by Trilby James
But this guy he is still standing there and my next client he is coming and the guy he is looking all red and English like meat and he go Ummm you don’t have to do this if you don’t want you know.
And in my head I’m like Uh, okay it is like none of your business! Shit! Like I don’t do what I want you know? I am fine. You think I stay here if I am not fine? I am fucking great mate! And anyway it is not like there are so many things I could do you know! It is not like I went to Oxford University or something!
Anyway I tell him, Today is my last day, actually. That shut him up!
He go, Oh.
Yeah I say, Tomorrow I will not be working here no more, which actually is true, I say I am starting new job in an office in the Canary Wharf, which is a small lie but who give a fuck right. I say Where do you work? […] What is your job?
And he says I am a supplier.
And I am like Yeah. And I yawn, to show how boring he is. Of what?
And he says Pigs.
She raises her eyebrows.
Okay. And what do you supply to these pigs?
No, he say, I supply pork. I am a pork supplier.
[…]
The meat is so good he say. You should taste it. You would not believe. The difference in taste.
How much it cost I say. And he say a number and I laugh, I have a head for numbers and that is a fucking stupid price to pay for some bit of pig you can get it so cheap in Kingsland Road.
And he look sad then, and he go Our customers can afford it. Our customers believe to pay for quality.
Who your customers, I am shouting now I don’t know why, What shop you sell this in!
Waitrose, he go. And then I am quiet so he say, It is a supermarket, and that make me MAD so I go YEAH I KNOW. And I am bored of this now and his time is over so I put my bra on and that tells him.
Good luck with your new job, he go, as he walk out.
I see he has forgot to do up his flies.
Beat.
Prick.
Ladies Down Under
Amanda Whittington
WHO Shelley, twenty-six, from Hull.
TO WHOM Danny, a traveller, Australian.
WHERE A campsite, Uluru, Australia.
WHEN March 2007.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED Ladies Down Under is the sequel to Ladies’ Day, in which four fish-factory workers from Hull – Shelley, Jan, Pearl and Linda – win a small fortune at the races. One and a half years on, they have booked a holiday to Sydney, Australia. However, when Jan’s boyfriend Joe fails to meet them at the airport, they decide to change their plans and head further afield. They travel to Queensland and on to Uluru where they set up camp. It is here that they are reunited with Joe and meet Danny, who has been accompanying him. Just before they leave the camp, Pearl, Linda and Jan go for a walk, leaving Shelley to start the packing up. Danny is with her. When she is then bitten by a spider and asks Danny to kill it, he attempts to show Shelley that there is nothing to fear. He tells her ‘Change your thoughts, you change the world.’ As he turns to go she calls back to him. The speech that follows is made up of the conversation they then have.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
•
Shelley loves all things ‘bling’. However, when her luggage is lost in Singapore, she starts an inward journey of the soul and comes to realise the true value of things. Read the play to find out how her relationship with Danny develops.
•
Her mother was killed by a car when Shelley was young. She had no other family and was put into foster care.
•
Her dream has been to be a model.
•
Her inner turmoil. A part of her is beginning to realise that the kind of lifestyle she has been pursuing is fake; however, she is not quite ready to give it all up and is unsure what to put in its place.
WHAT SHE WANTS
•
To get off the ‘merry-go-round’ she has created for herself.
•
To give vent to her feelings of loss and regret.
•
To rest in a moment of calm before she must return to all that is drab and depressing back home.
•
To express all this out loud.
•
For Danny to offer some words of wisdom. Decide to what extent her initial question to him is rhetorical or genuine.
KEYWORDS sad miss/missed stuck selfish shallow dream
Shelley
Danny? How do I change this? […] I won some money a while back. A hundred grand. Left my job. Went shopping. New kitchen, new bathroom. Got my teeth done and my tits. Now I’ve got shoes I’ll never wear and bags I don’t want. I’ve got a Cartier watch but I can’t work the cooker. I drink and smoke and go clubbing on a Monday. I mean, how sad is that? All the men I meet are arseholes and I miss my mates at work. I’m twenty-six years old, so I’ve missed the modelling boat. I think I’ve missed the boat, full stop. I’m stuck in Hull and I’ve got three grand left. Three grand to pay for all this, then I’m back in the fish plant. […] It’s all right. I don’t want your sympathy. I just wanted to… Well, like you said, I’ll not see you again. I just wanted to say it out loud. […] And I know what you’re thinking. She’s selfish and shallow and you’re right, I am. But you’ve not seen where I come from, it’s not lovely like this. I just want to live the dream a bit longer, that’s all.
Limbo, published in the volume St Petersburg and Other plays
Declan Feenan
WHO Girl, late teens, Northern Irish.
TO WHOM The audience (see note on ‘Direct audience address’ in the introduction).
WHERE The shore of a mountain lake.
WHEN Present day.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED The speech that follows is the beginning of a much longer monologue. The play tells the story of the Girl’s relationship with an older, married man. She has a daughter by him and he is supportive, but he cannot be with her, and in the final passage we understand that she means to drown herself. It is only then that we get the full significance of her opening line: ‘I think I’ve always had a fear of water.’
WHAT TO CONSIDER
•
The writer has not given the Girl a name. What might this suggest to you?
•
At sixteen she had already left home and was living on her own. Note how, on the day of her seventeenth birthday, she considers ‘phoning home’, but does not.
•
Her backstory. We know very little about what has happened to the girl up until the age of seventeen. You might like to use this opportunity to create a fully rounded character for yourself and, by doing so, fill in all the gaps.
•
Find different voices for when you characterise ‘Shauna’, ‘Lizzie’ and ‘Estelle’.
•
The feel of the crucifix around her neck. She makes a point of showing it to us.
•
She will meet the older man in the nightclub where the girls are headed.
WHAT SHE WANTS
•
To explain how she came to this point (i.e. on the shore of the lake, about to take her own life).
•
To justify her final act.
•
Forgiveness.
KEYWORDS fear water lovely surprise soaked peeled velvet
NB This play offers a number of other speeches from which to choose.
Girl
I think I’ve always had a fear of water.
There’s something about it.
Besides being wet.
Don’t get me wrong – I like water.
I drink it.
I wash with it.
But…
It was raining on the morning of my seventeenth birthday.
I went into work as usual.
John, the line manager, called me into his office.
You only get called in if you’re stealing or fiddling your clock-in card.
Jo
hn has the slowest voice in the world.
(John.) ‘Youse wanna come in now?’
I felt someone behind me.
It was Shauna.
She was carrying a cake – candles and everything.
Estelle was there as well, Anne Marie and Lizzy, a whole crowd of them.
They started to sing ‘Happy Birthday’.
I didn’t know they knew.
The cake was one of those sponge ones you get in petrol stations.
It was lovely.
It was a complete surprise.
I’d been working with the girls for a few months – packing line in the meat factory.
The girls were older than me – mostly in their mid-twenties.
I think I was the youngest on the floor.
I remember that as a lovely day.
It would’ve been dull if they hadn’t done that.
On the way home I missed the bus and had to walk.
I got completely soaked.
I got home and put the kettle on.
I thought about phoning home, but I didn’t.
I peeled off my clothes and put them in the machine.
I showered and decided to shave my legs – why not?
I put on my dressing gown and read a magazine.
The doorbell rang.
It was the girls.
They had loads of drink.
They sat me down.
Shauna knelt down and held my hands.
(Shauna.) ‘Right, I don’t want you to say anything, but we’ve all had a whip-around.’
(Lizzy.) ‘We have.’
(Estelle.) ‘Yep.’
(Shauna.) ‘Here, we hope you like it.’
The box was velvet.
It was a silver necklace with a cross on it.
This one here.
Shauna started pouring drinks and Estelle got to work.
(Estelle.) ‘Right, we have to get you ready. Isn’t that right, Lizzy?’
(Lizzy.) ‘That’s right. We can’t have her looking like that. I’ll get my bag.’
(Estelle.) ‘We are taking you to Oak and Chrome. Top spot.
You’re going to love it, isn’t she, Shauna?’
(Shauna.) ‘Yep. It’s just opened. It’s really nice. Swanky.’
(Estelle.) ‘Shauna knows the doorman, don’t you, Shauna?’
(Shauna.) ‘Yep. Lovely fella, really down to earth – ’
(Estelle.) ‘Shauna’s shagged him – ’
(Shauna.) ‘He’s a lovely fella – ’
(Estelle.) ‘What are you going to wear?’
I didn’t really have anything.
(Estelle.) ‘Is your wardrobe in your room?’
Estelle ran up the stairs and I could hear her rummaging.
She came back down.
(Shauna.) ‘Jesus, Estelle…’
(Estelle.) ‘Like a glove!’
(Shauna.) ‘You can’t have her wearing that.’
(Estelle.) ‘Why not?
(Shauna.) ‘It’s lime green!’
(Estelle.) ‘That’s the point… Shauna, is there any drink on the go or what?’
We drank.
Lizzy did my hair and made me up.
Of course, Estelle and Lizzy got louder and louder and when the taxi arrived Lizzy started flirting with the driver.
She told him she’d forgotten her purse and could she pay him some other way.
He asked her what she had in mind.
She told him, ‘Fuck off, you’re older than my dad.’
Little Baby Jesus
Arinze Kene
WHO Joanne, fifteen, mixed race.
TO WHOM The audience (see note on ‘Direct audience address’ in the introduction).
WHERE Inner-city London. Exact location is unspecified. Perhaps she is talking to us in her bedroom, a street or the park, You decide.
WHEN Present day.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED The play, a series of interconnected monologues, describes the point at which three teenagers, Joanne, Kehinde and Rugrat, begin to grow up. They speak directly to the audience. At this point in the play we know that Joanne lives with her mother in a council house. She and her mother, who suffers from depression, do not get on. She has a half-brother to whom she does not speak. When she is not at school she works in a launderette. She has kissed Rugrat, but then meets a boy called Baker. (Later on in the play she will fall in love with Kehinde.) When her mother is sectioned, Joanne is sent to the north of England to stay in a foster retreat. In the speech that follows, she describes what it is like there.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
•
Her mother’s depression, and the impact it has on her everyday life.
•
At school Joanne is known as Jodie. Rugrat tells us how ‘Joanne’ is nice, and how ‘Jodie’ is evil and rude.
•
To what extent does the persona of ‘Jodie’ allow Joanne to cope in the world?
•
The pace and stress of inner-city London life.
•
Being in the countryside enables Joanne to take a step back and to take stock.
•
Later we will discover that Joanne is pregnant with Baker’s child.
•
Read the play to find out what happens to the baby.
WHAT SHE WANTS
•
To feel normal. Being with other people of her own age, some of whom are even more disturbed, allows her that.
•
To feel safe.
•
Company. Although she describes the retreat as a ‘mad house’, it allows her a break from the loneliness of living with her mother and her mother’s depression.
KEYWORDS crustified/crust flopped enjoy
NB This play offers a number of other speeches from which to choose.
Joanna
I dunno… the retreat was… alright. But everyone was younger than me, which was kinda disappointing – having no one your age there to chat to.
It looked NOTHING like the flyer. Them dere people who made the flyer are jokers – real talk. I gets there now, all the colours had faded on the building. The children there were looking crustified, dear Lord; crust! I thought I had it bad. One of them looked like she was wearing a potato sack. Another one look like he stole his clothes off of a scarecrow. Caveman couture as well; no shoes. Some people do not have it. It’s a sad world, man.
On the first day you could tell who and who were gonna clash. It was like the Big Brother House for Teenage Rejects and Unwanted Infants. Some dramatic kids up in there, boy. Crying like it was first day of school. Little Jack was crying like he sold his cow for some beans and never got the beanstalk – real talk. I told everyone straight –
‘Oi oi, listen! I’m the oldest here, innit. So like… yeah… just… just have respect and dat… For me.’
Ah, I flopped it, innit. Like George Bush, I had everyone’s attention and flopped severely. You know when you tell everyone to stop, and then everyone actually stops dead like, and they’re all just looking at you, and that kinda surprises you because you never thought they would pay you any mind, so you forget what you was gonna say? Real Talk.
(Mocking herself.) ‘…just have respect for me and dat.’
We were all fucked up in that place anyhow so I blended in nicely with that intro.
There was this girl, Frankie. I think Frankie’s a crack-baby, the most hyperest thirteen-year-old in the world. She already had this raspy voice and she was always screaming and shouting and talking (bitching) and laughing or whistling that loud whistle, the one where you jam up two fingers in your mouth – I hate when people do that indoors. Why? I beg, it’s not necessary –
‘Okay Frankie, we all know you can do it now, stop showing off – REAL!’
And boy was she oversexed. Always chatting wet ’bout some boy who was banging her doggy-style under some bridge after dark. Then I’ll overhear her telling someone else the same story but sh
e’d say it was on top of the bridge before sunset. Lying through her muddy braces. A mad house. But I actually started to enjoy myself…
Little Dolls, published in the volume Our New Girl
Nancy Harris
WHO Vicky, late twenties, from a privileged background.
TO WHOM John, her therapist.
WHERE A room without light.
WHEN Present day.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED This speech comes at the start of the play. During a session with her therapist, Vicky is attempting to recall a traumatic incident from her childhood when she went on a school trip to the Continent.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
•
Although, at this point in the play, we the audience don’t know where her story is heading, John the therapist has heard it before, and there is an underlying tension as she talks about Denise in the past tense – ‘she had lovely black hair… I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures’ – and menace in the way she explains, ‘I can understand why the Madame said she never thought to lock the doors.’ We later discover that Denise was murdered by an intruder as she and the other girls slept. Decide to what extent Vicky feels guilty about the fact that she did not wake up and was therefore unable to help her best friend.
•
Vicky is suffering from a kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome. She is acutely anxious and is unable to lead what she describes as a ‘normal’ life.
•
She is terrified of the dark. Her session takes place in a room without light in order to cure her of her phobia.
•
The play happens in real time, meaning it is as long as the therapy session it depicts.
•
Make sure you have a very strong sense of all that Vicky describes. Because the speech is about an event from the past and is so descriptive, it is vital that you provide clear images for yourself.