Parlour Song (NHB Modern Plays)

Jez Butterworth

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781780012766
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A blackly hilarious exploration of deceit, paranoia and murderous desire, as the spirit of the Blues lands in leafy suburbia.

Demolition expert Ned lives in a nice new house on a nice new estate on the edge of the English countryside. He loves his job. Barbecues. Car-boot sales. Fitness programmes. Outwardly his life is entirely unremarkable. Not unlike his friend and neighbour Dale.

So why has he not slept a wink in six months? Why is he so terrified of his attractive wife Joy? And why is it every time he leaves on business, something else goes missing from his home?

Parlour Song was first performed by the Atlantic Theater Company, New York in February 2008, before receiving its UK premiere at the Almeida Theatre, London in 2009.

'blissfully funny... combines the comic, the erotic and the downright disconcerting with superb panache' Telegraph

'exactly captures the mundane madness beneath the bland routine of affluence' Guardian

'wickedly funny' Financial Times

Darkness. Silence. Spotlight on:

DALE. It started small.

Blackout.

In the air, apocalyptic visions appear: buildings, towers, skyscrapers crashing to the ground; office blocks, factories, entire community projects collapsing; histories imploding, destroyed, erased for ever, disappearing in dust as the music swells to utter darkness and silence.

NED and JOY’s house. NED. DALE. A TV. NED at the controls.

DALE. Fuck me. (Beat.) Look at that. (Shakes head.) Where are we?

NED. Leeds. A cooling tower outside Leeds.

DALE. Where were you?

NED. The Buffer Zone.

DALE. The where?

NED. You got three areas. The Designated Drop Area, or DDA. That’s the sector where the main body of the structure is primed to fall. Then you got the PDA. The Predicted Debris Area: namely the maximum area in which fragment equals S and/or debris can reasonably be expected. You calculate the height, weight, materials, foundations, weather conditions, crunch them, and you get a number. Then it’s standard safety procedure to build an eight to ten per cent comfort zone into the number. That gives you your PDA. So you’ve got the DDA, the PDA, then you got a Buffer Zone. I’m in the Buffer Zone. It’s the safe area. You’re completely safe there. Nothing’s going to hurt you in the Buffer Zone.

A surtitle appears:

‘Everything is disappearing.’

NED. Anyway, that’s all boring, technical stuff.

DALE. Boring?

NED. It’s technical –

DALE. Do you want to swap?

NED. What? No I just –

DALE. Do you want to swap jobs, Ned?

NED. No it’s just –

DALE. Okay. Please. My CV…? Just to… hang on… Since school. Kitchen porter. Skivvy. Dogsbody –

NED. Dale –

DALE. Withering period of unemployment… Australia. Back home. Disaster with Tanya. Back to my mum’s. Little Chef manager… Washing cars. Nowhere in all that did they give me a thousand tons of TNT and a fucking great big plunger and say, ‘See that factory over there… Really, and I mean really, fuck it up.’ ‘See that tower block? We don’t want one brick left standing on another… Don’t come back till you’ve fully damaged it.’ Do they have a big plunger? They do, don’t they. Big comedy. (Mimes a plunger.) They do. I knew it. I wash cars. Cars, Ned.

NED. Dale –

DALE. Kids’ cars. Wankers’ cars.

NED. How many car washes you got. Three? Four? How many do you employ? Twenty, thirty blokes.

DALE. Kosovans, Ned. Twenty or thirty Poles. You ask for a Kit Kat, they come back with the Daily Mail.

NED. You’ve built that business. That’s a good solid local –

DALE. Cars, Ned. Wankers’ cars. You have a fight with the missus. Money worries. Whoosh. Lo the heavens shake with thunder. What have I got, I’m feeling the pressure. A sponge, Ned. A squeegee. A bucket of dirty water.

NED. At the end of the day –

DALE. At the end of the day, Ned, I’ve got pruny fingers. You’ve got a thousand-foot dust cloud, and a clatter you can hear ten miles away. The end of the fuckin’ world.

NED. I forgot to say. I’m going to be in the paper.

DALE. When?

NED. Advertiser.

DALE. See?

NED. Not just me. The whole team.

DALE. See? My point exactly. What for. Is it a… (Mimes plunger.)

NED. Big job. Local.

DALE. You lucky sod. Tell me.

NED. It’s hush-hush.

DALE. Tell me.

NED. I can’t.

DALE. Tell me anyway.

NED. It’s the Arndale Centre.

Pause.

DALE. You’re blowing up the Arndale Centre?

NED. Yes.

DALE. Fuck me. The Arndale Centre.

NED. Six weeks Tuesday.

DALE. Why?

NED. It’s obsolete.

DALE. I do all my shopping there. Everybody does.

NED. Its days are numbered, Dale. There’s going to be a photograph. Of us. The team. In front of the Arndale. Then another. Of it gone. At least that’s how I’d do it.

DALE. Front page?

NED. Could be. Should be.

DALE. Should be on the telly.

NED. My lips are sealed.

DALE. You bastard.

NED. No comment.

DALE. You rotter. Are you going to be on the box?

NED. It’s just a bit of fun really. It’s eye-candy, isn’t it. Tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper.

DALE. Well, that’s that. It’s going to cost a pound to talk to you. (Beat.) Do you know what? I could do this all day.

NED. Where you going? We haven’t finished. I was just going to get another –

DALE. Mate –

NED. I was just going to get another one.

DALE. It’s not me. You know it’s not me. It’s Lyn –

NED. You got time for one more. Quick one.

DALE. Lyn’ll be on the warpath.

NED. Five minutes.

DALE. Oooh… He always does this…

NED. Okay? Are you… just… are you ready?

DALE. Oooh… He always does this… !

NED. Okay? Falkirk Industrial Estate, 2002. We drop this gasworks and there’s literally zero backwash.

DALE. Ned –

NED. I’ve got it upstairs. I know exactly where it is. I’ve got them all alphabetised.

DALE. Ned –

NED. I could have found it by now.

DALE. Ned –

NED. Come on. What’s five minutes? We could have watched it by now.

DALE. Ned. I’ve seen it. (Beat.) Ned, mate, I’ve seen it. You showed me it. Last week.

Pause.

NED. When?

DALE. Last week. You showed me all of these last week.

NED. No I never.

DALE. Yes you did.

NED. When?

DALE. Last week.

NED. That was Pete. From the pub.

DALE. No it wasn’t.

NED. It was Pete from the pub.

DALE. Ned. Yes. Ned. You showed them to Pete from the pub. You also showed them to me. Last week. And the week before that. With Rodge. And Nobby. Who’d seen it the week before that. With me. Who’d seen it three times the week before that. Once with Nobby. Once with Rodge. Once with Pete from the pub. What I’m saying is, what I’m getting at is, we’ve seen it. I’ve seen it.

NED. I’m sure you haven’t seen Falkirk.

DALE. Ned –

NED. In fact I’m positive you haven’t seen Falkirk. You’re thinking of Kilmarnock. The block of flats in –

DALE. Not the block of flats in Kilmarnock. Although I know it well.

NED. There’s no way you’ve seen –

DALE. Ned –

DALE. There’s no way you’ve seen Fal –

DALE. It’s raining. There’s a bagpipe band. A countdown by the local lady mayor. A Mrs Bridey McNeil. Just when she starts, a kid jumps out the crowd and gets his bum out –

NED. That shouldn’t have happened –

DALE. There’s the countdown. Then you blow it up. (Pause.) It’s jaw-dropping. No one’s saying it’s not.

Silence.

NED. Of course. Of course. I remember. I remember now.

Pause.

DALE. Ned. Tell me to fuck off…

NED. I’m fine.

DALE. Good. Good. Excellent. Tell me to –

NED. Dale –

DALE. Good. Splendid. I was just, you know… Mates ’n’ all.

NED. Hey –

DALE. You’d tell me if something was –

NED. Hey. Dale. We’re mates.

DALE. Mates. Exactly. No harm done.

NED. None taken.

DALE. Well, I best be off.

NED. Yeah, I better be getting on as well.

DALE. Thanks for the… what’s the word?

NED. Biscuits.

DALE. Carnage.

NED. It’s a bit of fun.

DALE. Exactly.

NED. Catch you later, Dale.

DALE. Thanks for the biscuits –

NED. Everything’s disappearing.

Pause.

DALE. What?

Pause.

NED. What? Nothing.

DALE. You said. (Beat.) You just said –

NED. You best be off.

DALE. ‘Everything’s disappearing.’

NED. Mind how you go.

Pause.

DALE. All right, mate. See you around.

NED. Not if I see you first.

Pause. DALE turns to go. He turns back.

DALE. Ned. (Beat. Looks at watch.) Look. (Beat.) Life isn’t ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• Original Production
• Characters
• Parlour Song
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information