Prick Up Your Ears Page #3

He's done shorthand.

- He had a badge in his blazer.

- This boy will never make a typist.

- He can do 40 words a minute.

- Shut up!

No, he must take up a dramatic career.

But Ive sacrificed all down the line

in order for him to land a job in an office.

No, Mrs. Orton, your son must go in

for a scholarship to RADA.

- RADA?

- The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

RADA?

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

RADA.

"Do you know who Im looking for, Smee?"

"No, tell me again, Captain."

"Im looking for a boy, Smee."

"What kind of boy, Captain?"

"A wicked boy. A heartless boy.

"A boy who never ate his rice pudding."

"Oh, horror! Can there be such boys?"

"Aye, there can.

"It was a boy like that that cut off my arm...

"and fed it to the crocodiles.

"His name...

"was Peter Pan."

You've had some amateur experience,

I gather, Mr. Orton.

Tell us about it.

I started off in Richard III.

As what?

A messenger.

That was most original.

You've done very well.

Yes, very nice and loud.

"O, that this too too solid flesh

would melt...

- "thaw and resolve itself into a dew!"

- Rather old.

- "Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd..."

- Not as old as he looks.

"...his canon 'gainst self-slaughter!"

Its useful to have somebody as old as that.

Just for casting.

We seem to be taking

practically anything that stands up.

At least he's got the coat.

- What are you?

- Cats, miss.

Let's change the exercise slightly.

Ive got a cat now.

Here you are. Catch it.

Movement, enunciation, breath control.

Its all so wildly dated, don't you agree?

- Yes, it is.

- Still, I suppose the beginners find it useful.

- Are you new to London?

- Hardly.

A small legacy enabled me to spend

several weekends at the Strand Palace.

- Hotels are a closed book to me.

- You'll like the Strand Palace.

Perhaps we might venture there one evening

for coffee.

Ready?

We're off over to South Bank. The festival.

Yes, it might be amusing, I suppose.

Yes, the plebs and their simple pleasures.

What did you ask him for?

Come on.

"Let us go then, you and I...

"when the evening is spread out

against the sky...

"like a patient etherised upon a table."

Come on.

You know, some of these people are...

- having sexual intercourse.

- F***ing, you mean.

What did you expect?

Many of them are from Australia.

Come on.

What was the Festival of Britain?

That was when it all came off the ration.

You mean food and things?

Life, dear. Sex. Everything.

Only it didn't, of course.

I wish he'd never come.

I wanted it to be just us.

- No.

- Why?

- Not here. People are looking.

- F*** people.

You can't live like that, John.

- I want to take things gradually.

- I don't.

You don't know what life's like.

Im not going to find out at this rate, either.

- Thank you.

- Cheap clothes suit you.

Its because you're from the gutter.

I said Ill move in with Janet.

This is the room.

Im only looking. Im fixed up elsewhere.

Is it a northern light?

Never heard any complaints.

Of course, it's in dire need of decorating.

What is that smell?

Air freshener.

The carpet came from Reading originally.

Friends, are you?

- Students.

- Ive nothing against friendship.

Its the most wonderful thing in the world,

within reason.

Im only looking.

- They say Islington's coming up.

- It is.

They've turned the greengrocer's into

an antique shop, and the pub is silent.

What do you think?

I think I shall keep an open mind.

Help yourself. Here.

- Where did you get them?

- I nicked them while he wasn't looking.

- You can type?

- Forty words a minute.

- Neither of us seems to have family photos.

- Im an orphan.

I always wanted to be an orphan.

I could have been

if it hadn't been for my parents.

My mother died when I was a boy.

She was stung on the tongue by a wasp.

One minute

we were just sitting down to breakfast...

ten minutes later, she was dead.

- That still leaves your dad.

- Him?

He put his head in the gas oven

when I was 18.

I came down one morning

and found him lying there.

So I switched the gas off, had a shave...

made some tea, and called the ambulance.

In that order.

I understand.

My dad always took a back seat.

My novels.

Anybody can act.

All these books. Ill never catch up.

Im a cultivated person, John.

You'll find it rubs off.

Dictionaries.

- Can you spell?

- Yes, but not accurately.

- I don't understand Shakespeare.

- We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Talking of Shakespeare,

we're missing the Queen.

I here present unto you Queen Elizabeth...

your undoubted Queen.

Improves the contrast.

Wherefore all you who are come this day...

to do your homage and service...

are you willing to do the same?

This is a new experience for me.

Yes?

Television.

Ive never seen it before.

... to govern the peoples

of the United Kingdom...

Do you like it?

This?

Television.

... the other territories according to

their respective laws and customs?

I solemnly promise so to do.

Its the beginning of a new era.

Thence goes Queen Elizabeth

to sit in King Edward's Chair...

for the most sacred rite of her anointing.

Are you up here helping John?

Holding his hand.

Did Kenneth ever come up to Leicester?

Did you like him?

I didn't dislike him.

I could see what he saw in Joe, after all.

I couldn't really see what Joe saw in him.

Of course, I didn't know what went on.

Upstairs, come on.

Did you know that Joe was that way?

- Yes.

- You didn't.

I did and I didn't.

The way you do, don't you?

Mind you, at our Douglas' wedding,

Mom found him in bed with a bridesmaid.

So you see? Its as I say.

He couldn't have learned it in Leicester.

He was corrupted.

Joe wanted something from Kenneth.

And Kenneth wanted something from Joe.

Its not corruption.

Its collaboration.

He was born that way,

or else it was my mom.

Women don't care anyway.

- I don't care what men get up to.

- I don't care where they put it.

As long as they don't put it there.

Didn't I say upstairs?

A taste of their own medicine.

The lavatories shocked me a bit

when I read his diary, but...

A boy stopped me the other day...

and said, "I want to thank you for

your brother's plays." So what do you do?

Yes, I feel quite grateful

for his plays myself.

Personally, I think a lot of that is made up.

- What?

- The toilets.

You have to go into all that, do you?

It all seems a bit unnecessary to me.

The lawn mower is not unnecessary.

The Fiesta is not unnecessary.

You ought to be grateful

we get money from his plays.

Grateful? I work, too, you know.

This isn't royalties.

This is plumbing money, this is.

He's nothing in Leicester, Joe Orton.

- Ken?

- What?

You know you could be

put in prison for this.

So could you.

No.

Im the innocent party.

No, I want to get on.

Writing, John, is one-tenth inspiration,

nine-tenths...

Masturbation.

That's a library book.

You should respect books.

I respect them more than you.

You just take them for granted.

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