Noises Off... Page #6

Are you dressed yet?

I've got the dress

stuck to my head now.

- A man!

- I'm just doing the taps.

Attacks? Not attacks on women.

I'll try anything once,

but I'll do the taps on the bath first.

Sex criminals everywhere.

Where is Vicki?

People everywhere. Tax on women?

I don't know. They put a tax

on anything these days.

If I can't find her,

you're in trouble, you see.

- W.C.? I'll fix it.

- Vicki? Vicki!

Sheik! I thought you were coming at 4:00.

This is your charming wife!

You want to see over the house now,

do you? Right.

Since you're upstairs already.

Him and his floozy.

I'll break this over their heads.

- Let's start downstairs.

- Who are these creatures?

I'm sorry about this.

I don't know who she is.

No connection with the house.

Whereas this good lady with the sardines...

No other hands in my sardines.

This time I'm eating them.

...is fully occupied, so perhaps the toilet

facilities would be of more interest.

Who are these people?

We get 'em all the time, love.

They're just Arab sheiks.

This is the downstairs bathroom

and W.C. suite.

- Arab sheiks!

- Upstairs we have...

Governor, your ballcocks have gone.

- We have him.

- They're Irish sheets.

- Irish linen sheets off my own bed.

- The thieving devils.

- In the study, however...

- Give me that sheet!

There she stands in her smalls,

for all the world to see.

- You!

- It's her.

- It's my little girl.

- Dad!

It's my little Vicki that ran away.

I thought I'd never see her again.

Would you believe it?

- What are you doing here like this?

- What are you doing?

Me? I'm taking our files on tax evasion

to Inland Revenue in Basingstoke.

So, where's my other sheet?

A house of heavenly peace. I rent it.

- You?

- Is it?

I'm sorry, I still have my trousers

down around my ankles.

It's hard to do a quick change

without a dresser.

[Lloyd] Get Tim to help you.

Where's Tim?

Come on, Tim.

- What?

- Yes, you're acting.

- I must've dozed off down there.

- Never mind.

- Do something?

- [Lloyd] No, let it pass.

We'll struggle through on our own.

Tim has a sleep behind the sofa

while all the rest of us run around

with our trousers around our ankles.

Freddie, from your entrance,

with trousers round ankles.

"So, where's my other sheet"?

- Some other problem?

- Since we're stopped anyway.

- Why did I ask?

- You know how stupid I am about plot.

- I know.

- Could I ask another dumb question?

All of my studies in world drama

lie at your disposal.

I don't understand why the Sheik just

happens to look like Philip.

'Cause he comes in and we all think,

you know... I mean, that's the joke.

- I see that.

- The rest of the plot depends on it.

But it is kind of a coincidence, isn't it?

It is kind of a coincidence.

Yes. Until you reflect that

there was an earlier draft of the play.

Now unfortunately lost to us.

And in this, the author makes it clear,

that Philip's father as a young man

traveled extensively in the Middle East.

- I see!

- You see.

- Interesting.

- I thought you'd like that.

- Will the audience get it?

- You must show them.

With looks, gestures.

That's what acting's all about.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Can we just finish the act?

From your entrance.

God, I'm being so clever out here.

What'll be left when I'm in New York

and you're on your own?

- [Lloyd] "So, where's my other sheet"?

- So, where's my other sheet?

[knocking]

A house of heavenly peace. I rent it.

- You?

- Is it?

Certainly is me. Who else?

You walk in asking to view a house when

you're nothing but a trouserless tramp.

- You take all the clean sheets.

- You snatched my nightdress.

You toss me aside like a broken china doll.

What you're up to down in Basingstoke

with my little girl, I won't ask.

I'll tell you one thing, Vicki...

[Lloyd] Brooke!

- Sorry.

- [Lloyd] Your line!

We're two lines away

from the end of the act.

I don't understand.

- Give her the line.

- "What's that, Dad"?

- But I don't understand.

- It's "What's that, Dad"?

I say to you, "l tell you something",

and you say to me, "What's that, Dad"?

I don't understand

why the sheik looks like Philip.

Poppy, bring the book.

Is that the line? "l don't understand

why the sheik looks like Philip"?

Can we consult the author's text?

Make absolutely sure.

- I think it's...

- "What's that, Dad"? Right, that's the line.

We know you've worked in London

in some very classy places,

where they let you make the play up

as you go, but we don't want that here.

Not when the author has provided us

with such a polished line of his own.

Not at 1:
00 in the morning.

Not two lines away from the end of Act l.

Not when we're about to get a coffee break

before we drop dead from exhaustion.

We merely want to hear the line,

"What's that, Dad"?!

That's all. Nothing else.

I'm not being unreasonable, am l?

Exit? Does it say "exit"?

Oh, my God,

she's gonna wash away her lenses.

- Oh, dear.

- A little heavy with the Tabasco.

I thought it was going to be Poppy

when he finally...

- It usually is.

- It's all my fault.

- Why pick on, you know?

- I thought it was quite sweet actually.

- Sweet?

- A little lovers' quarrel.

- You mean?

- Lloyd and Brooke.

Didn't you know? Where do you think

they've been all weekend?

That's why he didn't realize they put

the whole set up wrong on Sunday.

Here they come.

Okay, all forgotten.

I was irresistible.

- I think I'm going to throw up.

- What?

- No!

- Oh, God!

You pig!

- You mean?

- Her, too?

- That's something I didn't know.

- I think I'm gonna faint.

- Sit down, dear.

- Head between your knees.

- That's something she didn't know.

- Two weeks rehearsal, that's all we've had.

- What's next?

- Most exciting.

Here he comes.

- Is she all right?

- She'll be all right in a minute.

- Something she ate probably.

- This one's feeling a bit, you know.

- I'm feeling a bit, you know, myself.

- Faint?

- Or throw up?

- Need that coffee break.

You're certainly overdoing it

at the moment, dear.

Can we just have the last line...

of the act!

Me? Last line? Right.

I'll tell you one thing.

What's that, Dad?

When all around is strife and uncertainty,

there's nothing like a good

old-fashioned plate of sardines.

And, curtain!

[Lloyd] All right, let's reset for night, Act ll.

[Lloyd] No, in fact, they loved it

in Des Moines.

The end of Act II, they loved.

[Selsdon] What's this?

There's only one thing I'm missing

and that's a good old-fashioned

plate of sardines.

[Lloyd] They clapped and clapped...

in Des Moines.

Well, they clapped.

Even Selsdon heard them.

But then there was Decatur, Illinois.

Then there was Cairo, Missouri.

And Paducah, Kentucky.

Okay, I wasn't there when they had

the difficulties in Decatur.

I missed out on the problems in Paducah.

But I couldn't hold their hands all the time.

How could I be in Decatur and Paducah

when I was in New York sorting out

Hamlet in Queens?

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