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WE BEGIN WITH APPLAUSE, LOTS OF IT, AND CHEERS - AS AT THE END OF A WONDERFUL PERFORMANCE, RISING WHEN A FAVOURITE ACTOR COMES OUT ONTO STAGE. THROUGH THIS OUR TITLE ANNOUNCEMENT IS MADE. |
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1. THE FIVE LINES. WE HEAR THIS AS FROM THE BACK OF THE STALLS OF THE THEATRE. |
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| CRUMMEY | Excuse me, m'lady, but your horse seems to have eaten the tea things. |
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| RISE OF APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER, CUT... |
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| CRUMMEY | It's my age, sir. |
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| RISE OF APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER, CUT... |
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| CRUMMEY | Your things are laid out in the west bedroom, sir. I assumed you would be sleeping with your first wife. |
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| RISE OF APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER, CUT... |
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| CRUMMEY | Excuse me for interrupting, m'lady, but your guest, the Italian gent, he's floating face down in the lake, m'lady. |
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| GASP FROM AUDIENCE, CUT... |
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| CRUMMEY | Yes, sergeant, I saw everything! |
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| CURTAIN COMES DOWN. COMMENCEMENT OF MORE APPLAUSE. CUT TO..... |
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2. FOYER OF LONDON THEATRE. BABBLE OF HUGE CROWD. |
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| INTERVIEWER | (A SMARMY GIT) And tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I am in the foyer of the Duke of Westpelton Theatre, London, to celebrate the 10 thousandth performance of Sir Reginauld Bains classic whodunit, The Smee House Murder. And who have we here..... |
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| CRUMMEY | (FULL OF PEP) Sheridan Crummey.... |
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| INTERVIEWER | Of course! Mr Sheridan Crummey, the veteran Irish actor, who plays Flynn, the butler. |
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| CRUMMEY | Never missed a performance in 27 years. Not one. |
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| INTERVIEWER | (PUSHING HIM ASIDE) Ah, but here ladies and gentlemen is Dame Doreen Worcestershire, who plays Lady Smee. |
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FUSS OF DAME DOREEN APPROACHING THROUGH CROWDS. |
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| DAME DOREEN | (VERY GRAND INDEED) Howdyoudoo.... |
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3. FOYER OF NEW YORK THEATRE. SAME FUSS AS ABOVE, ONLY NEW YORK-ISH. |
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| AMERICAN INTERVIEWER, KINCADE | Tonight at the Richard Milhouse Nixon Theatre on Broadway the cast of The Smee House Murder celebrate their eight thousandth performance of Reginauld Bains classic whodunnit. I'm Randy Kindcade. And with me is the veteran Irish actor, Sheridan Crumm-eeee. |
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| CRUMMEY | (EVEN MORE PEP THAN BEFORE) Have a nice day. |
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| KINCADE | The play, for those of you who haven't seen it, is about a famous murder which occurred in County Galway, Ireland, in 1934. Sheridan, you play the butler in the play. |
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| CRUMMEY | (PROUD AND AFFABLE) I do. |
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| KINCADE | And are you a stage Irishman or a real Irishman? |
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| CRUMMEY | Both. |
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| KINCADE | (LAUGHS) But you only have 5 lines. The same five lines, every night since 1969. Haven't you ever wished to broaden your horizons, play other parts and be a successful actor? |
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| CRUMMEY | (AN AGGRESSIVE TONE) It's a wonderful part. |
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| KINCADE | (A PATRONISING LAUGH MEANING 'NO IT'S NOT') |
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| CRUMMEY | (FURIOUS) Yes it is! (BARKS HIS 5 LINES, GETTING ANGRIER AND ANGRIER, STRUGGLING WITH KINCADE) Excuse me, m'lady, but your horse seems to have eaten the tea things! It's my age, sir. Your things are laid out in the west bedroom, sir! I assumed you would be sleeping with your first wife. Excuse me for interrupting, m'lady, but your guest, the Italian gent, he's floating face down in the lake, m'lady. |
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DURING CRUMMEY'S TIRADE, KINCADE LAUGHS, TRYING TO PASS IT ALL OFF AS AN ACTOR PLAYING A GAG. BUT BY THE END IT'S A PROPER PUNCH UP. |
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| KINCADE | (WHILE STRUGGLING) This was Randy Kincade on Broadway. And now back to Bernie in the studio. |
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THE SMACK OF CRUMMEY'S RIGHT-CROSS, AND KINCADE'S RESPONDING UGH. |
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4. THE ALBATROSS CLUB, MAYFAIR. A HUSH. NEARBY, A CRINKLE OF NEWSPAPERS, CLICK OF BILLIARD BALLS. SIR REGINAULD KNOCKS BACK BRANDY THROUGHOUT. THE ARCHBISHOP WAFTS IN.... |
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| SIR REGINAULD BAINS, THE PLAYWRIGHT | (HUSHED IN-THE-CLUB TONE) Ah, Archbishop, I'm so glad you could come to the club. Thankyou. Thankyou. And in your regalia too.
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| ARCHBISHOP | How might I be of help, Sir Reginauld? |
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HE SITS IN A LEATHER CHAIR. ITS SQUEAK. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | (WORRIED) Well, yes, you see, it's that damned play. The Smee House Murder. |
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| ARCHBISHOP | I've seen it 3 times. An excellent piece of work. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | (YELLS) No it's not! |
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SHHHHHHH FROM THE CLUB MEMBERS. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | Sorry, sorry. (HUSHED AGAIN TO ARCHBISHOP) Did you ever wonder why I never wrote another play? |
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| ARCHBISHOP | Well, I assumed, if I thought of it at all, that your play was so successful that you didn't need to bother yourself scribbling another. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | No, it wasn't that. The play's the thing, that's wot. It's haunted me ever since I wrote it. I haven't had a night's sleep in 29 years without the most dreadful nightmares. |
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| ARCHBISHOP | Oh, dear, dearie-me.
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| SIR REGINAULD | I've tried to get them to take the play off, but they won't. (WAILS) THEY WON'T!!!! |
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SHHHHHHH FROM THE CLUB. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | Sorry, sorry. (MOANS) You know the part where the tenor Fanfani comes back in when they all thought he was drowned in the lake. I feel that moment coming at me, like impending disaster, all the time. And one of my characters, the young girl, Clodagh Smee, excuse me Archbishop, but I've been having hallucinations of her, naked - I can see her now - writhing lewdly on that billiard table. |
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EXTRA CLICK OF BILLIARD BALLS |
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| ARCHBISHOP | (ACID) So that's the trouble is it, a filthy mind. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | No. No. HE's the worst. HIM. The butler. Flynn. He's only got 5 lines, but they keep running through my head, all the time. "Excuse me, m'lady, but your horse seems to have eaten the tea things...." (BREAKS DOWN, WEEPING) I'm going to have to resign as Chairman of the Conservative Party. |
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| ARCHBISHOP | What a pity! |
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| RUPERT | (APPROACHING, COUGHS TO ANNOUNCE HIMSELF) Scusey-be, Sir Reg, but there's a problem. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | (SADLY TO HIMSELF) I know. I know. |
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| RUPERT | It's about your play, Sir Reg.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Play? |
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| RUPERT | The Smee House Murder. Something's come to light.
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| SIR REGINAULD | (YELLS, DESPERATELY ANXIOUS) Yes, well, spit it OUT! |
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SHHHHHHH FROM THE CLUB. |
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| Oh, shutup the lot of you!
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MUTTERED COMPLAINTS FROM THE CLUB. |
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| (PLEADS) - What is it, boy? |
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| RUPERT | Well, thing is, dyersee, the actor who plays the butler, Sheridan Crummey, was involved in a fracas with a reporter in New York. He's played the butler ever since the play opened there 25 years ago. But....I can't think how no one ever noticed, but this fracas has brought it to light, dyersee.... |
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| SIR REGINAULD | What to light? What? |
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| RUPERT | Sheridan Crummey, he's played the butler in London every night for 29 years, also. |
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| ARCHBISHOP | There must be some mistake. |
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| RUPERT | Apparently not. It's all fully verified. It's the same man. Not twins or anything. Same man. Impossybule, but there you are! |
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| SIR REGINAULD | I KNEW IT! I knew something queer was going on! |
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| RUPERT | The various authorities have tried to arrest him, both of him, but they, he, escaped through trap doors in his respective theatres. He's disappeared. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | (CHARGING AWAY) We must find him! He has the answer! I will sleep again! (YELLS BACK) See you in church, Archbishop! |
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| ARCHBISHOP | (TO HIMSELF) I feel a crisis in faith coming on. Dearie-be. |
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5. A MONASTERY IN IRELAND. CRUMMEY ALONE IN HIS CELL. A BELL TOLLS IN DISTANCE.
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| CRUMMEY | Excuse me, m'lady, but your horse seems to have eaten the tea things. It's my age, sir. Your things are laid out in the west bedroom, sir......(GASPS AND SOBS) Oh, Clodagh, Clodagh, Clodagh Smee, my sweet girl - as each wave fell upon the rocks I sighed your name, for every freckle on your arms I have felt a million tortures because of you. (SUDDENLY BACK TO THE STAGE DELIVERY OF HIS 5 LINES) Excuse me for interrupting, m'lady, but your guest, the Italian gent...(CROSSFADE TO BROTHER FRANCIS AND SIR REGINAULD, CRUMMEY CONTINUES REPEATING HIS 5 LINES OVER AND OVER IN THE BACKGROUND)...he's floating face down in the lake, m'lady. Yes sergeant, I saw everything!
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| BR. FRANCIS | Ever since he arrived at the monastery last Sunday he's just sat there, wittering away to himself, without a moment's pause. Its remarkably irritating, I must confess. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | Yes, it is, I know. But the thing is, Brother...erm? |
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| BR. FRANCIS | Brother Francis, that's me. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | The thing is, although he's here in this little stone room, he's also, at this very minute, on stage in London and New York, and in 29 other productions of my play The Smee House Murder, throughout the world. |
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| BR. FRANCIS | And that's true, is it?
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| SIR REGINAULD | Cross my heart, I swear. Of course, it's very hush-hush. Need to know basis, wot. The police, they're there, when he comes off stage, when his 5 lines are said, but somewhere between the curtain and the wings....he just disappears.
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| BR. FRANCIS | (TAKING THIS IN SCEPTICALLY) I see. Quite a mystery then. - Smee House, was it? That's just down the road from here. |
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| SIR REGINAULD | Is it? Well, yes, you're right, of course it is.
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| BR. FRANCIS | Perhaps that's where the solution to this peculiar tribulation lies.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Hm? Ah, you mean I should go looksee, ask about. Brilliant! (SHAKING HIS HAND VIGOROUSLY) I say, you've got your wits - I haven't! - you're better than that Archbishop. (ON HIS WAY) Haven't slept right for 29 years, you know.
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| BR. FRANCIS | (CALLS AFTER) And you'll come right back and take away your friend. There's 300 monks here in a vow of silence but there all muttering those same 5 lines of his, and them's that aren't muttering it are thinking it. (TO HIMSELF) "Yes, sergeant, I saw everything. Excuse me, m'lady, but your horse...." - awk, Mother of God help me!
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| CRUMMEY | ....horse seems to have eaten the tea things. It's my age, sir. (SUDDEN HIGH EMOTION) Clodagh, Clodagh, Clodagh Smee, I used to watch you swimming in the lake. Your father's old telescope. That Italian - you didn't really care for him the way you thought you did. Perhaps he did have the talent of a McCormack, but it was the soul of a Mussolini he had. (BACK TO 5 LINES) Excuse me for interrupting, m'lady, but your guest, the Italian gent, he's floating face down in the lake, m'lady. |
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6. SMEE HOUSE, FRONT DOOR. HEAVY RAIN. DOGS BARKING ALL AROUND SIR REGINAULD'S FEET AS HE FRANTICALLY RINGS THE BELL. THE DOOR OPENS.
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| HOOLIHAN THE BUTLER | (VERY VEXED) What's all the clanging about, for God's sake man!
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| SIR REGINAULD | Sorry, sorry - I think they want in out of the downpour.
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THE DOGS BARK AND SCRAMBLE THROUGH THE DOOR AND AWAY INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE HOUSE.
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| Look, I wonder if I could...a word.....the master of the house.
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| HOOLIHAN | The master died in 1952.
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| SIR REGINAULD | (ABJECT) I am sorry.
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| HOOLIHAN | What are you selling?
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| SIR REGINAULD | My card. Sir Reginauld Bains, the playwright. My mother was half Irish.
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| HOOLIHAN | Was she now? I'll see what Lady Smee says. You better stand there. Don't want you dripping in the porch.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Lady Smee? Scusey-be, but is she an very-very old lady? I mean, silly question, it can't be Clodagh Smee, can it?
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| HOOLIHAN | (FROM WELL INSIDE) It is! Keep out of the porch, I said!
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| SIR REGINAULD | (TO HIMSELF, AMAZED) Clodagh Smee, still alive, I never thought.
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7. LADY SMEE'S DAY ROOM. A CRACKED RECORD OF ENZO FANFANI PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | (OLD AND ILL) I've never seen this play of yours. My man Hoolihan, he's seen it. Says it's dreadful.
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| SIR REGINAULD | It is. He's right.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | I find the whole subject too distressing. I still miss him, you know. 60 years since he was murdered. In this very room.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Yes, of course. (LAUGHS) In here, it's just like my stage set.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | That's him singing. Enzo Fanfani. My Enzo.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Very beautiful. Yes.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | He had a big belly, but the most wonderful nails.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Look here, we've never actually met, but I feel I know you - I wrote your character in my play and I've often thought about you. I don't wish to cause any distress, but could I perhaps ask a few questions, about your old butler, Flynn?
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| CLODAGH SMEE | (ANGRY) Flynn! That man, that man.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Its a real problem, an international crisis on the brew you might say. I've a horrible inkling that something is very wrong and....
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| CLODAGH SMEE | (MORE VEXED) I'll tell you something, Sir Reginauld Bains, that isn't in your play. They always said it was my mother that murdered that poor Italian. It ruined her health double quick it did. (ENERGY GONE, SAYS MATTER-OF-FACT) She was innocent, of course. It was Flynn.
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| SIR REGINAULD | No! Really! Is that true? Flynn did it. Ah!
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| CLODAGH SMEE | Flynn. After he left the house he used send naked pictures of himself to me, with love letters on the back in the tiniest writing. It's all in them, he almost says so, but if you can read between the lines. Obvious. He was jealous of Enzo. The letters, the pictures came here for years. Until he died.
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| SIR REGINAULD | But why didn't you tell the police about this?
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| CLODAGH SMEE | (AMAZED AT SUCH A STUPID SUGGESTION) Police? Everyone was dead, except me. It didn't matter anymore. (A DEEP SIGH) But just lately, in my dreams, and then all day, I kept hearing Flynn's voice, saying the same few sentences over and over ...."Excuse me, m'lady, but your horse seems to have eaten the tea things..."
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| SIR REGINAULD | (INTERRUPTING HER QUOTE EARLY ON, LOUD, EXCITED) The letters, pictures - you didn't by any chance, keep them!
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| CLODAGH SMEE | I did. I had Hoolihan fetch them out last night. There on the grand piano, in that chocolate box there.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Wot? Here?
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SIR REGINAULD HURRYING OVER, OPENING BOX AND LEAFING THROUGH THE CONTENTS.......
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| CLODAGH SMEE | He was a nasty little man, Flynn, always amused at himself, not like a real butler, more like someone acting the part of one.
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| SIR REGINAULD | (BLANK AND AMAZED) That's just it, Lady Clodagh. These disgusting old pictures of Flynn - they're not Flynn ....well yes, I mean they are, but they are also the actor Sheridan Crummey. That's who Crummey is: Flynn, they're the same. He was playing himself in my play, all those years, and no one knew.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | Ert, you're daft. Flynn killed himself for love of me - slit his throat on the lawn outside there. Must be fifty years ago. The papers were full of it.
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| SIR REGINAULD | (QUITE BANJAXED) Eugh! But....it's the same man, I'd swear. (STILL CHIN SCRATCHING) Could I possibly borrow these pictures please, Lady Smee?
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| CLODAGH SMEE | (BARKS) No, you can't. (SOFTLY) I like to look at them sometimes.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Oh!
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BRING UP ENZO FANFANI SINGING THE CLIMAX OF AN ARIA.
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8. A CONFERENCE HALL IN DUBLIN. BUZZ OF WORRIED VOICES. THE TAOISEACH BANGS A GAVEL. THE HALL SETTLES DOWN, BUT ONE BY ONE HECKLERS CRY THE 5 LINES DESPERATELY IN THE BACKGROUND.
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| TAOISEACH | Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to Dublin for this International Conference to discuss the Sheridan Crummey crisis. As you know, all over the world, in all our countries, people are unable to stop saying the 5 lines spoken by Crummey in the play The Smee House Murder. "It's my age, sir." We all know what it feels like, because we're all ust the same, haunted by these 5 lines. "Your things are laid out in the west bedroom, sir, I assumed you would be sleeping with your first wife." Now, it has been widely reported that Crummey is in fact the original of the character he played in the play, and I can confirm this. He began life as Michael Aloysius Flynn, and gave himself the name of Crummey when he took up acting. But, I can also confirm, that Flynn died in 1938, making Crummey the ghost of Flynn. "Yes, sergeant, I saw everything!" Perhaps we'd better hear from someone who understands these things - Professor Van Helsing.
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| VAN HELSING | (LIKE HITLER ON UPPERS) Thankyou, Prime Minister. Good afternoon, ladies unt gentlemens. I have this morning visited with Crummey-stroke-Flynn in his cellroom but was unable to get any sense out of him. He merely repeated his 5 lines, ad nauseam. "Excuse me for interrupting, m'lady, but your guest, the Italian gent...." Gott - even meeee! (STRUGGLES OUT OF THE 5 LINES) Meanwhile, although he is in custody here in Dublin, sightings of him are reported from all over the world. What we have here, is the first ever global dybbuk infection. If something is not done immediately, society will grind to ein halt, unt no one anywhere will be able to do anything except recite the 5 lines of Sheridan Crummey, together with certain erotic thoughts of his concerning Lady Clodagh Smee. "It's my age, sir!" The causes of such an occult phenomenon are the following.......extreme emotions in certain cases.....(FADE HIM)
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9. CRUMMEY'S PRISON CELL IN DUBLIN.
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| CRUMMEY | (TO HIMSELF, CLOSE) One afternoon in 1932, you arrived in a Bentley with a half dozen tennis players. They were in their tennis outfits, but you wore a long white evening dress, and as you played with them on the lawn like a beautful cloud, and kept tripping on your dress and tearing the hem, and when you sat down exhausted on the steps, the dress was green where you'd fallen to your knees. I saw it all from the kitchen window. I loved you so much I cried. Then HE came, singing across the fields, and it was never the same again.....(STARTS ON HIS 5 LINES AND CONTINUES UNDERNEATH SIR REGINAULD AND VAN HELSING BELOW)
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JANGLE OF KEYS. CELL DOOR OPENING.
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| SIR REGINAULD | (WORRIED, COMPLAINS) Look, this can't be right. Poor man. He's mad. It's not his fault.
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| VAN HELSING | Please, Sir Reginauld. To restore the mental health of the entire population of the planet, this is most earnestly necessary. Doctor Fitch, quickly with the lethal injection, please.
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| SIR REGINAULD | (CLOSE, ON HIS KNEES BESIDE CRUMMEY, WORRIED AND KIND) Mr Crummey...erm, Flynn - Sheridan. I'm very sorry, old lad. They've let me come, to see you off. They were all there. The American President. Tablesful of Dictators. 16 cardinals. The lot. They wouldn't let me speak. I feel responsible somehow, dyersee. I don't know how.
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| DR. FITCH | Move back please. If he struggles, the injection may end up in the wrong buttocks.
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| SIR REGINAULD | He won't struggle. (IN FORCED GOODCHEER, TO CRUMMEY) It won't hurt, old lad - just remember, you've been dead since 1938. Ha!
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A SOUND OF EFFORT FROM THE DOCTOR. A CRY FROM CRUMMEY IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF HIS LINES. HE CONTINUES DROWSILY.
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| SIR REGINAULD | (STANDING BACK, GRIEFSTRUCK) This will do the trick, will it? We'll stop hearing him in our heads? Me too?
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| VAN HELSING | It is possible. I cannot guarantee. Exorcism is not an exact science. In fact, it is not science at all. But be remembering please, this is not a REAL man - it is a physical coalescence of powerfully felt emotions. Passion made flesh and filled with ghostliness.
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| CRUMMEY | (WEAK, ABOUT TO PEG OUT) Clodagh, Clodagh, Clodagh Smee....
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| SIR REGINAULD | She sends her love, old lad. Her love.
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| CRUMMEY | Sir Reginauld Bains himself, isn't it?
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| SIR REGINAULD | (CONCEIT SURFACING EVEN ON SUCH AN OCCASION)The playwright, yes.
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| CRUMMEY | (WITH HIS LAST) I should have had a bigger part, you know - more lines.
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| SIR REGINAULD | Heaven forbid!
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| CRUMMEY | (SIGHS HIS LAST)
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| DR. FITCH | That's it, gentlemen. We're all done here. He's properly dead this time. "Excuse me, m'lady, but your horse seems to have eaten the tea things." Ooops!
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| SIR REGINAULD | I said it wouldn't work.
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| VAN HELSING | (WORRIED) Perhaps after the cremation.
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10. A MIASMA OF THE FIVE LINES. THE 5 LINES ARE SAID BY AS MANY VOICES AS CAN BE MUSTERED, COMING FROM ALL DIRECTIONS, LIKE GHOSTS IN THE FOG, FLITTING BY, ANGRY AND SAD, FRIGHTENED, SHRILL, FLAT, WITH CRUMMEY HIMSELF IN THE CENTRE OF IT ALL. THEN BRING UP ENZO FANFANI SINGING OPERATICALLY AND QUICKLY LOSE THE 5 LINES.
1. Excuse me, m'lady, but your horse seems to have eaten the tea things. 2. It's my age, sir. 3. Your things are laid out in the west bedroom, sir. I assumed you would be sleeping with your first wife. 4. Excuse me for interrupting, m'lady, but your guest, the Italian gent, he's floating face down in the lake, m'lady. 5. Yes, sergeant, I saw everything!
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11. A RADIO NEWS BROADCAST.
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| RADIO NEWSREADER | The death was announced in Dublin today of the veteran Irish actor Sheridan Crummey. Celebrations are being held throughout the world......(FADE)
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12. SIR REGINAULD SPEAKING DIRECTLY TO US FROM AN EASY CHAIR IN THE ALBATROSS CLUB. IN THE BACKGROUND, CLUB MEMBERS MUTTER THE 5 LINES. THE ARCHBISHOP IS CLOSEST.
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| SIR REGINAULD | (ANGRY WITH HIMSELF) I feel so damned responsible! I wrote the 5 lines, after all! Of course, that Van Helsing was an idiot. Nothing he tried worked: spells, prayers. But no one else knew what to do except tear their hair out. We'll never be rid of Sheridan Crummey. (FURIOUSLY) For God's sake, shutup, Archbishop!
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A BRIEF SILENCE IN THE CLUB AS A WHOLE.
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| For the rest of our lives and for all our children's lives, he will be there, in our ears, our minds, a soundtrack to all our other doings, talking to us, an eternal monologue. Crummey's emotions, Crummey's tedious memories of the meals Crummey's beloved chewed on the day Crummey strangled the song out of Enzo Fanfani. Sometimes he just reads through my play. Strangest thing is, after five years of it - is it really 5? - we have all, every one of us, man and woman, developed a secret passion for Clodagh Smee, or for the girl that she once was. To sit with her in a conservatory on a rainy day in an Ireland of long ago and talk of inconsequential things, to study her, adore, and almost admit to our hallucination of her how much we love her. Clodagh Smee died last Christmastime. I was there. So was Sheridan Crummey. Oh, he pops up everywhere. He's playing billiards here at the Albatross Club, this minute! |
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CLICK OF BILLIARD BALLS. LAUGHTER OF CRUMMEY.
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13. CLODAGH SMEE'S DEATHBED, THE WEST BEDROOM, SMEE HOUSE, GALWAY. OUTSIDE, A DOG HOWLS.
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| CRUMMEY | It doesn't hurt, does it, Clodagh?
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| CLODAGH SMEE | No, Sherry. Not at all. Won't be long now.
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| CRUMMEY | That time in the stables, when I kissed you.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | You wicked man. You forced yourself upon me.
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| CRUMMEY | Just for a moment, you kissed me back. For an instant I swear you did.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | For a second or two. (A SOUND OF DISCOMFORT) Sherry?
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| CRUMMEY | Yes, Clodagh.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | Be a good boy and put on a record for me. You know the one.
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| CRUMMEY | Yes, m'lady.
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CRUMMEY CROSSES THE ROOM. THE NEEDLE GOES DOWN AND WE HEAR ENZO FANFANI SINGING.
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| CLODAGH SMEE | (IN JOY) Enzo! Enzo!
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BRING UP FANFANI'S SINGING. HOWLING OF DOGS BEGIN INSIDE THE MUSIC. THEN APPLAUSE FOR FANFANI. SHOUTS OF BRAVO. APPLAUSE TURNING TO DOG HOWLS THROUGH END CREDITS.
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