Bedlam

Come, Poll, do you know my friend,

Lord Mortimer?

Lord Mortimer.

Lord Mortimer.

Lord Mortimer is like a pig.

His brain's small and his belly big.

What's this hubbub?

It's one of the lunatics from the asylum,

I expect, milord.

- A prank? A jest?

- Go and see, John.

Bedlam?

It does not look so merry a place, milord.

Never been there?

You'll have to pay Master Sims tuppence

to see all the loonies in their cages.

Maybe they'll teach you

some new tricks, Nell.

I have no need of their wit

to entertain you, milord.

They say, sir, that one of the poor devils

in there fell from the roof trying to escape.

Very regrettable. Well, drive on.

Your Lordship, it seems to me

the man was known to you.

I thought I saw him in your company

not a week gone by, sir.

Really? Well, let's have a look.

You, there. You with the light.

It is...

It is young Master Colby.

He fell trying to escape.

Some of our boos haven't sense enough

to keep safe behind their bars.

Where is Sims?

- Fetch him.

- He is dining out, milord.

Dining out with Colby's blood

on his hands.

- Do you know me?

- Yes, milord.

Then tell Master Sims to wait

upon me in the morning.

I have some few words

I wish to say to him.

Lord Mortimer is like a pig.

Will you remind Lord Mortimer

that I am waiting?

Well, Pompey, are you a pretty boy

this morning?

What are you trying to do, Pompey?

Milord, I want to look like

the visitor in the hallway.

Sims. I'd forgotten Sims.

You there, clear out.

Send in the good Sims.

First course for milord's rage.

To be eaten with a sauce of lightning,

and to the tune of thunder.

Send him in.

Sims.

Quiet! I'll tell you why.

That you hated him, I knew.

That you envied him was known to all...

but that you would dare...

Dare to leave

that murderous window open...

to murder him from spite and envy.

Murder, milord?

There was no murder.

Colby was my guest.

He chose to leave by a window

before I could open the door for him.

And then that monstrous accident.

Accident?

Master Sims is writing a new dictionary.

Are accidents contrived,

plotted, executed?

Exactly, Mistress Bowen.

This was a misadventure

contrived by the victim...

and executed by nature's law

that all who lose their grip on gutters...

must fall.

You stick to that story, Master Sims?

I could never invent one half so droll.

The characters of the tale...

two poets, Colby and myself.

But I am not only a poet,

but also, by your Lordship's favor...

the Apothecary General

of St. Mary's of Bethlehem Hospital.

My friend comes to discuss poetry.

I am absent.

My guards mistake him for a madman.

He tries to escape from them and is killed.

Like a romance, milord.

It's a romance that cost me 20 guineas

and a night of laughter.

How so, milord?

Lord Mortimer was foolish enough

to pay an advance...

for poetry promised in the future.

Colby was to write a masque

for the fete Lord Mortimer is giving.

If I might offer my humble talents.

Even at the hospital

I deal in wit and laughter, madam.

Are there any who have come to Bedlam...

and say the entertainment

is not worth the tuppence they paid?

You do not entertain me, Master Sims.

That is because you have a tender heart.

Most people laugh at my ugliness.

It offends me, sir.

To move a lady so beautiful in any way...

- He's gallant, too.

- I am as you wish, milord.

And I will make your fete

a frolic you will remember.

How?

Sometimes the success of a play

belongs to the players.

What if the masque were performed

by my company of wits, the Bedlamites?

Have your loonies perform?

The opposition.

Not John Wilkes himself,

nor his whole Whig party...

could think of anything

as clever as that, eh, Nell?

You didn't think of it, either.

It's one and the same thing.

My friend here thought of it.

Let us say that you inspired

the thought, milord.

Do you hear that, Nell? I inspired him.

Let us say that you both inspired me.

Milord and the beloved of milord.

I think you misunderstand, Master Sims.

I am milord's protegee.

I entertain him and he has no more

freedom with me than any other man.

In any case...

if milord will but give me

the day and hour of the fete...

I will prepare a masque of madness

that will set you howling.

One week from today at the Vauxhall.

- The company assembles at 8:00.

- Thank you.

By your leave.

A merry notion.

The Lord Mayor will roll in the soup

with laughter.

A capital fellow, this Sims.

A capital fellow.

If you ask me, milord,

he's a stench in the nostrils...

a sewer of ugliness,

and a gutter brimming with slop.

But witty.

So he tells us.

Even if his wit is wanting...

his Bedlamites will set my guests roaring.

Everyone who goes to Bedlam

expires with laughter.

Why don't you go and see them, Nell?

You'll see how funny they are.

Perhaps I will.

Nice fresh toddies.

Ladies come and buy my lavender

My sweet scented lavender

Lavender

Lavender

Nice fresh toddies, all fresh.

Now's the time to scent your handkerchief

Ladies come and buy my lavender

Lavender

Nice toddies...

Good morning, Master Sims.

There is a Quaker waiting for you, sir.

A master stonemason.

Will you have him in?

Podge...

where is my rhyming lexicon?

I need a rhyme for Mortimer.

That Quaker, sir.

Whatever are you rattling on

about so, Podge?

I have an important commission.

A rhymed comedy for Milord Mortimer.

And you bother me

about some sniveling Quaker.

He's been waiting so long, sir.

- Waiting?

- Three hours, sir.

I waited four hours

before milord Mortimer...

would give me a dog's word.

Let him wait some more.

But he will not wait, sir.

He's a good workman.

And cheap, I'm told.

Cheap?

Let him in.

You may leave us, Podge.

My man tells me

you'll do the work cheaply.

With cut stone one foot thick...

and the best mortar,

I can do the work for 15 guineas.

What if I were to give you 18 guineas?

It would be too much.

Eighteen guineas and you are

to return to me two.

Then you'll have a better price,

and I'll have some reason to employ you.

My friend, I have forgotten

what thee has said.

If thee do not repeat it,

then I can believe no evil of thee.

What kind of cant is this?

I've asked you for a bribe, man.

Have you never been asked before?

This is simple business between us two.

My friend, about the stonemasonry...

I had not looked forward to the pleasure...

of seeing you again so soon,

Mistress Bowen.

I have a curiosity to see

the loonies in their cages.

And so you shall.

So you shall.

Your riding crop, Mistress Bowen.

You must hang it here.

It's a law of the institute. No weapons.

In heaven's name, why?

In one of his plays, Dekker...

a second-rate dramatist

of the last century...

wrote of those in there:

"Fierce as wild bulls, untamable as flies

"And these have oft from strangers' sides

snatched rapiers suddenly

"and done much harm"

Strangely, here, one forgets

you are a man of letters, Master Sims.

Our hospital is ancient and well known.

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