Prick Up Your Ears Page #2

I think it is perhaps Peggy.

We're working on the book together.

Why don't you get Ms. Ramsay a drink?

White wine?

White wine. You're not American.

No, he is.

John's American. He is, Im not.

Yes, I think I have

just about got that straight.

We're working on the book together.

These are the diaries.

You must guard them with your life.

Believe me.

We can eat.

Urinals figure largely, of course.

Sugar?

The more insalubrious the circumstances,

the more Joe seemed to enjoy it.

Ginger?

His first taste of sex,

or the first that he records...

took place in a cinema lavatory in Leicester

at the age of 14.

The film was My Favorite Brunette.

Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

Quite.

Joe says he came

all down the man's raincoat.

Lovely melon.

Thanks.

Ill set Anthea to work transcribing these,

and then you can have the originals back.

Do you type?

Its tiresome, but sometime

we are going to have to talk about a fee.

- I do have Joe's relatives to think about.

- Of course.

He's all they have.

What is this?

This is the film script he was writing

for the Beatles that final summer.

Darling Joe.

Im about to get Brian Epstein on the phone.

When do you think

we could set up a meeting?

Not there, Ms. Ramsay. On the Coast.

When you say he's on the Coast, dear,

do you mean he's in Brighton?

When he gets back

and has shaken the sand out of his shoes...

perhaps you could get him to call me.

Slut.

Joe, dear.

Ive started on the script for the Beatles.

Im using some of a novel I wrote years ago.

Im surprised how good it is.

You didn't write that. We wrote it.

So what were you planning on doing?

Selling it to Warner Brothers?

I wouldn't care, if you gave me some credit.

If you only told people I helped you.

- Tell the Beatles I help you.

- You're not being much help now.

- Have you nothing to do?

- You do it!

Try a spot of post-coital dusting yourself.

It always has to be me.

Who's this?

Its the police. Its one of your pickups.

Your sex life has caught up with you.

Now you're going to have to pay.

I thought you might like

a preview of my frock.

Its for the firm's annual get-together

in a month or two's time.

The actual venue is not definite yet...

but it's thought to be

one of the leading London hotels.

There's been some dispute

about the design.

Its a floral motif, obviously, all hand-done.

Only, I say these are roses.

And Mr. Sugden will insist they're peonies.

This could be a lily.

- Looks more of a rhododendron to me.

- That's a thought.

Ill go try that one out on Clifford.

Do you notice Im limping?

Spilled a hot drink down my dress.

My vagina came up like a football.

If you were successful...

so successful

that you couldn't walk down the street...

what would you do?

Im thinking of the Beatles.

Id have a home.

In the country. With servants.

I wouldn't.

Id just shag everything in sight.

No.

Have a wank.

I can't just have a wank.

I need three days' notice to have a wank!

You can just stand there and do it.

Me, it's like organizing D-day.

Forces have to be assembled,

magazines bought...

the past dredged

for some suitably unsavory episode...

the dogged thought of which

can still produce a faint flicker of desire.

"Have a wank."

It'd be easier to raise the Titanic.

- And don't write it down.

- Its only my diary.

- Do you read it?

- Ive told you, no.

My mom did. I used to have to put

the dirty bits in shorthand.

Only time it's been of any use.

Im sorry, I can't help you.

My secretary does shorthand,

but Im on my own here.

Well, dear,

you'll just have to use your imagination.

Mother, didn't you once do shorthand?

Yes, for about five minutes.

Its this playwright John's working on.

He went to secretarial school as a boy

and took shorthand.

This is his diary.

He keeps going into shorthand, you see.

It was a long time ago, dear.

I never got the diploma.

"Woke up late. Did not go to school.

Told Mom I felt sick.

"When she'd gone to work,

I listened to Housewives' Choice."

"Then went into Mom's bedroom...

"and arranged the dressing table mirrors...

"and had a lovely, long, slow...

"wink."

"Wink." You sure that's an "i"?

No, dear, Im not sure at all.

"Read all morning...

"but got another hard-on.

"Just putting soap on it when Mom came in.

"Said I thought I had a spot coming.

"Mom quiet all through meal."

I should think so.

Does he go on like this?

No, the early ones stopped

just when his life got interesting.

Sounds quite interesting already.

- Where's John?

- He's gone to Leicester to see the sister.

To look at the house

where Joe was brought up.

Hello.

Was this the Orton house?

Is this the...

- Im English. Ask me.

- Was this the house that Orton...

I hated that house.

There was no love in it.

No wonder he couldn't wait to get out.

In those days, if you were from Leicester

and wanted to be an actor...

you had to get rid of your accent.

Not that Mom knew anything

about the acting.

- She just wanted John to talk posh.

- You still call him John.

That was his name when we were little.

It was after he was famous, he was Joe.

- Mrs. Lambert?

- Madame Lambert.

- You are anxious to improve your diction?

- Yes, Madame Lambert.

What is your chosen field?

- I want to be an actor.

- Indeed.

Leicester has produced some fine actors.

Leicester is the hometown

of Richard Attenborough.

Tea.

Movement, elocution,

all these I can teach you.

The arts proper to the stage.

How to smoke a cigarette

with poise, elegance...

and, above all, conviction.

The powder compact

as a means of expression.

Go to any production in the West End...

and you will see these arts

brought to a pitch of perfection.

But all that is as nothing...

without the one essential requirement.

- I have the money.

- Money? Pish!

Im not speaking of money.

Im speaking of talent.

Judging by what you've read,

you have no talent.

No talent whatsoever.

- I still want to learn.

- Bravo!

No marks for talent.

Full marks for Dunkirk spirit.

Bloody plays.

Mom didn't have much of a horizon.

She'd have liked him a civil servant.

A suit every day of his life.

Next time, tell them

to provide you with a costume!

Using our bedspread. Wicked!

You'll clean it!

Coloring it with distemper.

Ruined, bloody ruined.

I bet Dirk Bogarde

didn't distemper his mother's bedspread!

Bloody disgusting.

And get some clothes on.

Walking around like Sambo.

Don't know where to look.

What?

There's somebody at the door.

Fetch us me teeth.

It'll be the gas man. I never paid.

Good afternoon.

Im a Council official.

Ive come about your lad.

Why? What's he done?

What have you done?

Shakespeare's what he's done.

He's taken a very good part.

He's favorably impressed a prominent

member of the Education Committee.

Yes, he'd have a bedspread.

Good afternoon.

- Who's this?

- This is my husband. Ignore him.

- Your son is a born actor.

- An actor?

But he went to Clark's College.

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