Ladies and gentlemen, the Highly Esteemed Goon show brings you:
(sound of wet kipper hitting custard…)
1066: the Untold but TRUE story…Starring Russel Maximus Hood as Hereward the Sleepy and any number of beautiful actresses
as his historically irrelevant love interest…
sound of heavy thump followed by body falling to the floor.
Announcer; Mr Eliot and Mr Pound, thank you for joining us on critics forum.
Eliot: well, unless they go on producing great authors, and especially great poets, their language will deteriorate, their culture will deteriorate and perhaps become absorbed in a stronger one.
Pound: I agree: If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays
Sounds of scuffle, chairs falling. Eliot saying: really! This is most undignified. Pound saying; get me a phone, I want to talk to the president…
Spike: clears his throat…yes, due to budget problems there has been a change of cast…Wallace my good man…
Announcer: It was a dark and windy night
Spike; the Naafi had been serving beans again…
Announcer; stop it with these naughty post war jokes. No one will understand. It was a dark and windy night somewhere in not so merrie England. William the secretly reviled was feeling philosophical.
Spike: I didn’t know he had an Irish lover?
Announcer: Our regular listener will recognise that William the horrible is actually Count Moriarity in disguise; And we’d just like to say, Jim, on behalf of us all, thank you for listening. The cheque is in the post..
William: Bloodnock, you English are so revolting. You were revolting last year and the year before. I am going to kill you, but before I do, I am going to let you into ze secret. You might think I conquered England because my army was stronger than an English host weakened by two long and bloody battles…
Bloodnock looks surprised but says nothing…which is very difficult to do on radio.
William: The truth however….Minstrel, play appropriate flash back music:
Announcer: Scene: the white cliffs of Dover (you have to take my word for it) water, gulls, traffic. A gale is blowing
King Harold Seagoon the first and soon to be the last, is despondent. The Normans are massing across the channel. His time is running out. Where it’s running to nobody knows…
Spike: enough of these terrible punes…
Bluebottle: My captain, I heard my capitane call. Makes grand entrance. Waits for applause. Not a sausage. Sulks.
Ned; Ah suitably dark age greetings my grubby little alliterative half line. How goes the great work?
Bluebottle; it is finished my Captain. I read it to that Dorrisberga and ..giggles…goes bright red, stands on one legs and tries to wink. Falls over.
Ned; you naughty little nerk. That bag of jelly babies is yours. Read it to me, so that our language might be rejuvenated and fortified against the evils of Norman French.
Bluebottle: strikes impressive Nelson on His Column pose. Puts hand on chest under shirt. (giggles) Stands on one leg again. Is blown over the cliff clutching piece of parchment.
Sounds of falling object followed by distant splash.
Bluebotle(far off): I’ve fallen in the water (audience cheer) shut up you swine!
Neddy; Eccles, quick, jump in and save the poem
Sound of footsteps going away, then coming back…sound of falling body and distant splash.
Neddy: Eccles you idiot, what are you doing?
Eccles: (far off) Drowning.
Neddy; Here, use this box of holy relics I got from William the obnoxious. Use it as a float until I get help. I’m off to find a kipper for this sketch
Blue bottle; Don’t you mean a skipper for the ketch my Captain?
Neddy; needle nardle noo. it’s started already. (mutters as he exits)
Announcer; and now our scene shifts to the other side of the channel.
(frantic sound of packing, grunts groans, door slams shut, car racing away. Screeches to halt. sound of frantic breathless rowing. waves, gulls, boat scrunching ashore. Feet on sand)
Spike; (gasping) there has to be a better way…
Announcer; Count Gryppe type thin, pretending to be Blondel, insinuates himself in a suitably furtive Gallic manner into the throne room of William the bastard. Who is watching a ballet and eating pain au chocolate.
WTB: Wearily: is it finished?
GP: it is my chocolate-coated munificence.
W: is it a work of the highest quality, which only a few of the current intelligentsia will appreciate?
GP: it is so difficult that it will baffle critics, who will study it at the university of opaque theoretical waffle in Paris nine hundred years from now.
W: will it immediately invigorate our language and make us victors over those alliterating long haired fops?
GP; My lord, I have used the pluperfect, the passe compose and the past historic
W: you vile evil charmer. Your misspent youth in the public urinals of Calais has finally paid off.
GP: (gasps) The doctor, he told you everyzing?
W; He told me nathing…but on with ze story I don’t want you to die horribly before you have finished….the passé compose is passé, zey will respond with the simple past, zey even have an answer to our subjunctive ze filthy rotten swines
GP: evil manic genius type laughter. My lord, not only have I insinuated a few examples of the future tense…formed without auxiliary verbs…
W: gasps…victory is ours…
GP: but …Pauses for fanfare….(sound of wet kipper hitting custard) I have managed to use …..dah dah dah dah: the future pluperfect
W; sapristy nuckoes. ze war is won. Let us celebrate with the suitable gallic extravagance: Have another pain au chocolate. Do you like my tutu? (fades)
Announcer: and so on that fateful day in 1066, Harold Seagoon the Last was fatally wounded by a verb in a tense he was unable to recognise. The thriving culture of Anglo-Saxon England ..(voice fades out in dreary lecture style..)
Fade up Sounds of waves, sea gulls.
Bluebottle: Eccles my good man, do you think we are forgotted?
Eccles; We have been in the water for a long time
Blue bottle; yes, I think that Irish coast guard was a filthy rotten nerk…where are your papers he says says he and then splosh back in the whale’s bath without so much as a keel to row.
Eccles; that was days ago. Hey Bluebottle: I see land. Ooh, look, dem peoples are in the nuddy. All their bits are showing
Bluebottle: er Eccles my good man, it appears I have lost my national health service specs, do you see girls…
Eccles; Yup. Yup.
Bluebottle: oooooh, dieded we dided and wented to heaven…
Announcer: Ladies and gentleman and representatives of all other categories ; that concludes this episode of the highly esteemed goon show.
William: Hey, wait ze minute. Why fore are you all not ze French speeeking?
Gun shot. Gallic groan. Body hits floor.
Spike: has he gone?
Neddy: yes.
Peter: fancy a pint
Eliot and Pound: please!
Gun shots. Bodies hitting floor.
Spike: (warily) have they gone?
Neddy: yes, but I fear we haven’t heard the last of those two….
(11.37 27th of October)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment