ANNOUNCER: | This is the BBC Third Programme. We present a play by Giles Cooper entitled, ‘The Disagreeable Oyster’. |
BUNDY: | You can say that again. |
ANNOUNCER:: | ‘The Disagreeable Oyster.’ |
BUNDY: | They do disagree with me, but how was I to know when I stood on the steps of the Rosedene Family and Commercial Hotel, thinking that the world was my oyster that – |
BUNDY MINOR: | Begin at the beginning. |
BUNDY: | And the beginning is at twelve o’clock on a Saturday morning in my office at Craddock’s Calculators Ltd. |
As you read the opening of the play, imagine your pictures
HIGHLY DRAMATIC, VICTORIAN ORGAN MUSIC |
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DAVID: (PERIOD BRISTOL ACCENT) |
One Morning the Lord God Ravished I. As I did sit at Sunday service, the sun full in the aisle, playing a voluntary upon the organ, a flare of raw light did hit my body, burnt so strong, I could see every bone glowing within my hands. While all about I the world fell dark and dead. And as He did ravish I, the Lord God implanted within I the seed of wisdom. ‘Go, David Worth,’ He said, ‘leave your Babylonian captivity here in Bristol. Seek out a place unsullied by human habitation and there build for me the Temple of the New Jerusalem’. |
FADE ORGAN MUSIC |
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DAVID: |
From that moment there has been no distraction in my life. At night I studied the holy texts of Revelation, seeking to understand the sacred principles of Divine Geometry. Upon old ocean charts I found an island, the Keeling Coco Island, lying deep in the wastes of the Great Southern Ocean. Myself, all my companions, my wife and children, my faithful servant Elisha all scrimped and saved, husbanded our scarce resources, until one day last Spring after many hardships, us set sail from our native Bristol, down the Gorge of Avon and out upon the broad ocean, committing ourselves to the perilous deep. |
BRING UP AND SWELL SAILING SHIP CUTTING THROUGH HEAVY SEAS AND INTO THE NEXT SCENE |
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF CESAR FRANCK’S PIANO QUINTET. AFTER 15 SECONDS FADE AND KEEP UNDER HIS MONOLOGUE |
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CESAR: |
Oh my soul! My love! Only in music shall I reach out to you. Only in music shall we become as one. We shall identify, conjoin, like light from the far stars, shining, enduring, as long as music itself. My soul, my love, my Augusta! |
SWELL MUSIC |
WE ARE IN THE CONTROL ROOM OF A POLARIS SUBMARINE, IN DOCK, ON THE SURFACE. THE CAPTAIN AND JIM, THE FIRST LIEUTENANT, ARE COMPLETING A DAILY-USER CHECK, AND EXCHANGING A MURMURED CONVERSATION OVER ASSORTED WHIRRS, CLICKS AND THE SOUND OF RADIO 1: ‘RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER’. THE CAPTAIN IS A SUAVE AND EASY FELLOW: RATHER TOO MUCH SO FOR HIS FIRST LIEUTENANT. |
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CAPTAIN: |
Hydroplane system. One-man-control? |
JIM: |
A OK Sir |
CAPTAIN: |
Plotting tables? |
JIM: |
All complete, sir. |
CAPTAIN: |
Sounder? |
JIM: |
Hold on, sir. |
SILENCE. THEN PING-PING-PING FROM THE ECHO SOUNDER |
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JIM: |
A OK sir |
JIM: |
Cold out there, sir. Snug as a bug in here. |
CAPTAIN: |
Snug as a bug. User check complete. Down periscope. Goodbye, God’s eye. See you in three months. Take care. Small you said (referring to Tim, the Navigator’s wife), and learning to be sensible. Ah! |
RADIO 4; ‘DECK THE HALLS WITH FERNS AND HOLLY’ |
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CAPTAIN: |
She won’t be lonely? |
JIM: |
They have a dog. |
CUT TO: THOMPSON, THE DOG, HALF SPRINGER, HALF ALSATIAN, WHICH MAKES HIM AMIABLE AND ENORMOUS, SLURPS AND GRUNTS OVER THE SLEEPING MEG’S FACE. THE BEDSIDE RADIO IS TUNED TO RADIO 4 AND CONTINUES FROM THE PREVIOUS SCENE IN THE NEW ACOUSTIC. RADIO 4: ‘TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY’ |
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THOMPSON: |
(PERHAPS AN ACTOR CAN IMITATE A DOG. FAY WELDON WROTE:) Ploph! |
MEG: |
Go away Thompson. Get off this bed. You’re not allowed on the bed. Get off! Timmy, get him off . Timmy? Oh, Timmy, you’re gone. I forgot. Three months. Oh Thompson, you stupid dog, what will I do? Sleep. ‘Tis the season to be jolly.’ |
POSTMAN:: |
You’re too isolated up here. You’d have done better to have chosen nearer to the Base with the others. But that’s your affair. |
HE GOES. |
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MEG: |
I didn’t want to be near the others. I wanted us all alone, just the two of us. Oh, Timmy. (SINGS) ‘God rest you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay.’ |
THOMPSON JOINS IN, HOWLING. |
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MEG: |
Be quiet, Thompson, you stupid dumb dog. If you could talk there’d be some point to you. |
SLIGHT EDGE OUT. DOWN IN THE POLARIS: PING-PING-PING |
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CAPTAIN: |
(SINGS) ‘God rest you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay’ – (SPEAKS) Glad to see you, Timmy. Now perhaps we can get on with the fast cruise. |
JIM: |
Morning, sir. I was last aboard. That’s never happened before. |
CAPTAIN: |
You’ve never been married before. (SINGS) ‘Remember Christ our Saviour Was born on Christmas day’ – |
NANCY: |
[TO MIKE].
We moved from London to the country on a misty morning in early May.
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WILLIAM: |
[ALOUD] It’s so outrageously inconvenient. |
ROSIE: |
Moving house is always inconvenient, William. |
WILLIAM: |
But it’s specifically inconvenient to me, Rosie.
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