
WITHENSHAW: Mrs. Ebury.
MRS. EBURY: Aye.
WITHENSHAW: Mr. French.
FRENCH: No.
WITHENSHAW: Mr. McTeazle.
MCTEAZLE: Aye.
WITHENSHAW: Carried.
MADDIE: Line down the middle?
WITHENSHAW: Line down the middle.
(FRENCH is slightly surprised by this.)
Committee divided 4–1.
MADDIE: Home win.
WITHENSHAW: Home win. Mr. French lone scorer for visitors.
FRENCH: I beg your pardon?
WITHENSHAW: The terminology of committee practice is in a constant state of organic change, Mr. French. If you can’t keep up you’ll be no use to us. Paragraph 5.
FRENCH: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.
WITHENSHAW: Yes, Mr. French?
FRENCH: We haven’t heard any evidence.
WITHENSHAW: Evidence about what, Mr. French?
FRENCH: You know very well, evidence about what—evidence about 128 Members of Parliament making fools of themselves over a latter day Dubarry and bringing the House into public ridicule and disrepute.
WITHENSHAW (heatedly): Do you believe everything you read in the papers, Mr. French?
FRENCH (also heatedly): I wish to have this exchange of views recorded in the minutes.
WITHENSHAW (at MADDIE’s speed, to FRENCH): Do you believe everything you read in the papers, Mr. French?
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE (at MADDIE’s speed, to FRENCH): It is true that some of us have been feeling up …
(Pause. ALL react to ‘feeling up’ with some trepidation, COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE continues innocently.)
… to now that evidence as such does not exist in these matters.
ALL: Hear (pause) hear!
(FRENCH has taken some time to cotton on to the reason for the rate of speech, because the other Members have tactfully ignored MADDIE. FRENCH goes through various stages of bewilderment and suspicion before noting MADDIE’s writing speed.)
FRENCH: Just a minute—excuse me—is Miss Gotobed a secretary/clerk of the Clerks Department?
WITHENSHAW: Why d’you ask?
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: She can do forty words a minute.
FRENCH: Shorthand?
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: No—talking.
MRS. EBURY: She is seconded from the Home Office.
FRENCH: What is her job there? A manicurist?
MADDIE: I’m a typist.
WITHENSHAW: Miss Gotobed has been recommended, by different people, I understand, in a period of some difficulty.
FRENCH: I was expecting to have Mr. Barraclough, a man of irreproachable credentials——
WITHENSHAW: I believe he has taken early retirement for personal reasons.
MADDIE: Barry has?
WITHENSHAW: I must insist that we get on with the proper business of this Committee.
(FRENCH getting hysterical.)
FRENCH: The proper business of this Committee is to examine witnesses!
WITHENSHAW: If you will be so patient, Mr. French, you will be reminded that paragraph 5 will take cognizance of the evidence heard by this Select Committee in its previous incarnation during last session.
FRENCH: I was not a member then.
WITHENSHAW: None of us were members then, Mr. French. This Committee has suffered the resignation for personal reasons of the previous membership—and for medical reasons, of the previous chairman, Sir Joshua Matlock who dislocated his hip——
MADDIE: Both hips——
WITHENSHAW: Both hips. Nevertheless that evidence, such as it was, is something which I have given due consideration in preparing this draft report. (To MADDIE.) Now. (Generally, at MADDIE’s speed.) Paragraph 5 read as follows. (Normal speed.)
(ALL turn to proper place in draft report.)
Your Committee also had the advantage of having a number of distinguished journalists regaling the Committee with the moving and heroic tale of the struggle of the British press from time immemorial to become independent watchdogs of the people’s right to know; with many reference to flames, torches, swords, pens, grails and the general impedimenta of chivalrous quest …
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE (giggles): Tennyson’s Disease.
WITHENSHAW: … Unfortunately, the witnesses were considerably less helpful on the subject of their sources for the unsubstantiated speculations which were the chief and only reason for the witnesses being called. In the words of Alfred Lord … (pause) your Committee therefore was unable to conclude that the aforesaid speculations had any basis in fact——
MCTEAZLE: Amendment, Mr. Chairman.
WITHENSHAW: Yes, Mr. McTeazle.
MCTEAZLE: Paragraph 5 line 1 before the word ‘journalists’ to omit the word ‘distinguished’.
FRENCH: Then we should examine the editors.
WITHENSHAW: Can we dispose of this amendment?
FRENCH: What about the leading article in this week’s New Statesman? It refers to private information.
WITHENSHAW (jeers): Private information? Gossiping over Bristol Cream in Vincent Square?
FRENCH: That is your assumption only.
WITHENSHAW: Where else would he pick anything up—young pup—what’s-his-name——
MADDIE: Tony.
FRENCH: The editors must be in possession of hard information otherwise they would not let the reporters publish the rumours.
WITHENSHAW: Don’t be a fool, man.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: I’m afraid that that does not always follow, Mr. French.
FRENCH: What about The Times? You’re not suggesting that the editor of The Times—a man of irreproachable credentials—— (Heatedly to MADDIE.) Mr. French proposed: that the editor of The Times …
WITHENSHAW: Not so quickly please.
FRENCH (slowly): Mr. French proposed …
MCTEAZLE (to MRS. EBURY): What do you think of it so far?
MRS. EBURY: Rubbish!
FRENCH (continues slowly): … that the editor of The Times (resuming his normal speed)—whatever his name is——
MADDIE: Willy.
WITHENSHAW (impatiently): This is already dealt with in appendix B. The Times has published no rumours, it’s only reported facts, namely that less responsible papers are publishing certain rumours. That is a written deposition from the editor (rifling through appendix B).
FRENCH: It is not. It is a memorandum from one of the Whip
s who bumped into him in the interval at Covent Garden. Can any one of us truthfully say that we have really examined the editor of The Times?
CHAMBERLAIN: No.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: No.
WITHENSHAW: No.
MRS. EBURY: No.
MCTEAZLE: No.
MADDIE: Not really.
(Or from Stage Right round the table.)
WITHENSHAW: I must insist that we get back to bloody amendment. The question is put—to omit in line one of paragraph 5 the word ‘distinguished’ before the word ‘journalists’. All in favour.
ALL (except COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE and FRENCH): Aye.
WITHENSHAW: Against.
WITHENSHAW: Arsenal 3 Newcastle 2. Scorers McTeazle, Chamberlain and Ebury for Arsenal. French and Cocklebury-Smythe, own goal, for Newcastle.
FRENCH: What the hell are you talking about?
WITHENSHAW: Kindly watch your language—you’re not on terraces now, y’know.
MRS. EBURY: And there are ladies present.
FRENCH: All right! Cards on the table! I didn’t want to be the one to bring this up, but I rather expected to learn on arriving here today that one of our number—I exclude Mrs. Ebury of course—had seen fit to resign from this Committee. I refer to the paragraph in today’s Mail about the tête-à-tête at the Côte d’Or.
MRS. EBURY: Cock.
FRENCH: Coq d’Or.
MRS. EBURY: Double cock.
FRENCH: Without either a resignation or alternatively our joint repudiation of the story I don’t see how this Committee can have the confidence of the House.
MRS. EBURY: Ballocks.
FRENCH: That is not an expression which I would have associated with you, Mrs. Ebury.
MRS. EBURY: I don’t need you to tell me my problems.
WITHENSHAW (aside to MADDIE): The Committee deliberated.
FRENCH: I find the Committee’s silence on this point significant.
WITHENSHAW: Well, we all thought it was you.
FRENCH: I left for my constituency on Friday evening and returned this morning. The only meal I’ve had this weekend in a London restaurant was tea on Friday at the Golden Egg in Victoria Street.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: L’Oeuf d’Or?
MCTEAZLE: Were you with a woman?
FRENCH: I was with the Dean of St. Paul’s.
MCTEAZLE: Is she titian-haired?
CHAMBERLAIN: Come off it McTeazle. (Kindly to FRENCH.) French, can anyone corroborate your story?
FRENCH: The Dean of St. Paul’s can.
CHAMBERLAIN: Apart from her.
FRENCH: We had Jumbo Chickenburgers Maryland with pickled eggs and a banana milkshake. The waitress will remember me.
CHAMBERLAIN: Why?
FRENCH: I was sick on her shoes.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Your story smacks of desperation. Even so you have done us the honour of volunteering your account, so let me reciprocate. I was at various times at Crockford’s, Claridges and the Golden Cock, Clock, the Old Clock in Golden Square, not the Coq d’Or.
CHAMBERLAIN: I was at the Crock of Gold, Selfridges and the Green Cockatoo.
MCTEAZLE: I was at the Cockatoo, too, and the Charing Cross, the Open Door, the Golden Ox and the Cuckoo Clock.
WITHENSHAW: I was at the Cross Cook, the Fighting Cocks, the Green Door, the Crooked Grin and the Golden Carriages.
(What is happening is difficult to explain hut probably quite easy to recognize: the four of them have instinctively joined in an obscuration, each for his own defence. By the time the CHAIRMAN speaks they have all begun to send FRENCH up.)
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: I forgot—I was at the Golden Carriages as well as Claridges, and the Odd Sock and the Cocked Hat.
WITHENSHAW: I didn’t see you at the Cocked Hat—I went on to the Cox and Box.
MCTEAZLE: I was at the Cox and Box, and the Cooks Door, the Old Chest, the Dorchester, the Chesty Cook and—er—Luigi’s.
ALL: Luigi’s?
MCTEAZLE: At King’s Cross.
CHAMBERLAIN: I was at King’s Cross; in the Cross Keys and the Coal Hole, the Golden Goose, the Coloured Coat and the Côte d’Azur.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: I was at the Côte d’Azur——
WITHENSHAW: So was I.
MRS. EBURY: I was at the Coq d’Or.
CHAMBERLAIN (incautiously): I was at the Coq d’Or too.
(Short pause but everybody comes to his rescue.)
MCTEAZLE: So was I.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: The Coq d’Or, oh yes, I was at the Coq d’Or.
WITHENSHAW: I saw you there— I was there with a voluptuous young woman.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Good heavens, I hope you didn’t see me with mine.
CHAMBERLAIN: Fantastic woman I took there—titian hair, green eyes, dress cut down to here.
MCTEAZLE: We held hands under the table—(with a crude gesture) voluptuous, you’ve no idea.
WITHENSHAW: Don’t talk to me about voluptuous—mine was titian like two Botticellis fighting their way out of a hammock.
(During the above speech FRENCH is becoming increasingly agitated, and MADDIE increasingly angry. She gets out her copy of the Sun and opens it to the centre page spread.)
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Wonderful figure of a woman——
FRENCH (shouts): One of you is telling the truth! Where’s the Mail!
(MADDIE gets up and crosses to FRENCH, holding the Sun. MADDIE slams the Sun down on the table in front of FRENCH, open at the centre page spread and stands back to await his reaction.)
WITHENSHAW: That’s the Sun.
(FRENCH does an enormous double-take at the pin-up.)
FRENCH (shrieks): Aagh!—it’s you!!
MADDIE: Yes.
(FRENCH grabs MADDIE by the back of the blouse as she moves to go back to her desk; buttons pop and fly leaving FRENCH holding her blouse and MADDIE in her bra.)
ALL (looking at MADDIE): Strewth!
(MADDIE walks to her seat, taps her pencil on the desk.)
MADDIE (reading): Paragraph 6.
FRENCH: Maddie Takes It Down!
‘Madeleine Gotobed, twenty-one, is a model secretary in Whitehall where she says her ambition is to be Permanent Under Secretary. Meanwhile, titian-haired, green-eyed Maddie loves being taken out, but says the men tend to look down on a figure like hers—whenever they get the chance!’—disgusting—‘Matching bra and suspender belt, Fenwicks £5.35. French knickers, Janet Reger £8.95.’ (To MADDIE.) You were in the Coq d’Or!
(The Division Bell goes off.)
MADDIE: I was in the Coq d’Or, the Golden Ox, Box Hill, Claridges and Crockford’s——
WITHENSHAW: Division bell, Mr. French.
MADDIE: —and the Charing Cross, the Dorchester, the Green Cockatoo, Selfridges and the Salt Beef Bar in Rupert Street with Deborah and Douglas and Cockie and Jock.
(MADDIE has pointed to these four. Pause—WITHENSHAW looks relieved.)
And with Malcolm in the Metropole——
(The Committee’s next words are just rattled off underneath MADDIE’s speech which continues without pause.)
WITHENSHAW: Move to adjourn.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Second.
WITHENSHAW: All in favour.
ALL (except FRENCH): Aye.
WITHENSHAW: Meeting adjourned for ten minutes.
(The Committee hurriedly shuffle a few pieces of paper together, leaving all the newspapers behind, and arrange themselves to make their exits in a body, ignoring MADDIE, who chants on.)
MADDIE (continuing until all but FRENCH have left): … and in the Mandarin, the Mirabelle and the Star of Asia in the Goldhawk Road. I was with Freddie and Reggie and Algy and Bongo and Arthur and Cyril and Tom and Ernest and Bob and the other Bob and Pongo at the Ritz and the Red Lion, the Lobster Pot and Simpson’s in the Strand—I was at the Poule au Pot and the Coq au Vin and the Côte d’Azur and Foo Luk Fok and the Grosvenor House and Luigi’s and Lacy’s and the Light of India with Johnny and Jackie and Jerry and Joseph and Jimmy, and in the Berk
eley, Biancis, Blooms and Muldoons with Micky and Michael and Mike and Michelle—I was in the Connaught with William and in the Westbury with Corkie and in the Churchill with Chalky. I was at the Duke of York, the Duke of Clarence and the Old Duke and the King Charles and the Three Kings and the Kings Arms and the Army and Navy Salad Bar with Tony and Derek and Bertie and Plantagenet and Bingo.
(During the above speech the Committee all exit through the wrong door, return and re-exit. The door closes, leaving only FRENCH with MADDIE.)
(Yells after them.) And I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known it was supposed to be a secret—who needs it?
(Normal voice.) I sometimes wonder if it’s worthwhile trying to teach people, don’t you Mr. French?
FRENCH: Miss Gotobed, this is going to teach them a lesson they’ll never forget.
MADDIE: I hope so.
FRENCH: I have to go and vote. Please be here in about ten minutes. (He approaches her with the blouse still in hand.)
MADDIE: Excuse me … (She takes the blouse.) … Somebody’s coming.
(At this moment a loud voice is heard approaching.)
Could you show me the ladies cloakroom.
(She grabs the rest of her clothes and her handbag. FRENCH takes her coat from the rack and puts it over her shoulders and opens the door. MADDIE exits, FRENCH follows. As soon as the door closes, the other opens and two men enter—but they are in another play.)
NEW-FOUND-LAND
A play in one act
Characters
ARTHUR A very junior Home Office Official
BERNARD A very senior Home Office Official
The House of Commons overspill meeting room in the tower of Big Ben, set as for Dirty Linen. A lot of newspapers and reports are lying around on the main committee table.
(ARTHUR appears carrying a file of papers and shouts loudly into the door through which he enters, as though calling to someone at a distance.)
ARTHUR (shouts): Here’s an empty one!
(BERNARD enters immediately. ARTHUR shouts at him at the same volume. Everything ARTHUR says has to be shouted, throughout.)
It’s the only one. The Minister said up here—he’ll find us all right.
(They approach the table and sit at it.)
BERNARD: Frightful mess.
(ARTHUR shuffling newspapers comes across something.)