Amusing Sketches #2

[Simon Darkshade]

Following on the meriment that some people derived from Python Blackadder and Rowan Atkinson, here now is a few from that quite marvellous series, "A Bit of Fry and Laurie", with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

Bank Loan

Bank manager's office. Stephen sitting behind the desk.
High enters, looking quite needlessly repellent, folders
and things tucked under his arm.


Stephen: (Rising) Mr Lully?

Hugh: That's right. Glad you could see me at such
short notice.

Stephen: Not at all, come in, sit down. Coffee?

Hugh: Thank you.

Stephen: How do you like it?

Hugh: Decaffeinated, jug method, low mineral content
filtered spring water, not quite brought to the boil
with semi-skimmed milk and one Nutrasweet.
Unstirred.

Stephen: Right. (Intercom) Mark?

Voice: (Intercom distort) Yes.

Stephen: Do we still have that chemistry set in the office?

Voice: (Intercom distort) 'Fraid not.

Stephen: Right, one coffee then please.

Voice: (Intercom distort) K.

Stephen: So, Mr Lully, you'd like a loan?

Hugh: That's pretty much the size of it.

Stephen: You mention in your letter that you're starting
up a business and that you're interested in taking
advantage of our new "Gredo" start-up package.

Hugh: That's correct.

Stephen: Yes, now first things first. What exactly is the
product you're hoping to market.

Hugh: Ah, yes. Brought some samples along as a
matter of fact.

Hugh gets out two small sachets.

Haven't actually settled on brand names yet. But
there's basically two products. The blue sachet is
cocaine and the red is heroin.

Stephen: I'm sorry?

Hugh: My own market research and some work
undertaken by the packaging and graphics team
has revealed that cocaine is thought of as a fresher,
brighter product, hence the blue, and heroin is
warmer and more passionate, therefore red. You
disagree? I'd value your input.

Stephen: You're planning to distribute and sell drugs?

Hugh: On the button. The market's there, I'm ready to
go, and let's face it - Europe's open for business.

Stephen: Ye-e-es.

Hugh: Problem?

Stephen: Possibly. Possibly.

Hugh: I know what you're going to say. It's a market
that up until now has been hedged about with a
lot of rules and regulations, and let me tell you
this. When I first began to look at this market,
I thought to myself, "hey, I'd be better off
manufacturing red tape". Hahaha!

Stephen: Red tape, yes.

Hugh: But thank God, times are changing. Whole
new markets are opening up, and I'm ready to
play them.

Stephen: Right.

Hugh: The demand is there, no question.

Stephen: Uh huh.

Hugh: The most exciting thing for me is that it's such a
young market.

Stephen: Really?

Hugh: Immensely young. Consumer profiling indicates
the twelve to fifteen-year-old segment. And if we
can instil in them product loyalty, that's got to be
good news.

Stephen: Aha. But ... but ...

Hugh: I know what you're going to say. "Do they have
the income?" right? Well, what I always say is, "if
the product's right, they'll find the income." Their
mother's handbags, car stereos, old age pensioners,
wherever.

Stephen: Mmm. I meant, well ... I hesitate to use a word
like this. I know it's old-fashioned. But do you
think it's strictly moral?

Hugh: I beg your pardon?

Stephen: Is it moral?

Hugh: Moral?

Stephen: Yes.

Hugh: I'm not sure if I've actually got any precise figures
on that ...

Stephen: Yes, I actually mean ... is it moral to do this at
all? You know ... children and so on.

Hugh: Well. Let me turn the question round and ask you
this. Would you rather we stood by and watched
the Germans, the Dutch, the South Americans
take our market share? Where's your precious
morality then?

Stephen: Well ...

Hugh: Up a gum tree without a paddle, that's where it is.
The question is this. Either you believe in market
forces or you don't.

Stephen: Well actually, I'm afraid to say I don't.

Hugh: You don't?

Stephen: No. I used to of course, when I was a child, but
like everyone else, I discovered as I grew older that
it was all made up.

Hugh: Made up?

Stephen: Yes. I can still remember the exact moment. It
was Christmas Eve. I can't have been more
than about thirty years old. I couldn't sleep, so I
crept downstairs and heard my parents laughing
about market forces, and saying that they'd have
to break it to me sooner or later. Bit of a blow,
I can tell you. And then two years after that, I
discovered there was no such thing as Father
Christmas either.

Hugh: You're kidding?

Stephen: Oh sorry, did you ... ?

Hugh: Yes I did. Tscch.

Stephen: Oh dear.

Hugh: Growing up, eh?




Fascism

Hugh and Stephen are in white tie, drinking brandy,
perhaps in a clubby sort of place. Maybe a portrait of
Hitler above a mantelpiece.


Hugh: Gayle?

Stephen: Yes, Leonard?

Hugh: How are we going to do it, I wonder?

Stephen: Do what?

Hugh: How are we going to make Fascism popular in this
country? Popular and exciting.

Stephen: Oh that. Yes. That's become something of a
madness with you, hasn't it?

Hugh: I believe it has become something of a madness
with me.

Stephen: And yet, if anyone were to ask me, I would never
say you were a mad person.

Hugh: I believe I pay you well enough for that service?

Stephen: Indeed yes. I didn't mean ...

Hugh: Perhaps it's that little touch of madness that keeps
us all sane.

Stephen: Yes. I doubt it.

Hugh: But how are we to do it? How are we to make
Fascism exciting and important?

Stephen: We must reach out to the young people.

Hugh: You think?

Stephen: Certainly. After all, the young people are the
cornerstone of our society. The young people
are the future.

Hugh: Yes. Or at least they will be.

Stephen: No. They are.

Hugh: Are they?

Stephen: Yes. They will be the present, but they are
the future.

Hugh: Well well. So how can we make fascism live
among the young people?

Stephen: We could advertise.

Hugh: Gayle, my dear old mucker, what are thinking
of? Advertise?

Stephen: I am thinking, Leonard, that we must use today's
tools for today's job.

Hugh: Go on.

Stephen: If we are to be successful.

Hugh: Yes.

Stephen: In our venture.

Hugh: Yes?

Stephen: That's it, I'm afraid.

Hugh: I see. And what are today's tool, in your opinion?

Stephen: Oh there are so many tools around today. Look
at advertising. Pop music. Films. Magazines.
Everywhere images of sexuality and coolness.

Hugh: Coolness.

Stephen: Coolness. Hipness. Laid backness. Not being a
pratness.

Hugh: And so we must make fascism ...

Stephen: Cool.

Hugh: Cool.

Stephen: First, we must invent a fashion in clothing.

Hugh: Mmm. There must be leather.

Stephen: Leather, yes.

Hugh: And lace.

Stephen: Leather and lace, yes.

Hugh: With cotton facings.

Stephen: Excellent. Already you see, we have a look.

Hugh: And where shall we find them, these young
people?

Stephen: Wherever blood and money and sexy talk flow
freely, there will you find the young.

Hugh: And what will we say? How will we persuade them
to surrender their ice-skating and their jazz music
and turn to Fascism?

Stephen: Mm. Leonard, I wonder if you're not a little out
of touch.

Hugh: Gayle, please. You are my lieutenant. My
side-plate.

Stephen: Indeed.

Hugh: Tell me what I must say.

Stephen: You must say to the young people - Oh young
people. You who are young and thrusting and
urgent, there is a beat, a sound, a look that's new,
that's you, that's positively yes!

Hugh: They'll laugh at me.

Stephen: At first ... and ultimately, yes. But in the middle,
they'll listen.

Hugh: Hmm. Alright. Boys and girls, dig what I am about
to say. Fascism is cool. Fascism is leather and lace
with cotton facings.

Stephen: Good.

Hugh: Throw away those transistor radios. Come on
out from those steamy parlours where the coffee
is cheap and the love is free. Join us in our
movement.

Stephen: And while their bodies jerk and jig to the music
of those words, we must somehow introduce
the subject of segregating races and abolishing
elections.

Hugh: We could give away sachets of face-cream in our
magazines.

Stephen: And for the women?

Hugh: Gayle. There is no place for women in our
thousand year order.

Stephen: But Leonard, women do have certain useful
functions.

Hugh: Such as?

Stephen: News reading.

Hugh: Why do you always insist on calling it that?

Stephen: It excites me.

Hugh: Now on the subject of racial purity, perhaps a
national advertising campaign?

Stephen: Excellent.

Hugh: I will present it.

Stephen: Oh but you can't.

Hugh: And why not pray?

Stephen: Because God doesn't exist.

Hugh: No, I mean - and why not ... (Pause) pray?

Stephen: Because God does not ... (Pause) exist.

Hugh: Never mind. Why can't I front this national
advertising campaign?

Stephen: Because your grandmother was a quarter Italian. I
shall present the commercials.

Hugh: You? You, whose godfather is Jewish?

Stephen: At least my sister didn't marry a Welshman.

Hugh: Better marry a Welshman than eat Greek yoghurt.

Stephen: Rather Greek yoghurt than Cornish ice-cream.

Hugh: Stop, stop! Don't you see? They are turning
us against each other. We shall present the
commercials together.

Stephen: Yes. Together.

Hugh: Our slogan shall be - "Good old Fascism. As true
today as it's always been."

Stephen: But Leonard, my dear old acquaintance, surely this
is a new Fascism?

Hugh: Alright. "New Ph balanced Fascism, a whole new
world of natural goodness, right there in the cup."

Stephen: Cup?

Hugh: Why not?

Stephen: What about - "Maureen Lipman with some letters
from you about new Fascism".

Hugh: Would she do it?

Stephen: I don't see why not.

Hugh: I have it. "If you thought Fascism was just goose-
steps and funny hats, then take a look at what
we've been doing. Available in matchpots too."

Stephen: Das Sieg wird unser sein, as they say in Germany.

Hugh: Do you hate anyone enough to give them your last
pot-noodle?

Stephen: Fascism. Half the fat, all the taste. That's the
Fascist promise.

Hugh: From Lenor.

Stephen: It's Ideal.

Hugh: I wish I was young.

Stephen: Me too.

 

[damunzy]

Is this from the deep dark recesses of your mind, Simon?

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Judge Not

Hugh is a judge in a full-bottomed wig. Stephen is
counsel with a full bottom. He is cross-examining a
female witness, Deborah.


Stephen: So, Miss Talliot, you expect the court to believe
that on the evening of the fourteenth of November
last year, the very year, I would remind the court,
on which the crime that my client is accused of
committing took place, you just happened to be
walking in the park?

Deborah: That is correct.

Stephen: That is what?

Deborah: Correct.

Stephen: Oh it's correct, is it? I see. Am I right in
understanding, Miss Talliot, that the American
writer Gertrude Stein was a self-confessed
Lesbian?

Deborah: I believe so.

Stephen: You believe so? Gertrude Stein remains one of the
most celebrated American female novelists of the
century, Miss Talliot. Her lesbotic tendencies are
a matter of public record.

Deborah: Yes.

Stephen: But you only "believe" that she was a Lesbian?

Deborah: Well, I've never really thought of it much. I
haven't read any of her works.

Stephen: Miss Talliot, there is a bookshop not two streets
away from your "flat" where the works of Gertrude
Stein are openly on display.

Deborah: Oh.

Stephen: Yes; "oh". And yet you would have us believe that
somehow, on the many occasions on which you
must, in the course of your duties as a woman,
have passed this shop while shopping, failed
entirely to enter and buy any book published by
this openly Sapphic authoress?

Hugh: Mr Foley, I'm afraid I really fail to see where this
line of questioning is leading us.

Stephen: With your permission m'lud, I am trying to
establish that this witness has been guilty of
weaving a tissue of litanies, that far from being the
respectable president of a children's charity and
ambassador's daughter that my learned friend the
counsel for the prosecution would have us believe,
she is in fact an active, promiscuous and voracious
Lesbite.

Hugh: I see. Carry on. But I must warn you, Mr Foley,
that if you attempt to ballyrag or bulldoze the
witness I shall take a very dim view of it.

Stephen: Your lordship is most pretty.

Hugh: Very well then, you may proceed.

Stephen: Are you aware Miss Talliot -

Deborah: It's Mrs in fact.

Stephen: Oh. Oh, I do beg your pardon. If you wish to
make so much of it, then I will certainly not
stand in your way, "Mrs" Talliot, if that is how you
prefer to be known.

Deborah: It is how my husband prefers me to be known.

Stephen: Your husband the well-known Bishop?

Deborah: Yes.

Stephen: A bishop in a religion, the Church of - ah -
England, I believe it calls itself, which owns land
on which houses have been built, houses in
which it is statistically probable that private acts of
Lesbian love have been committed?

Hugh: Mr Foley, I fear I must interrupt you again. I
myself am a member of this same church. Are we
to imply from the tenor of your thrust that I am a
Lesbian?

Stephen: Your lordship misunderstands me.

Hugh: I hope so. I hope the day is far distant on which
I could be accused of making love to a woman!
Ha, ha, ha.

Stephen: Certainly, m'love. I never meant to imply ...

Hugh: Attraction to women, however, repellent as it may
be to persons of sensibility, is not in itself a crime.

Stephen: I love your lordship.

Hugh: We must therefore remember, Mr Foley, in our
enthusiasm to get to the bottom, that Mrs Talliot
is not on trial, she is a witness. However depraved
and wicked her acts of lust, they - in all their
degenerate and disgusting perversion - are not the
subject of this assize, bestial as they may be.

Stephen: I am yours for ever, m'dear.

Hugh: Please continue.

Stephen: I do not wish, "Mrs Talliot" to submit the court to
any more details of your sordid and disreputable
erotic career than is necessary. I merely wish to
enquire how it might be that you expect a jury
to believe the testimony of a monstrous bull-dyke
of your stamp against the word of a respectable
businessman?

Deborah: I am merely reporting what I saw.

Stephen: What you saw? What you saw through eyes
dimmed with lust? What you saw maddened by
the noxious juices of your notorious practices?

Deborah: What I saw on my way back from the parish
council meeting.

Stephen: Is it not a fact that the words "parish council" are
an anagram of "lispian crouch"?

Deborah: Er ...

Stephen: You hesitate, Miss Toilet!

Deborah: I was ...

Stephen: You stand condemned out of your own soiled and
contaminated mouth.

Deborah: I -

Stephen: No further questions.

Deborah: Well ...

Stephen: You may stand down, Miss Lesbian.

Deborah: Oh. And will you be in for tea tonight, Jeremy?

Stephen: Certainly, mother. (Louder) Call Sir Anthony
Known-Bender.





Psychiatrist

Hugh, American, is standing, Stephen, English, lies on
a couch.


Hugh: Are you at ease and relaxed, Mr Lloyd?

Stephen: Yes, very. This is a very comfortable chair.

Hugh: That is no accident, Mr Lloyd. It was designed by
a friend of mine, to my specifications, purposely to
relax you and place you fully at your ease.

Stephen: Well it is very comfortable.

Hugh: My friend will be delighted to hear that. Now,
Frank - I shall be calling you Frank through the
duration of these sessions. Okay by you?

Stephen: Fine.

Hugh: I have found that that also helps relax you into a
state where you feel able to talk freely with me. Is
it working?

Stephen: Yes.

Hugh: Good. Now ...

Stephen: My name is Jonathan, I don't know if that -

Hugh: Good. Already we're finding out new things. Now
Frank, I want you to take a deep breath through
your mouth.

Stephen: (Doing so) Haah!

Hugh: Fine. Now I'd like you to breathe out through
your nose.

(Stephen snots slightly in obeying this request.)

In through the mouth, out through the nose. Do
you know what this is called, Frank?

Stephen: Breathing.

Hugh: That's nice. Frank, this is called inter-oral, extra-
nasal respiratory relaxant therapy, and - as the
name implies - this an American technique.
Good and calm and regular. Frank, I want now that
you should allow your mind to take you backward
in time. Think yourself back and back and back.

Stephen: Right.

Hugh: Have you gone back?

Stephen: Yes.

Hugh: You've gone back. What do you see in your mind's
eye, Frank?

Stephen: The Spanish Armada.

Hugh: Frank, you may have gone back too far there. I'm
talking of your memories Frank. Your childhood
status. I want to investigate all the sense data
of your infancy. Go back to when you were in
second grade.

Stephen: What?

Hugh: Second grade.

Stephen: I don't know what that is. I've never understood
it when people talk about grades and semesters
in films.

Hugh: OK Frank, maintain your respiratory rhythms and
let's turn then, if we may, to your dreams. You
dream, Frank?

Stephen: Yes I do, yes as it happens, yes.

Hugh: You do? Well that's fine. Are you able at this time
to recall to the surface of your conciousness any
recurrent nocturnal dream sequences for me?

Stephen: Well I do have one recurring dream as a matter of
fact.

Hugh: Well now, let's take time off Frank, to analyse that
sequence together.

Stephen: It is rather a strange dream.

Hugh: Is it Frank, a dream of an erotic nature I wonder?

Stephen: No, not really.

Hugh: Oh. Well I'd still like to hear it.

Stephen: As I say it's a bit odd.

Hugh: Ordinarily, Frank, the more bizarre or outre the
dream, the more readily susceptible to positive
interpretation is thusly renders itself to become.
On the converse side of the bull-pen, simpler
dream experiences are more resistant to explication
and offer a much more complex morphology to
the professional inquirer bold enough howso to
venture therein.

Stephen: I see.

Hugh: But hey, Frank! That's my problem. You've got a
dream, let's share it. What do you say?

Stephen: Are you sure this is going to get us anywhere?

Hugh: Depends where you want to be, Frank.

Stephen: Well ...

Hugh: Where do you want to be?

Stephen: Well I want -

Hugh: I want to be there too, Frank. I want to take you
there. (Putting his arm on Stephen's shoulder) Don't
be scared. Do I scare you, Frank?

Stephen: No, not really.

Hugh: You sure about that?

Stephen: Well, a bit perhaps.

Hugh: (Incredibly loudly) I'm going to kill you!

Stephen: (Starting) Jesus!

Hugh: That scared you, didn't it?

Stephen: Yes. Yes it did, actually.

Hugh: Good, I like to know the thresholds within which I
have to operate. Putting my hand on your shoulder
did not scare you. Shouting loudly in your ear that
I was going to kill you, did. Those are my limits.
My ceiling and floor if you will.

Stephen: Do you want to hear this dream or not?

Hugh: I very much want to hear this dream, Frank. I do
really. Shoot.

Stephen: Well, I'm in a corridor -

Hugh: Frank, I have a small tape-recorder here. Do you
mind if I - ?

Stephen: No, no. Good idea. This is quite a complicated
dream.

Hugh: Thank you.

Stephen: I'm in a big building. I think it's a hospital ...

(Hugh switches on his tape-recorder: pop music comes
out. Hugh taps his feet and joins in the singing.)

What are you ... ?

Hugh: Please continue, Frank.

Stephen: I think it's a hospital, but it isn't. It's some kind
of institution. There's a big staircase, a uniformed
man at the top. Janitor or something. He beckons
to me ... look, I can't concentrate with this
going on.

Hugh: (Turning it off) I do most sincerely beg your
pardon, Frank. Please continue.

Stephen: Well, anyway, the janitor beckons to me and then I
wake up.

Hugh: You wake up. I see. Now this sounds ...

Stephen: And almost immediately I'm chosen for a
bathroom wall.

Hugh: Frank, I've never thought of myself as a stupid
man, but even so I think I'm going to need a little
help understanding that last sentence. You were
chosen for a bathroom wall.

Stephen: Well the thing is, you see, I haven't woken up at
all. I've only woken up in the dream. I wake up
and find that I'm the colour blue.

Hugh: The colour blue.

Stephen: That's right. And somebody chooses me for their
bathroom wall.

Hugh: I see. And do you then become the colour of
that wall?

Stephen: No. As it happens, I'm a particular shade of
blue that's very difficult to get in the shops. The
bathroom wall ends up with a bit too much green
in it. But we get on reasonably well.

Hugh: I'm sorry?

Stephen: The colour of the bathroom wall and I get on
pretty well. There are no hard feelings.

Hugh: I see. This bathroom, Frank. Does it belong
to a lady?

Stephen: Er ... yes, I think so.

Hugh: And she likes to bathe in this bath in this
bathroom?

Stephen: Well I suppose so.

Hugh: Are you attracted to her?

Stephen: Well no. I'm the colour blue, how could I ... ?

Hugh: But she's attracted to you.

Stephen: Well ...

Hugh: She chose you, Frank. Out of all the other
colours, she chose you.

Stephen: Yes.

Hugh: There you go. She was attracted to you, Frank.

Stephen: She chose me because I reminded her of
the colour of a bruise she once had on her
inner thigh.

Hugh: Now we're getting somewhere, Frank. You
remember being the colour of this bruise?

Stephen: Vaguely.

Hugh: This is an interesting sequence, Frank. What
happens next?

Stephen: I tell you how my dream continues, I think.

Hugh: Right.

Stephen: I find myself in the corridor in a large house just
outside Taunton and Prince Edward is running
towards me, he's about to bowl a cricket ball at me
and I haven't got a bat. Prince Edward is running
in to bowl and I haven't got a bat. What does
that mean?

Hugh: Just may be a little early to say yet, Frank.

Stephen: But suddenly I find it isn't Prince Edward after all,
it's Bob Holness.

Hugh: Come again for me?

Stephen: Bob Holness. You know, "Blockbusters". Bob turns
to me and I catch sight of his face, it's a twisted
grinning mask of contorted harted and frenzy. I
look down and I find I have got a bat. I didn't
have a bat when it was Prince Edward but I did
when it was Bob Holness. Why? Why? Am I mad?

Hugh: Mad? Frank, "mad" is not a word I like to use.
Let's just say that half of us is always "mad",
disordered, wild and the other half is sane,
rational, in control.

Stephen: Oh I see. You mean there's two sides to every
person?

Hugh: No, I mean the two of us. Half of us is sane,
that's me, and the other half is mad, that's
you, Frank.

Stephen: I must say you seem rather unorthodox. The last
man I saw just gave me a couple of fillings.

Hugh: Dentistry has made many advances, Frank.

Stephen: Obviously.

 

[Jason Fox]

Those are great. I've never seen them before. Very talented writers, those guys.