Richard Bean: Plays Four

Richard Bean

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781849439367
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

The new collection from Richard Bean, one of Britain's leading playwrights and the fastest-selling playwright in the history of the West End. This volume features an introduction by Mark Lawson and includes the plays: The Heretic, The Big Fellah and England People Very Nice.

ENGLAND PEOPLE VERY NICE

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.
George Orwell (1984)

Characters

A large, ethnically mixed company of actors is needed.
Some characters are recurring.

RECURRING CHARACTERS

NORFOLK DANNY / CARLO / AARON / MUSHI, 20s
The boy lover

CAMILLE / MARY / RUTH / DEBORAH, 20s
The girl lover

IDA, Pub barmaid

LAURIE, Pub landlord

RENNIE, Pub regular, originally from Barbados

CORE CAST FOR PROLOGUE / EPILOGUE – ALTHOUGH ALL PLAYERS ARE PRESENT

YAYAH, Male Nigerian

PHILIPPA, Female English

ELMAR, Male Azerbaydzhan

TAHER, Male Palestinian

SANYA, Female Kosovan

IQBAL, Male Yemen

OFFICER KELLY, Male Ulster

OFFICER PARKER, Male English

TATYANA, Female Serbian

GINNY, Female English, stage manager

Set / Staging

The play requires a large stage with the facility to fly in flats, or use still, or video projections, to establish locations as required. This process should be playful and non-naturalistic. The only constant location is the pub, which can be naturalistic.

England People Very Nice was first performed at the Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, on 4 February 2009, with the following cast:

Philip Arditti

Jamie Beamish

Paul Chequer

Olivia Colman

Rudi Dharmalingam

Sacha Dhawan

Hasina Haque

Tony Jayawardena

Trevor Laird

Elliot Levey

Siobhán McSweeney

Neet Mohan

Aaron Neil

Sophia Nomvete

Daniel Poyser

Claire Prempeh

Fred Ridgeway

Avin Shah

Sophie Stanton

Michelle Terry

David Verrey

Harvey Virdi

Director Nicholas Hytner

Designer Mark Thompson

Director of Animation Pete Bishop

Lighting Designer Neil Austin

Music Grant Olding

Choreographer Scarlett Mackmin

Sound Designer John Leonard

Prologue

A bare stage.

GINNY: (Off.) Full company to the stage please!

The company of actors breeze on. Other asylum seekers enter accompanied by Immigration Centre Officers. They are in costume, depicting the early history of Britain – Angles, Vikings, Saxons, Celts, etc.

PHILIPPA: NOTES! It’s almost…quite good.

A mobile phone is heard. It’s YAYAH’s. He’s dressed as a Roman centurion with short sword, skirt, etc. He gives the short sword to a fellow asylum seeker and answers his phone.

YAYAH: (On phone.) Of course it’s me woman!… Listen! I am not in Lagos so you will have to beat the girl yourself! Goodbye, I am in a meeting!

PHILIPPA: Tatyana, no smoking please! Pocklington Immigration Centre is a place of work!

TATYANA: Where can I smoke?

PHILIPPA: Nowhere in England. Today we’re going to do a dress rehearsal working with Elmar’s animation, I’ve seen it, it’s absolutely amazing!

ELMAR: Every year in Azerbaydzhan I win the Silver Dragon for animated short.

TAHER: Who wins gold?

ELMAR: In Azerbaydzhan silver is first prize, if you win gold, you’ve come second.

PHILIPPA: Unfortunately, for us, Doctor Kuti has been given leave to remain. So Taher will now give his St John, the sarcastic army-trained Hampstead liberal who gets mugged.

TAHER: If Doctor Kuti has had his envelope, all the envelopes must be here?

PHILIPPA: Mister Kelly!?

OFFICER KELLY: The strike is over, yeah, but I don’t know anything about envelopes.

TAHER: Our cases were heard – [in October]

YAYAH: – Sit down man! You’re pissing me off! We have a show to do!

ELMAR: In Azerbaydzhan we have a saying, ‘eating fish will not improve your swimming’.

PHILIPPA: Today we have music, the Pocklington Immigration Centre Officers officers’ band.

A roll on the drums. And messy contributions from the band. Applause from the players.

What else?

GINNY: (Distort / Off.) Nazeerah!

PHILIPPA: Thanks Ginny. Miss Gupta has ‘Home Office’ interviews so I will take over the demanding roles of Mrs O’Neill and Camilla.

TATYANA: Camilla, the idiot!?

PHILIPPA: Yes. OK notes! Sanya?! Problem. I can hear the swearing. Ida is white working class Bethnal Green. To her ‘facking’, is not swearing – it’s punctuation.

SANYA: FUCKING frogs!

PHILIPPA: No! Pong ‘Frogs’. Pong – theatrical term, emphasise Frogs.

SANYA: Fucking FROGS! Fucking MICKS! Fucking YIDS! Fucking PAKIS!

PHILIPPA: Perfect!

TAHER: Swearing is the truth, of course, when I worked in Israeli theatre I notice they swear all the time, but do Israelis care a shit about the truth –

PHILIPPA: – Taher! If you mention Israel today, you’re back in your cell. Can I do that, Mister Kelly?

OFFICER KELLY: Do what you...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• England People Very Nice
• The Big Fellah
• The Heretic