CHAPTER NINE
Mr. Ross is standing on stage struggling to extricate
the remains of a bread roll which has inexplicably landed inside his helmet
while he had the visor up. An old lady’s voice screeches from the back of the
hall, “Sorry Jonathan, it wasn’t meant for you.”
Mr. Biggins rushes on to the stage, masterly speed
crouching in a very slow manner as usual and gets a roar of approval as Mr.
Ross inadvertently tosses the remains of the bread roll straight down the back
of Mr. Biggins’ collar. Wheezing and breathing heavily Mr. Biggins quickly
adjusts Mr. Ross’s microphone before slowly crouching off again leaving a trail
of breadcrumbs behind him.
Mr. Ross regains his composure, hits his head on the
lighting gantry, puts his helmet back on quickly and sounding remarkably like
Darth Vader, says, “Now ladies and gentlemen, before we announce the next act
there will be a short intermission to allow those of us with weak bladders to
visit the little boys’ woom and for me to luxuwiate in my backstage Gween Room
with all the stars and pwostitutes. See ya later.”
It’s time for
the intermission and while everybody makes a dash for the toilets, Jonathan
crouches off the stage as best he can, lowers himself to the floor and returns
to the Green Room. Mr. Biggins is very pleased with the way the first half has
gone and is congratulating Mr. Wallace on his miming. He tells him that he is
going to substitute Mrs. Wickham in the second half so Mr. Wallace can relax
and enjoy the rest of the evening with a few pickled eggs.
Suddenly there seems to be a commotion and an
unusually long queue of people stretching from behind the bar, through the
kitchen, out round the back and into the Gents toilet window. There are two
problems it seems. Old Mr. Roundtree is holding up progress because he’s stuck
on the window sill unable to move in or out but more importantly, Mr. Biggins
has failed to take into account what effect a mass exodus to the Gents would
have on the access route. What with a stream of people climbing back out of the
toilet window it hadn’t taken long for Mr. Roundtree’s predicament to cause
complete deadlock as nobody could climb in or out unless Mr. Roundtree could
summon the strength to cock his leg over.
Fifteen minutes later and back in the hall the
presentations are about to restart to an almost empty auditorium and the bar
staff are taking the opportunity to clear the tables of debris, replenish the
pickled egg jars and ensure that all sharp objects are removed from the GIT
nominee’s table in case of trouble later.
People are slowly returning to their seats, some with
ripped trousers where they failed to notice the small nail sticking up on the
cubicle 1 window sill, some with wet feet where they failed to notice the
toilet bowl in time as they clambered in, some with wet arms and legs where
they’d not so much as climbed in but toppled over and couldn’t avoid the toilet
bowl at all and some with black eyes, bruises and unruly hair where they’d
clashed heads with people climbing in as they were climbing out.
At last everyone’s seated again. The nominees are
trying to compose themselves but are finding the pools of water forming around
their feet somewhat disconcerting. The Count is wringing out his trouser
turnups, Joe is trying to tidy his hair, Pants is sitting at the table wearing
his dinner jacket, bow-tie and underpants as he waits for his shirt and
trousers to dry on a radiator, Marty is attempting to attract as many females
over to examine the tear in his trousers which he says needs a woman’s touch in
order to sew it up again and Crawfie is standing by the stage, trouser-less and
asking one of the alcoholic brothers if he was looking at him.
The club has the air of a tramp’s convention.
Jonathan emerges from the Green Room, climbs up onto
the stage and crouches in the spotlight.
A hush descends.
There’s a loud crash and clatter from the back of the
room and a young man chases his bar stool as it careers down towards the stage.
Limping, he carries it back and mops up his spilt Guinness.
Mr. Ross announces, “Before our next award we have
not one but two acts for you. The first is truly a miracle of God. May I take
this opportunity to welcome and introduce to you Mrs. Liddle, the one and only
81 year old handless organist who hails from Wisconsin
The audience go wild. The cheers and applause are
deafening, finally fading away into silence as everybody waits for Mrs. Liddle
to appear. Mr. Ross is looking nervous as he glances around the stage and looks
for help from his producer. Suddenly he
presses his ear piece and says, “It’s all wight ladies and gentlemen, it seems
the old dear has been stuck in her dwessing woom since 9 o’clock this morning, she couldn’t open the door,
and nobody bothered to check on her. However our two magnificent ambulance men
have just been in to check on her and she’s fallen into a coma through lack of
nourishment. She just needs a spell hooked up to a drip to re-hydrate her and
she’ll be fine. Ron and Bill, the ambulance men are rushing her off to Maidstone hospital as I speak. Before they left
they asked me to tell you that Passing Water is recovering nicely. So that’s
all right then.”
Jonathan smiles before continuing, “So…without
further ado…please welcome on to the stage, our next act, Signor Lipsmove and
Little Charlie. The applause and cheers go up as Mr. Patel the newsagent
shuffles on with his dummy, Little Charlie. Signor Lipsmove starts his act:
“Hello Charlie and how are you today?”
“I’m gerry ell thank you,” says Charlie.
“Now Charlie, would you like a Big Bottle of Brown Beer and some Brown Bread and Butter? I said would you like a Big Bottle of Brown Beer and some Brown Bread and Butter…or a shandy?”
“A shandy.”
“Good, good” says Signor Lipsmove, “I’m very glad you
said that. And are you going to do the alphabet backwards?”
“Pardon?”
The alphabet. Twenty-six letters. Are you going to do
the alphabet backwards?
“No”
“Good, good,”
says Signor Lipsmove, “well I tell you what to do. Sing a little song for the
ladies and gentlemen. What would you like to sing?”
“What do you know?”
“Just sing a little song. What would you like to
sing?.”
“The red red rogin cuns gog gog goggin along.”
“Gog, gog, goggin?”
“Yes”
“Just get on with it but, hang on, let me just get
this glass of water Charlie.”
Someone from the back of the room falls off his tall
stool while shouting, “Oi, you’ve nicked Ken Dodd’s act.”
Channel 4 cuts to the adverts.
Channel 4 cuts back from the adverts.
Mr. Ross is panicking on stage. Ron and Bill who have
just returned from the hospital after dropping off Mrs. Liddle are bending over
Mr. Patel. A stretcher is lying by his side. “It’s all wight. It’s all wight,”
Jonathan is screaming, “He’s OK, he’s OK. Signor Lipsmove is OK. He just choked
on his water, he just choked on his water. He’s just stopped breathing that’s
all! Oh God! Oh God!”
Mr. Patel is quickly stretchered off leaving Mr. Ross
standing in a pool of water mumbling, “Oh God. Oh God. Jesus Chwist. Oh sweet
baby Jesus.” Little Charlie’s body is lying on the floor to his right. Little
Charlie’s head is lying on the floor to his left. Recovering some of his
composure Mr. Ross shuffles from side to side kicking both parts of Little
Charlie off the stage before shouting after Ron and Bill, “Give our wegards to
Passing Water and Mrs. Liddle,” and continuing with, “And now the next award…
Our next categowy is the “Virgin Twain Award” for the
feeblest excuse for not getting their answers in on time. The surprise nominees
are Pants, Joe, Marty, Crawfie and The Count.
And the winner, for mentioning more excuses with the
word ‘holiday’ than anyone else is…
Joe.”
Joe reacts by jumping up from his seat and immediately
falls over. This time not from the effect of his bad leg but from the effect of
two magnums of champagne. He gets up, pretending he’s just slipped on something
and looks around cautiously at the GITs to make sure he hasn’t been set up. He
scans the audience to also make sure that the comely lovely Yalding lass is
nowhere to be seen but although he can see her over by the bar he’s happy in
the knowledge that she’s pre-occupied sewing up the tear in the crotch of
Marty’s trousers.
So, stuffing the last pickled egg in the jar into his
mouth he makes his way towards the stage. He notices that the next table still
has a jar-full left and surreptitiously swops the two jars as he passes the
table, pausing briefly to put another pickled egg in his trouser pocket for
later.
No comments:
Post a Comment