The Full Monty

Simon Beaufoy

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781849434621
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

In 1997, a BAFTA award-winning British film about six out of work Sheffield steelworkers with nothing to lose took the world by storm. And now they're back, live on stage, only for them, it really has to be The Full Monty. Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar-winning writer of the film, has now gone back to Sheffield where it all started to rediscover the men, the women, the heartache and the hilarity of a city on the dole. The Full Monty was the winner of the UK Theatre Best Touring Production award 2013.

Act One

A huge, rusting roller door stands closed on the front edge of the stage. Through the perforations in the door we can make out the silhouettes of clanking machinery guiding tons of metal into place and the red fire of a roaring furnace.

We hear snatches of captured sound: a montage. A plummy BBC voice tells us of the Sheffield steel made for the battleships of World War Two, a few lines of Harold Wilson’s “white heat of technology” speech. The montage is moving forward in time to BBC reportage of steel strikes, industrial unrest. Sir Keith Joseph’s speeches, “Labour isn’t working”, unemployment being a “price worth paying”, and finally, Margaret Thatcher; “You turn if you want to. This lady’s not for turning…”

The sounds fade as the front door rolls up revealing not a vibrant, working factory, but the desolate remains of a steelworks full of abandoned clutter – later to be used as props and furniture. An enormous, rusting blue crane hangs above the floor.

A pigeon flutters through a gap in the roof. Water drips from a leaking pipe, a bit of broken guttering creaks in the wind. Other than that, silence.

SCENE 1

GAZ, DAVE and NATHAN are preset on the ledge. Suddenly, four panes halfway up the back window of the steel works shatter impressively. A face peers through. Looks left and right. Signals to someone out of sight.

GAZ: Nope. Nobody. Go on. You first.

A boy’s face now appears at the smashed window. NATHAN.

NATHAN: (Appalled.) Me?

GAZ: Youth before beauty. In ’olden days, you’d be going up a bloody chimney.

NATHAN: I’m freezing.

GAZ: There you are then. Bit of exercise’ll warm you up.

NATHAN: Dad…

GAZ: You’ll be reet. Dave did a full Health and Safety Assessment, didn’t you, Dave?

A face appears at the empty circle in another pane of glass left by a missing extractor fan. DAVE. He turns his head to address them.

DAVE: I checked no bugger were looking if that’s what you mean.

NATHAN: Why can’t you go first?

DAVE: I don’t bloody fit, do I?

GAZ: In you go, there’s a good lad.

Reluctantly, NATHAN crawls through the window and onto the metal gantry of the crane.

GAZ: Coast Clear?

NATHAN: Yes.

GAZ follows. GAZ leads NATHAN across to front gantry where he stands as GAZ goes down the metal steps.

NATHAN: You could get six months for this, you know.

GAZ: Six months what?

NATHAN: Jail. For breaking and entering.

DAVE: Nice that he takes an interest in your criminal career.

GAZ: (Proudly.) We’re just having a gander, kid. See what’s what.

GAZ goes over to a panel on the wall. Pulls a huge fuse handle. The steelworks is suddenly illuminated in all its dilapidated grandeur.

GAZ: Hell nay. Look at the place. Listen to the place.

NATHAN: Can’t hear owt.

GAZ: What I mean. Get yourself down ’ere.

NATHAN goes down the metal steps to GAZ.

GAZ: You couldn’t hear yoursen think in ’ere for the noise of the rollers. Never heard nowt like it. Hundreds of tons of red hot metal being flattened. Why Grandad was deaf as a bloody post. We had us own sign language. Had to. And the heat coming out of there’d melt your boots. There were this time sommut fell off the roof into ’furnace. White hot metal flying across the shop like a bomb had gone off. Went straight through that lad Billy Ogden – remember that, Dave?

DAVE: Aye.

GAZ: You could see right through him. What were left of him.

DAVE: When you’re done with your cheery stroll down memory lane, this ladder’s…slipping.

There is a yell as DAVE falls off the ladder, followed by the splintering of glass as a large man lands. It sounds terminal.

GAZ: Dave!

GAZ runs for the back door, unbolts it. Miraculously, DAVE is standing there.

DAVE: I’m from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, may I have a word?

GAZ: You’re not gonna like this.

DAVE walks in. Stares up at the crane, genuinely pained.

DAVE: Oh, Margaret…

He hurries up to the crane. NATHAN sits fascinated by the TV monitors.

NATHAN: Who?

GAZ: The crane. Margaret. Named after our Glorious Leader, Mrs Thatcher.

DAVE: The Blue Bitch. Look at that. The...