Captain Kak:
We do not. Don’t you try to tell me I like wars. I’m just as fond of peace as you are.
Mate:
No you’re not, mate. You’re war-loving bastards. All you Lux people are.
Captain Kak:
(leaps up, grabs carving knife) Look, I’m warning you, I do want peace.
Mate:
No you don’t!
Captain Kak:
(fury) I’m a peace-loving man. I tell you I love peace!! (Raises knife)
Penelope:
(reappears) What are you fighting about?
Mate:
Peace.
Penelope:
Come on, eat your dinner before the radiation gets it.
Sound of air-raid sirens. Lights on stage dim to a greeny and amber mixture to make it look depressing.
Mate:
’Ere, that’s Atomic Fog Warning, Grade A.
Voice over P.A.:
Radiation! Take cover. Masks on!
KAK, MATE and PENELOPE put on false’ bulbous ‘Charlie Caroli’ red noses, with small black toothbrush moustache underneath, and thick black ‘George Robey’ type eyebrows.
Mate:
Oh, just in time. My word, it come down quick tonight. One whiff of this stuff and you’ve had it.
Captain Kak:
It’s a good thing the Minister of Defence had a sense of humour when he introduced these. After all, the old-fashioned gas mask hid the dignity of the human face.
Mate:
Yes, yes, it makes a difference. Well, I don’t think the human face meets the modern need.
KAK is eating all through this. PENELOPE comes on with a teapot.
Penelope:
(to MATE) Tea or coffee?
Mate:
Tea. She pours tea into his mug. Looks at KAK.
Captain Kak:
Coffee. PENELOPE pours from same pot into his mug.
Mate:
This is ‘ot water.
Captain Kak:
Yes, but well, we’ve got to keep up the…We mustn’t lose our dignity, we must improvise…
Mate:
I was saying, in the hurly-burly of post-Atomic living, I’d put a bloke’s mouth on top of his nut.
Captain Kak:
Why?
Mate:
Why? Well, then, when he’s late for work he can put his breakfast under ‘is ‘at, and eat it on the way to the orfice.
Captain Kak:
Jolly good. Jolly good.
The lights go a little dimmer. Silence. Fade up the sound of a ticking clock. A very heavy steady hall clock type of tick.
Mate:
(for the first time deadly serious) I wonder what’s going to become of us all.
Captain Kak:
Eh? Well, we’ll just have to keep going.
Mate:
What for?
Captain Kak:
Because we’re British.
Mate:
British? Standing army, three. Members of Parliament, four. Doctors and teachers, nil. Population eight hundred and seventy-four, seven hundred of ‘em with radiation sickness. We’re all doomed, mate. No proper grub. I’m covered in these sores. There’s no hope…Man is finished. And we asked for it.
Captain Kak:
Nonsense. When the Conservatives get in again things will be all right, eh, darling?
He looks across at PENELOPE, who has just gone to the baby’s cradle with a bottle of milk. She has tested it for heat on the back of her hand. She goes to put it into the cot.
Penelope:
(screams)
Captain Kak:
Penelope, wh–
Penelope:
He’s dead, my baby’s dead. Robin – Robin – Robin! (She collapses sobbing onto the cradle)
Mate:
She forgot his gas mask.
Captain Kak:
But she didn’t forget his name.
Silence. Distant mournful sound of ship’s hooter (like ‘Queen Mary’s’). Distant sound of Big Ben striking the quarter. MATE takes out his watch. Looks at it.
Mate:
You – you better go and chat her up.
Captain Kak:
(nods. Puts on a smile) Cheer up, darling. (He crosses to her) We can always have another one, now we’ve discovered what causes them. (To MATE) Can’t we, chum?
Mate:
Yerss. Cheer up, darlin’, no need to let that milk go to waste. I’ll drink that for you. (Takes bottle, starts to drink)
Captain Kak:
Look. Look. Look, he’s got the hang of it, just like Robin. Look, why don’t we adopt him? (KAK thrusts baby’s rattle into PENELOPE’s hand, then holds her wrist and shakes rattle at MATE) Dibbum, dubbium, does Dibbiums like his bot-bot?
Mate:
(shaking bottle) ‘Ere, this bleedin’ stuff won’t come out.
Captain Kak:
Darling, his first words…(He tries to shake PENELOPE out of her gloom. He suddenly grabs MATE’s arm and walks him briskly downstage) Something’s upset her tonight, must be Robin. He was our first child, or rather first monster, and she’s going to miss him. Still, it means meat on Sunday.
Mate:
Me and Her Majesty, Mrs Scroake, got a kid. Don’t know what we’d do without ‘im. He’s too thin to eat. When I get home at night, there he is, crawling all over the floor with his nappies round his ankles. I am a bit worried about him.
Captain Kak:
Oh, why?
Mate:
He’s forty-two!
Captain Kak:
That’s a good age for a child.
Mate:
(It’s a good age for that gag, too!)
Captain Kak:
(calls to PENELOPE cheerfully) Come on, poppet. I’ll tell you what…let’s open that last bottle of Flag Sauce and count our knees.
Mate:
That’s a good game.
Both pull trousers up around knees. Wife stands up.
Penelope:
Knees! Knees! That’s all you ever think about…Night after night it comes…let’s count our knees…and what do we get…every night the same total…two each.
Lights full up.
Captain Kak:
You must be patient, darling. In these times we have got to make our own entertainment.
PENELOPE gives basket to KAK and starts gathering nappies from line.
Penelope:
I carried little Robin inside me for eighteen months rather than let him out into this world.
Captain Kak:
Now, come on, darling…We’re only human…well, we are…Robin…he was just a thing.
They arrive at the THREE socks on line.
Penelope:
He was our thing…it was my own precious baby…it was the only thing I cared for in this filthy, insane, dying, stinking civilisation.
Captain Kak:
I put his name down for Geelong Grammar School and, just in case, Roedean. What more can a man do!
Fog siren hoot. Dismal silence.
Mate:
(burps) ‘Ere, where are you two going for your summer holidays?
Captain Kak:
Harrods, of course.
Mate:
Which department?
Captain Kak:
Sportswear and Sun Lamps this year.
Mate:
You’ve got a few bob.
Captain Kak:
Got a bit salted away.
Penelope:
They’ve got nice plastic grass at Harrods. Robin used to play on it…(Breaks down) Oh!
Mate:
I can’t afford your class. Me and my missus has to be satisfied with a week under a sun lamp at the Co-op.
Captain Kak:
That’s a good working man’s resort…might even call it a last resort. (Bursts into loud guffaws)
Mate:
Hear that funny joke your old man made? Talkin’ of grass, I was walkin’ through Hyde Park this mornin’ and
the workmen were paintin’ all the trees black for the winter…and, oh yes, they were gettin’ all the plastic snowdrops ready for the spring. They looked lovely…yes., . . O’ course, they’ll never be as good as real snowdrops. Still, they’re better than nothin’. You know, it beats me, these scientists, they split the atom, they got to the moon, they destroyed civilisation, and none of the clever bastards knew how to make a snowdrop. That’s what they called Scientific Progress. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
The lights on the stage light up. A bell sounds off stage.
Voice on P.A.:
All clear. All clear.
Enter a SEA CAPTAIN in Mediterranean white uniform. Immaculate. The nappies are flown. Behind the SEA CAPTAIN comes a portable ship’s steering wheel with ship’s telegraph with bells inside. A SEAMAN in Ordinary Seaman’s uniform pushes it on. Sound of seagulls and washing of the sea.
Captain:
All passengers ashore. Full speed ahead, MacGregor.
Seaman:
Aye aye, sir.
Captain:
Hoist the spikkion and targle the blundion.
Voice in wings answers all the calls in the seafaring method of hailing.
Immediately KAK starts playing deck quoits with PENELOPE. MATE wraps a BLANKET around his knees and dons DARK GLASSES.
Seaman:
Will you take your partners for the Extermination Waltz.
Sound of tinny gramophone record of 1925 one-step. KAK dances with PENELOPE. The CAPTAIN dances with MATE. All stand-ins come on dressed in the most garish costumes they can manage.
Captain:
Are you enjoying the trip, Madame?
Mate:
(imitating a woman, a refined woman) Hoh no, Hi ham hused to a much higher klarss of vessel. I mean, in the brokure, it says sunshine tours. I’ve hain’t seen the bleedin’ sun since we left Hingland.
Captain:
If you will travel on the cheap…On the first class deck the sun is shining at the rate of ten and six an hour, darling.
Captain Kak:
I say, Captain, where are the rest of the passengers?
Captain:
There are no other passengers.
Mate:
What’s all this about?
Music suddenly stops. Everybody stands rock still. Dead silence.
Captain:
(shouting) I beg to inform you the radiation sickness has left us the sole survivors of the human race.
PLASTIC MAC MAN enters obscured from head to foot in one mass of balloons, holding a fly swatter and lengths of coloured elastic.
Plastic mac man:
Arthur…Arthur…Arthur…(He distributes strips of elastic to all the cast, screaming) They should never have invented rubber…rubber…stretching its sinful way round the world…those black rubber transparent women’s macs…rubber girdles and douches…rubber waterproof sheets encouraging children to wet the beds when there’s pots in the room.
Mate:
’Ere…you vote Socialist and we’ll get rid of them rubber monopolies…
Plastic mac man:
So, they’re making the rubber monopolies now…Ahh, it was the hand and foot and teeth, elbows, knees of God That dropped the…Bomb.
Sound of mule blowing raspberries. The cast fly into a . panic, screaming ‘The bomb, the bomb, the bomb’…and run all over the stage. MATE goes to mangle and puts ‘hand’ (this is a false rubber hand identical to his own) through rollers. CAPTAIN puts on parrot’s beak and bib, takes up perch, acts like parrot. KAK beats bird with pillow, SEAMAN beats stage with his club, PENELOPE looks on with amazement. COFFIN MAN waves Union Jack and starts to paddle his coffin with a canoe paddle.
Captain Kak:
The ‘H’ Bomb.
Plastic mac man:
That’s the one. On this sinful rubber civilisation. Stretch, brothers, and repent. Stretch and repent…
Mate:
Do as he says, he’s a holy man…
Plastic mac man:
Stretch and repent…
(He says this repeatedly and rhythmically)
Everyone stretches and repents, while the PLASTIC MAC MAN sings.
Omnes:
Stretch and repent. (Repeat)
Plastic mac man:
Oh, you dirty young devil, how dare you presume to wet in the bed when the po’s in the room. I’ll wallop your bum with a dirty great broom When I get up in the morning time…
The cast joins in reprise. End of reprise breaks into Irish jig. During jig, FORTNUM interrupts. FORTNUM is standing on the piano rostrum and dressed in long under- wear and old Army cardigan. PIANIST is dressed in long underwear, Bahamas hat and dark glasses and angel’s wings.
Lord Fortnum:
Stop in the name of the Lord! (Thunder and lightning)
Sound: Great crash of thunder – very fierce.
Lights: In the whole theatre on and off. Above FORTNUM a golden light shines down from heaven. There is a pause in the thunder.
Lord Fortnum:
Hark ye, the day of judgment is at hand.
Thunder and lightning. The cast is startled. All go on knees.
Captain:
It’s God!
Mate:
Good old God. (Sings) For he’s a jolly good fellow. (Turns and encourages audience) For he’s…(Breaks) He’s a Socialist, you know.
Lord Fortnum:
Quiet, Labour scum!
Captain Kak:
Wait a minute…you don’t look like God. You look like an ordinary mortal.
Lord Fortnum:
I also do impressions.
Captain:
O, save me, Lord God, from the dreadful death by radiation.
Plastic mac man:
Save me, merciful Lord, from the terrible temptations and perversions of the rubber…
Seaman:
Oh Lord…give me higher wages and a shorter working week…
Mate:
God, save me…and I’ll give up being an atheist…Goddy…
Penelope:
God! Give me back my baby!
Silence. All look slowly at PENELOPE.
Lord Fortnum:
Er…Yea, verily, in the fullness of time, the fruits of the ship shall be added unto you…
Mate:
See! See!
Celestial music on a glockenspeil.
Lord Fortnum:
Now, owing to the extreme radiation in these celestial altitudes…we are establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth in number twenty-nine Cul-de-Sac Place, Paddington…no coloureds or children.
Captain:
O Lord…merciful Lord…how shall I reside in thy kingdom?
Lord Fortnum:
By paying a purely nominal rent of fifty guineas a week.
Mate:
I’ll pay it…I’ll pay it…
KAK leaps to his feet.
Captain Kak:
Wait a minute. That isn’t God – – That is Lord Fortnum, the well-known bed-sitting room.
CAPTAIN grabs KAK and shakes him.
Captain:
Blasphemer!
CAPTAIN and KAK fight on the bed.
Lord Fortnum:
That’s right. Captain, kill him!
Captain:
Oh God, oh God, say the word…and I’ll punch him in the throat…(To KAK) Recant…recant, you shameful blasphemer!
All below performed ad lib.
Plastic mac man:
Arthur…Arthur…Arthur…(Sings again) Oh you dirty old devil, how dare you presume, etc.
Remainder of cast dance happily around stage. MATE throws money up to God. PENELOPE looks on.
Seaman:
(rings his ship’s telegraph and shouts) Higher wages, God!
Captain Kak:
(shouts through loud hailer) Lord Fortnum, as your doctor, I must strongly advise against the taking of prayer! And money and sugar.
Mate:
You look after me and I’ll look after you, Goddy, I got more stas
hed away in a biscuit tin.
We hear the sound of a baby crying. The chaotic din dies away. They fall silent in surprise. Then slowly they all approach the cot and look down into it. Lights start to dim. Cot is spot-lit. KAK gives a toothy bewildered smile, finds the rattle and shakes it over the cot. MATE looks at baby, bewildered, looks at God, looks back at baby, and then to God again.
Black out – spot on FORTNUM’s face. Spot from above on group around baby. Music over loudspeakers: Choir – ‘The First Noel’.
Cast List
Captain Pontius Kak
Lord Fortnum of Alamein
Mate
Arthur Scroake
Shelter Man
Plastic Mac Man
Underwater Vicar
Brigadier
Sergeant
Chest of Drawers
Gladys Scroake
Penelope
Diplomat
First Announcer
Sea Captain
Second Announcer
Delivery Man
Chauffeur
Seaman
Coffin Man
Pianist
Third Announcer
Extras
Phantom
Old Soldier
Orderly
Prop List
Portable parking meter, top practical with click effect.
Giant DAZ packets slung on gas mask belt.
Tin mug.
Roll of lavatory paper, ordinary.
Comb.
Giant Lux packet on gas mask belt.
Milk bottle, full, with gold top.
ARP helmet.
Gas mask, canister type.
Rifle.
Insect spray gun, with coloured mist.
8ft 9in high constructed pile of boots, then pile of boots on top to give added height, these boots will be removed before striking Union Jack on top.
Step ladder to get to top of pile of boots.
Brochure or pamphlet.
Jayne Mansfield.
Blankets.
Victorian hat-stand.
Telephone set, no wires, just receiver. Green and modern.
Birth certificate strapped to wrist.
Punishment caps, design from D. Jones. Each with flashing light on top, green, fellow and red. Batteried and switched.
Union Jack handkerchief.
Defeat of England Medal, ordinary medal.
Chalk.
Statue of Queen Victoria to go in niche at side of stage.
Flip top Bible, made like cigarette pack.
Starting pistol.
Victorian brass bed, no rail at foot end.
Patchwork quilt.
White sheets.
Telescopes. (One for Vicar, long, and one inside coffin.)
The Bedsitting Room Page 6