Noahs Nuclear Niche Page 3

  ***

  Let The Play Begin: (in the centre of the stage is a bus stop. The mummers process on banging drums and saucepan lids and making a great old noise. The Prince of Paradise is resplendent, Old Slobber Chops is dressed in rags and the rest look like a sinister bunch of underworld characters)

  Mummers: We are the mummers come to entertain you here is the Prince of Paradise.

  Prince of Paradise: And if I do say so myself I am very nice.

  Mummers : Old Slobber Chops.

  Old Slobber Chops: A right good looker.

  Mummers : And Slasher.

  Slasher: Good with the blade.

  Mummers : Not to forget the (whispering to the audience) Wicked Witch.

  Wicked Witch: That's me, one plus one and all the rest, my name is secret but it's the best.

  Slasher: A genius at credit card fraud.

  Wicked Witch: My name is Maud.

  Mummers: And finally Beelzebub.

  Beelzebub: A good friend to the devil I may add.

  Mummers: So we hope you enjoy our little presentation that we perform for your delectation.

  (Prince of Paradise walks impatiently over to the bus stop he wears a large golden key around his neck. When Old Slobber Chops speaks he ignores her until her last line)

  Prince of Paradise: Where is that bus, are they on strike or something?

  Old Slobber Chops: On come I a very old woman, not so old though and not so very. I'm actually quite newly sprung and really quite merry. I feel like I'm at the dawn of my existence, I'm sailing on the maiden voyage of my life, I'm a rosebud about to bloom into a cascading tumult of beautiful splendour. (she sees the Prince of Paradise) Oh look here a young splendidly spoilt sprout.

  Prince of Paradise: Please can you reframe from gorking at me.

  Old Slobber Chops: I'll pick up this young sapling this young skimpering scamp.

  Prince of Paradise: You are breathing my air!

  Old Slobber Chops: Hello young idol of my life.

  Prince of Paradise: Hello very low-status, very old woman.

  Old Slobber Chops: Hello drop dead gorgeous.

  Prince of Paradise: I say, do you know to whom you are addressing your infinitely unworthy words?

  Old Slobber Chops: A right good looker I'd say.

  Prince of Paradise: Do you know, I say again, do you know to whom your unworthy words are chatted at? No you don't. Well I am the Prince of Paradise, the pinnacle of the pyramid of the perfect universe. So don't bother to bother me, you don't rate, you don't even get in the back door, not even the doggy door, you fantasy of a dustman's dreams.

  Old Slobber Chops: Such eloquence!

  Prince of Paradise: I'm waiting here to catch a bus to Mandalay to go and see my fiancé a Miss Universe.

  Old Slobber Chops: Very nice.

  Prince of Paradise: So run along now. Go on get thee hence make with the legs, bye bye, we will catch you later alligator, much later.

  Old Slobber Chops: Who do you think you are, telling me what to do? I'm a citizen just like you. I got me rights. I got a inalienable right to stand on this bus stop guaranteed by the Constitution and the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Man. See I got me rights, right?

  Prince of Paradise: We also have the right to property. So pooh-pooh to your other rights. I happen to own this bus stop and you're trespassing. So make an attempt at an exit, it's time for bye byes. (he pushes her away)

  Old Slobber Chops : If I were you I'd get off me high horse before you fall off.

  Prince of Paradise: (looking at his watch) Have you got the time?

  Old Slobber Chops: If you got the time I've got the place.

  Prince of Paradise: No you old trout, I was speaking of the time of day.

  Old Slobber Chops: No afraid not my watch is fast. It's half way round the corner over a wall and down the next street already.

  Prince of Paradise: That makes three streets and one corner before the bus gets here.

  Old Slobber Chops: Getting back to falling off horses your pedestal's spinning so fast you will get dizzy and dizzier and dizzier still and you will dizzle-dazzle and fall crumbling, tumbling, fumbling off. I might come along for the ride, how about it?

  Prince of Paradise: Look you old scarecrow you're ugly.

  Old Slobber Chops: I was never trying to pick you up you skinny squeeze bag, you shrivelled starved skeleton.

  Prince of Paradise: The feeling is mutual mutton fat.

  Old Slobber Chops: You snivelling nose run.

  Prince of Paradise: Slime pond.

  Old Slobber Chops: I have a man. He's a very youthful young man, a golden youth, an Adonis and he's very young, brand new, he still has the wrapping around him.

  Prince of Paradise: Very good you chase after him I'm sure he'll run a three minute mile trying to get away.

  Old Slobber Chops: (to the Prince) My sweetheart, my darling, my lollipop boy.

  Prince of Paradise: Bow-legged woman.

  Old Slobber Chops: My ice cream Sunday.

  Prince of Paradise: Yes I'm off to Mandalay, so there's no chance for you to get your claws into me you old wombat.

  Old Slobber Chops: You long-haired kangaroo.

  Prince of Paradise: I shall not condescend to swap insults with you, you flat-nosed platypus.

  Old Slobber Chops: You dried up goanna.

  Prince of Paradise: I'm off to Mandalay that exotic romantic paradise that Rudyard Kipling sang about. Everybody wants to make it to heaven, to pass the entry exams to paradise.

  Old Slobber Chops: You're my paradise.

  Prince of Paradise: And Mandalay with its exotic pagodas, Buddhas, the wind in the palm trees, temple bells, sitting arm in arm with a Chinese girl watching steamers jostle to and fro, the slowly rising sun and elephants piling teak in sludgy, squidgy creeks.

  Old Slobber Chops: If you're there that is paradise for me.

  Prince of Paradise: Yes, compare the romance of Mandalay to catching buses to the bank where I work. All I can hear is the East calling to me. All I can smell is rich spices. All I can see is the sun in the palm trees. Out there is paradise. So I'm going to Mandalay by first class express bus. I'm waiting for the bus now.

  Old Slobber Chops: We can wait together.

  Prince of Paradise: You don't get it do you? I don't like you, I don't like your looks they are offensive to me, I don't like your body odour, I prefer to wait on my own. So you're dismissed. Leave immediately, be gone, disappear, abandon my presence, get thee hence. Find yourself a little opening and close the door behind you.

  Old Slobber Chops: Greedy, potbellied, ill kempt, long haired being.

  Prince of Paradise: Yes I'm in love, in love with Miss Universe. But alas she forsakes me. Seeing her is like trying to see a Government Minister. I've made dozens of appointments, scores of telephone calls, I've sent in twenty petitions and several telegrams but still no results.

  Old Slobber Chops: The course of true love never did run without a little levitation. It's all topsy-turvy and turvy-topsy. It's a horrible torrible, ting, the like the likes has never bing. You're knocked out of your six senses into seventeen, out of seventeen into seven score. You'll have to turn to the bottle and empty that down your throttle or there's always me.

  Prince of Paradise: I'd like to smash her into tiny crumbs.

  Old Slobber Chops: He is so sentimental.

  Prince of Paradise: Love is like a red, red rose, a blooming rose in spring.

  Old Slobber Chops: Love is never any good, it's a pain and I've got it bad and antibiotics won't cure it, it's a cancer eating out your heart.

  Prince of Paradise: Love is like a purple lilac.

  Old Slobber Chops: Love is like the autumn sludge.

  Prince of Paradise: The sun at dawn.

  Old Slobber Chops: A thunder storm.

  Prince of Paradise: A rose garden.

  Old Slobber Chops: A bed of weeds.

  Prince of Paradise: Satin and silk.

 
Old Slobber Chops: Horse muck.

  Prince of Paradise. A starry night.

  Old Slobber Chops: A freezing Arctic weed.

  Prince of Paradise: Gently falling snow.

  Old Slobber Chops: Encrusting freezing ice.

  Prince of Paradise: It's wonderful.

  Old Slobber Chops: Ugly.

  Prince of Paradise: It's paradise.

  Old Slobber Chops: Paradise lost.

  Prince of Paradise: Wretched woman, low degraded being, gallows meat.

  Old Slobber Chops: I heard that. I'd watch my step if I was you I might go off you.

  Prince of Paradise: I seem to have two chances of that none and Buckley's.

  Old Slobber Chops: I've still got a man you know, youthful as a golden boy, as strong as Goliath, as hairy as Samson.

  Prince of Paradise: As hairy as Samson, he's probably a monkey. (makes like a chimpanzee)

  Old Slobber Chops: Monkeys have feelings too.

  Prince of Paradise: Have you?

  Old Slobber Chops: My man is a real painting, a real picture, a work of art, a masterpiece.

  Prince of Paradise: That's strange because you're no oil painting.

  Old Slobber Chops: Toss of insults if you dare a fool and his insults are soon parted. My man's three of you, a man among men, a superman. I certainly don't need you.

  Prince of Paradise: Good.

  Old Slobber Chops: (affectionately) Lollipop.

  Prince of Paradise: I pay you no attention whatsoever.

  Old Slobber Chops: I've got such a big strong man. Who needs you? (affectionately) cutie pie, honey-bun.

  Prince of Paradise: You probably never saw a man before in your life. Your bloke is a bit of a rough old bruiser. From the look of you he knocks you around a bit. Gave you a black eye did he? But don't worry, a black eye or two only improves your looks.

  Old Slobber Chops: (referring to the Prince) He really loves me.

  Prince of Paradise: I can't stand the sight of her.

  Old Slobber Chops: He pretends that he doesn't like me but I see right through him.

  Prince of Paradise: No! Don't get me wrong, I hate your guts.

  Old Slobber Chops: You see he loves me.

  Prince of Paradise: You smell like a sewer.

  Old Slobber Chops: He even likes my perfume.

  Prince of Paradise: It smells of duck poo.

  Old Slobber Chops: I tried dog poo but it was a bit too flowery.

  Beelzebub: Up bub I the breezy, brazen, bright and brawny Beelzebub.

  Prince of Paradise: Can't you see I'm busy throwing insults at Old Slobber Chops here, what do you want?

  Beelzebub: There is a bus drivers' Union of Federal Commonwealth Amalgamated Co-operative of Associates Syndicates Congress strike. So there will be no bus today to Mandalay.

  Prince of Paradise: What, no bus today to Mandalay?

  Beelzebub: I just said that!

  Prince of Paradise: Well in that case I'm not staying here with the stench of rotting meat up my nose.

  Old Slobber Chops: You say the most beautiful things to me.

  Prince of Paradise: I'll walk to Mandalay.

  Beelzebub: Oh well, two wells don't make a right they make a well well. Gonna walk huh? I suggest you go straight along a twisting road take the turn off just before and straight after the first on your right turn to the left or it might be the right and go dead straight around every corner.

  Prince of Paradise: Fare thee well old stink bomb. I go now to see the Princess of the Stars, Miss Universe, Miss Majestic, Miss Gifted Glory, Miss Globular Goblet of Goodness. (heroic exit)

  Beelzebub: Well I got rid of him, how about it.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh my deary, weary, sleary bones.

  I'm like a little dove fantastically in love.

  Oh my deary, weary, sleary heart

  I love a man and can't depart.

  Beelzebub: Don't worry about that time waster how about a little canoodling.

  Old Slobber Chops: What are you saying?

  Beelzebub: Me and you, you and me, we could make sweet music together.

  Old Slobber Chops: Get real.

  Beelzebub: I love you.

  Old Slobber Chops: Get a life.

  Beelzebub: You're the only one for me.

  Old Slobber Chops: I don't like your face.

  Beelzebub: I'll do anything you want.

  Old Slobber Chops: A brown paper bag over the head wouldn't be bad for a starter.

  Beelzebub: I've loved you since I first saw you.

  Old Slobber Chops: You get right up my nose.

  Beelzebub: I can't go on without you.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh give over I've got more class than to look down my nose at you.

  Beelzebub: Alas I am forsaken.

  (Slasher enters carrying a sword)

  Slasher: On come I the noble Slasher to claim the hand of the beautiful Old Slobber Chops here for my own.

  Old Slobber Chops: You can get lost too.

  Slasher: You're coming with me.

  Beelzebub: (wielding a sword and circling) Get off she's already spoken for.

  Slasher: (circles and lunges at Beelzebub with his sword) She has more taste than to go for a dull lump like you.

  Beelzebub: I saw her first.

  Slasher: I saw her second.

  Beelzebub: She loves me.

  Slasher: Get lost you great smelly fart she's mine.

  Beelzebub: You'll have to fight for her.

  Slasher: No problem fumble foot.

  Beelzebub: Prepare to die dead wood.

  Slasher: Make a move time waster.

  Beelzebub: Go ahead punk make my day.

  Slasher: I'm ready when you are.

  Beelzebub: I'm going to make you eat shit.

  (they Fight)

  Slasher: Take that and that and that.

  Beelzebub: And here's one in the eye for you.

  Slasher: One good turn deserves another.

  Beelzebub: I can go one better than that.

  Slasher: And one for the road.

  (Slasher stabs Beelzebub)

  Beelzebub: Ah I'm dead, I'm dying, I'm done.

  Slasher: One foot in the grave.

  Beelzebub: Is there a doctor in the house?

  Wicked Witch: On come I a bit of a Wicked Witch

  I was just asleep in a dirty old ditch.

  Old Slobber Chops: Has thou a cure?

  Wicked Witch: Take some French toast and bake it like a roast

  The hide of an antelope stretched on a slope

  A mouse or a louse is really quite grouse.

  Cook it all like stew when the moon appears blue

  Two pints of water stolen from an altar

  A rat, a cat, a worn out doormat.

  Mix it all up and throw in a bat

  Stir with a large spoon

  And cook at full moon.

  When all this is bubbling away

  Add salt, malt and fresh green hay

  This is quite easily done

  With a year or two of continual sun

  But if a quick cure is what you look for

  Take this pill and you will need nothing more. (offers a large pill)

  Beelzebub: (grabs the pill) Oh oh oh my weary bones I've got to get some medication. (staggers off) I thank you from the bottom of my heart, I had better go as I am about to do a great big fart.

  Old Slobber Chops: That's all well and good a nice act of charity, the old codger didn't die after all a happy ending but that does nothing for me, I want to get married to the Prince of Paradise but look at me I'm a mess a disgrace, a walking no man's land.

  Slasher: There is always me you beautiful hunk of horse flesh.

  Old Slobber Chops: Get off you're crude and rude, I've got taste.

  Slasher: Alright then if I'm out of the running I can make you pay, what you need is a pill and I've got one.

  Wicked Witch: (produces a bag full of pill jars) We have pills for this and pills for th
at, no you haven't contracted that yet. Here's pills to take in order to take pills and here's pills to put you to sleep and here's pills to wake you up. Here a pill to get up and another pill to go down again. A pill that enables you to eat breakfast and a pill to digest breakfast and another pill to stop constipation of your breakfast. Pills to get rid of headaches, pills to give you a headache, pills for toothache, stomach ache, red pills, yellow, blue, gold and green pills. And here I have just the pill for you. (he produces a giant pill from the bag of bottles and gives it to Old Slobber Chops) Take this pill, Old Slobber and you'll have no more bother.

  Old Slobber Chops: Thank you, thank you, thank you, anything you want just ask (goes to leave)

  Slasher: Not so fast. Hold your horses. We're not a mercenary bunch, we ask for no rewards, no money, no return of past kindness what we give we give freely. But what's in it for us?

  Old Slobber Chops: For you? Nothing bugger off.

  Slasher: We require a cut.

  Old Slobber Chops: What have you ever done for me?

  Slasher: Fifty percent off the top.

  Old Slobber Chops: Drop dead.

  Wicked Witch: One plus one makes thirty seven, take seven equals forty four, minus four equals four hundred and naught, which equals half of the multiple of the lowest common denominator.

  Slasher: That's right, we want half of Prince of Paradise's paradise sweaty pie. You hear that? Paradise is to be carved into halves half for us and half for you.

  Old Slobber Chops: You can take a great running jump.

  Slasher: We'll just take the tablet for eternal youth back.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh no anything just ask.

  Slasher: Then it's agreed my little buttercup?

  Old Slobber Chops: I've got no choice.

  Wicked Witch: You could get your hair dyed blond, work out at the gym, a mud pack, a body treatment, manicured and oiled, a full body massage, a body line girdle, a padded bra, false fingernails, false eyelashes, a ton of makeup, Botox for the little wrinkles, a bit of elective surgery, a face lift, a nip here a tuck there, some sexy clothes.

  Old Slobber Chops: I think I'll just take the pill it's easier and quicker and so convenient. (she grabs the pill and exits)

  Slasher: Soon paradise will be divided up into so many halves that all Old Slobber Chops and her little Prince ship will get is a help half way out. (pause) I wonder where Prince of Paradise is. Our pay is hanging around his neck.

  Prince of Paradise:(enters, walking around in circles) I got lost on the way to Mandalay and have been walking around in circles ever since. Walking around in circles didn't seem to be doing any good, so I started walking around in shapes, lines and angles, hexagons, polygons and any other sort of gons. But no matter what shape I walked around in I ended up where I had begun. I'm done for, I shall never get to paradise. I shall never be king of my kingdom. I shall never see Miss Universe again. Oh, alas, alas, my life has ended.

  Slasher: Hello Prince of Paradise we have something to make you stay. No longer shall you bewail an empty life when we present you with a wife. Come out Miss Super Crystal, Clear and Clean, Miss Rapturous Radiant Sheen.

  Old Slobber Chops: (now young and beautiful enters) Hello sexy.

  Prince of Paradise: She's incredibly, unbelievably, fantasmologically beautiful.

  Old Slobber Chops: Now don't go over the top.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh no sorry I'll stop.

  Old Slobber Chops: Keep going ducky.

  Prince of Paradise: You are so spectacularly beautiful.

  Old Slobber Chops: Yes that's me.

  Prince of Paradise: A revelation.

  Old Slobber Chops: Keep talking.

  Prince of Paradise: Like all the sunsets of the world in one.

  Old Slobber Chops: True, true.

  Prince of Paradise: A goddess of goddesses.

  Old Slobber Chops: I must admit I am pretty good.

  Prince of Paradise: I love you.

  Old Slobber Chops: That's nice.

  Prince of Paradise: I fell in love with you at first sight, head over heels, heels overhead. It's a pain to be parted from you. Don't leave me, my darling. Please tell me that you will never leave me. I'll love you all my life. All my life I've been dreaming of you.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh Prince.

  Prince of Paradise: (kneels) Give me your hand, Miss Universe, Miss Infinite Beauty, Miss Firmament, Miss Eternal Loveliness.

  Old Slobber Chops: You're not so bad yourself.

  Prince of Paradise: Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh Prince, I don't know, I really don't know. You're not the only fish in the pond not the only cod in the net, not the only salmon on the line and I've got plenty of bate.

  Prince of Paradise: If you don't say yes I'll just die.

  Old Slobber Chops: You're not the only field worth ploughing. I might just hitch up my oxen and plough some other field before I decide to plant my crops.

  Prince of Paradise: But I love you.

  Old Slobber Chops: What exactly are you offering babe?

  Prince of Paradise: I'll give you half of paradise half of my kingdom.

  Old Slobber Chops: No deal, you haven't reached the deposit yet.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh lovelier woman than the most lovely woman that ever lived.

  Old Slobber Chops: I want more than fancy, namby pamby words.

  Prince of Paradise: I'll give you all of paradise.

  Old Slobber Chops: Keep talking.

  Prince of Paradise: Keep talking? But I have no more.

  Old Slobber Chops: The deal's off.

  Prince of Paradise: (pause) I have a key. It's the key that unlocks the door to the future, the door to tomorrow, to time, to life. I can give nothing else but this.

  Old Slobber Chops: I'm yours.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh my angel. (they embrace)

  Old Slobber Chops: My one and only my lolly boy.

  Prince of Paradise: You are my very own sweet cuddly Slobber Chops.

  (there is the engine noise of a bus coming to a stop)

  Beelzebub: (Enters wearing a busman's cap and driving some sort of toy bus at this stage he can recite the poem or part thereof On The Road To Mandalay) All aboard who's coming aboard, next stop Stubbs Creek, Dry Creek, Corny Point, Lost Point and Don't Point, Albury Wodonga, Wagga Wagga, Kathmandu, Burra Burra and Paradise.

  (sound of the bus leaving)

  Prince of Paradise: (anger at Old Slobber Chops then sentimental sympathy with her) I missed my bus. It blew through while I was kissing you. (pause) Don't worry darling we have each other and darling don't ever forget that we love each other.

  Old Slobber Chops: Well sugar baby, sugar daddy and bees honey hand over the dowry or the deals off.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh my dearest darling, my sweetest angel.

  Old Slobber Chops: Just call me Slobber Chops.

  Prince of Paradise: Miss Universe my guardian angel, my goddess of perfection...

  Old Slobber Chops: I know I'm perfect but it does get a bit tedious being reminded of it all the time. How perfect am I?

  Prince of Paradise: You are perfection itself.

  Old Slobber Chops: My legs?

  Prince of Paradise: Like a ballerina's.

  Old Slobber Chops: My skin?

  Prince of Paradise: Like silk and lace.

  Old Slobber Chops: And my eyes?

  Prince of Paradise: Like diamonds.

  Slasher: Never mind that, where is the key to paradise, the ticket to Mandalay, I want my cut.

  Old Slobber Chops: Come on Prince we'll be back in three hops and a kick. (about to leave)

  Slasher: (grabbing hold of her) Not so fast.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh darling, who is this uncouth low plebeian?

  Old Slobber Chops: Darling tell him to push off.

  Prince of Paradise: Push off there's a good fellow.

  Slasher: If you don't turn over the key I wouldn't like
to be you.

  Wicked Witch: Following formula Y which is deranged from formula X and is based on the assumptions clarified by experiment Z the proposition of the end results obtainable can be seen on this chart of results. (he opens up a long rolled up chart with lots of graphs)

  Slasher: Explain the graphs to them Wiz.

  Prince of Paradise: I can read algebra.

  Wicked Witch: This shows that A minus thirty four times the square root equals the infinitive of and before very long your eyes will pop out, your ears will turn into cauliflowers, hair into rats tails, feet into kippers, teeth turn black and fall out and your breasts…

  Slasher: That will do for now Wicked. Get the picture, Miss Universe?

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh Prince of Paradise save me from these felonious fiends.

  Prince of Paradise: (to Slasher) Run along now good fellow.

  Slasher: Oh Prince perfectly peachy, perfumed, pearly pooh your sister here will turn to goo.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh darling.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh Princy chops.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh majestic.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh delicious.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh glorious.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh sumptuous.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh ultimate.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh climax.

  Prince of Paradise: They're taking you away from me.

  Old Slobber Chops: I'm fading... (she begins to drop to the ground)

  Prince of Paradise: Oh mercy.

  Old Slobber Chops: I'm dying.

  Prince of Paradise: I'm despairing.

  Old Slobber Chops: I'm feeling sleepy.

  Prince of Paradise: What can I do?

  Old Slobber Chops: Hold me.

  Prince of Paradise: It's dirty down there on the floor.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh darling I love you.

  Prince of Paradise: I will have to find myself a new feminine interest, a new leading lady.

  Old Slobber Chops: What?

  Prince of Paradise: I will advertise on the internet, distinguished, good looking bachelor with no ties requires a fun young thing, blond, blue eyes and big…

  Old Slobber Chops: (getting up) Oh no you don't.

  Prince of Paradise: I've already had half a dozen responses.

  Old Slobber Chops: (takes the large key that hangs around the Prince's neck and gives it to Slasher) Here.

  Prince of Paradise. Not the key to paradise!

  Slasher: That is very kind of you I knew you would see it my way.

  Prince of Paradise: Now that our income is nil zero, double naught, nothing, non-existent, what are you going to do? We have no money and you gave away everything we had in the world.

  Old Slobber Chops: (to Prince of Paradise) You just don't care about me, money is more important to you.

  Prince of Paradise: And you don't care about me. You give everything I have away. You gave away Paradise.

  Old Slobber Chops: So it's my fault.

  Prince of Paradise: No I didn't say that but yes it is your fault.

  Old Slobber Chops: Typical male chauvinist pig I get the blame for everything. Why don't you admit for once that you're not perfect.

  Prince of Paradise: So now I'm to blame.

  Old Slobber Chops: I've got the answer.

  Prince of Paradise: And what is that my little cuddly sweet thing.

  Old Slobber Chops: (referring to Slasher) Kill him that's the only way, lay into him with a sharp knife and sever his jugular artery. Cut him up into small pieces and feed him to the gulls.

  Prince of Paradise: But isn't that illegal?

  Old Slobber Chops: Will you do it for me love bunch?

  Prince of Paradise: Of course my love, my honey suckle.

  Old Slobber Chops: And for good measure stab him right through the heart and make the blood spurt like a fountain.

  Prince of Paradise: Yes I will yes, yes I will.

  Old Slobber Chops: Stick a knife in his gizzards and sprawl them all over the floor.

  Slasher: I'll have you know that I am very good with the old rapier .

  Prince of Paradise: I'm going to turn you into a steak and kidney pie.

  Old Slobber Chops: Don't take too long, a quick kill, in and out with a sharp knife. I'll sharpen it.

  Prince of Paradise: (to Slasher) Hey you there, low down smelly creature. I find your body odour offensive.

  Slasher: You referring to me?

  Prince of Paradise: I don't like the cut of your jib.

  Slasher: Ya what mate?

  Prince of Paradise: I don't like the way your clothes are manufactured.

  Slasher: Piss off.

  Prince of Paradise: I challenge thee to fight like a man.

  Slasher: On your bike.

  Prince of Paradise: On guard.

  (they fight with swords)

  Slasher: Rack off Noddy.

  Prince of Paradise: Touché.

  Old Slobber Chops: Chop him up into slices of bacon.

  Slasher: I'm hurt.

  Prince of Paradise: Round one to me I think.

  Slasher: I've been mortally wounded in the heart.

  Old Slobber Chops: I hope you are not going to rhyme that with tart.

  Slasher: I'm bleeding you fool I think I'm going to …

  Old Slobber Chops: Fart?

  Slasher: Faint.

  Prince of Paradise: Throw in the towel Slasher before you get my dander up.

  Slasher: I care not one wit for your dander.

  Prince of Paradise: Let's call a truce and sort out our differences like civilised people.

  Slasher: I will fight to the death.

  Prince of Paradise: I have more important things to do than to fight with you I'm in love. I'm for ever in love. I'm eternally in love. I'm enrapturingly in love.

  Slasher: (desperately fighting) Slash, pash, mash, crash.

  Prince of Paradise: But I have handed over eternity, paradise, the future, space, time, life to my wife. I'm out of work. I'm no longer Prince of Paradise. I've got no job. I'm unemployed. I'm on the dole. How can I get married? I've got new responsibilities. But if you gave me the key back.

  Slasher: (retreating) Never.

  Prince of Paradise: Stand and fight you foot loose felon.

  Slasher: Paradise belongs to me.

  Prince of Paradise: Soon there'll be the patter of little feet and I have no money. I'll have to sell my crown jewels. But if you would consider a little business deal.

  Slasher: Your first class ticket to Mandalay is mine. I will never surrender it.

  Prince of Paradise: I'll have to give up my country mansion in Paradise and move into a dog's kennel, dolls house suburban home. I'll plant native trees and the dogs will dig them up and urinate on them. The native trees and shrubs will give my wife hay fever. I'll have to wash the car on Sundays, go for walks through the supermarket on Saturdays. Boy, what an exciting life! I can just see it now a house before I'm twenty five, a wife, two model children, two wheelie bins one for non-fermentable rubbish and one for recyclables, a new set of tyres on my car every twenty two thousand miles. (pleased with his vision) Oh, what an exciting life. However, I'm prepared to come off my high horse and negotiate for what is rightly mine by birth.

  (they clash swords and hold their positions in a grip of iron)

  Slasher: We could sub divide Paradise.

  Prince of Paradise: Sub divide never in a million years, sixty percent cut for me and forty for you?

  Slasher: I was thinking more fifty-fifty

  Old Slobber Chops: Subdivide what a good idea. Don't worry about our future darling I've had an idea, we subdivide paradise and put up a parking lot. I've also put a deposit and signed the contract for this darling little house, not far from the two houses either side and the one behind. Darling, the future is taken care of and don't forget you have to put the wheelie bins out tonight. Come over here darling, look you can see our darling little house. It's not really that small, reall
y. If we paint the furniture on the walls we'll have plenty of room. See it? Just over there.

  Prince of Paradise: Which one? There are millions.

  Old Slobber Chops: And if you gouge out his eyes and cut off his…

  Prince of Paradise: Unmentionables?

  Old Slobber Chops: …head, we would not have to share a penny of the profit with him.

  Slasher: (stabbing at the Prince) You want to go back on the deal.

  Prince of Paradise: (blocks the thrust) Deal we had no deal. (stabs Slasher)

  Slasher: I'm gone, his knife cut through my mortal heart. I don't have much longer to live, I'm dead I'm gone, I'm finished, bye bye, caput.

  Prince of Paradise: I hope you haven't dirtied my sword look darling my sword has got all blood on it.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh poor you.

  Slasher: I had the key to tomorrow, the future, the present, paradise, to eternal heaven and now I'm done for I couldn't find the door.

  Prince of Paradise: Now I have the key but I'm no better off. I took a walk into the rolling plains of suburbia. It spread out as far as the eye could see, further than the mind could comprehend, far beyond a lifetime of travel, out of the bounds of eternity. I tried the key in ten thousand doors.

  Beelzebub: That's what happens when you give amateurs something that's too large for them to handle. (points to the large key in the Prince's hand) Listen Princeling, I can show you the door your key will unlock.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh I'd give you anything...

  Beelzebub: I'll take the key.

  Prince of Paradise: The key but it's my key?

  Beelzebub: It's of no use to you, you don't know how to use it.

  Old Slobber Chops: It's a deal but you have to come up with the goods first.

  Beelzebub: Just settle down to a nice average run of the mill production line mass produced comes in three colours fully guaranteed ten day trial period house, plus a set of wife, children, dog, cat, tea set, cutlery, built in wardrobes, a new world super deluxe super special streamlined refrigerator. Why it will be just a peachy little paradise.

  Prince of Paradise: Take this silly old key if you want then.

  Beelzebub: For this I thank you, everything comes to me in time.

  Prince of Paradise: I'm so happy. I'm off to put a deposit on a house and raise a second mortgage. But where can I find a suitable wife to match the decor?

  Old Slobber Chops: Have you forgotten your Old Slobber chops.

  Prince of Paradise: Oh my angel my very own Slobber come to me. I'll reform you, make you into a non-entity. When you're an absolutely see through plastic personality we can get married.

  Old Slobber Chops: Oh life for me is totally fulfilled.

  Prince of Paradise: It's such a happy ending, me and my perfect princess, Ms Universal Suffrage, are going to be married. Come on an ocean of tiled rooves awaits us.

  Old Slobber Chops: My deary, my bunny-rabbit, my snoogy.

  Beelzebub: What a perfect ending. Oh here slasher a pill to make you feel better don't worry about the side effects.

  Slasher: What side effects?

  Beelzebub: Nothing really just uncontrolled vomiting, diarrhoea, nose bleeds, flatulence, bad breath and smelly feet.

  Slasher: Sounds like a bundle of fun.

  Beelzebub: And for my fee?

  Slasher: I've got nothing left.

  Beelzebub: Perhaps a second mortgage and a top up loan at five that is twenty five percent plus an annual fee.

  Slasher: I'm rich.

  Beelzebub: Until you have to repay it.

  Slasher: I'm poor.

  Beelzebub: Ha ha, the keys to paradise are put into the hands of dim witted, witless, widgety, wackety me and I'm going to start a development company. So remember, a key in the hand doesn't necessarily open anything. Ha ha, hee hee.

  (the Mummers start banging their drums and marching in a circle before exiting)

  Mummers: If Mandalay were not so far away.

  Beelzebub: By express bus you can make it in a day.

  Mummers: If paradise was just around the corner.

  Beelzebub: I'll show you the way but if you would rather take a sauna.

  Mummers: We are only mortals and it's no disgrace.

  Beelzebub: Would you prefer a little arsenic and old lace?

  Mummers: It's warm in our little house in suburbia.

  Beelzebub: Quite snug for a little mouse in absurdia.

  Mummers: No more talk we are surreal and pleased.

  Beelzebub: To breed couch potatoes and heart disease.

  ***

  Back to Contents

  Simons Castle

  A Naïve comedy

  Simons Castle was first performed on the 14th September 1978 as part of a poetry reading in the Union Gallery the University of Adelaide I directed this one too!

  Cast:

  April: Susan Tonkin.

  Simon: Mark Sobels.

  Doddy: Nona Monahin.

  Noddy: Denis Coleman.

  Sylvania: (I forget!)

  Setting: The living room of a suburban house.