The Majority

Rob Drummond

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781350059078
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Is morality just what the majority say? Is that all it is? If I don't vote, I'm not part of that discussion. Rob Drummond returns to the National with a new show about democracy. The Majority charts Rob's journey as he navigates the Scottish Independence Referendum, Brexit, Trump... and whatever today brings. So take your seat and push the button. Yes or No. Can you change the show with your votes? Every night will be different, depending on the majority.

Act Two

Rob travels north on a train.

Scene One

September 2015.

Rob As I step off the train in Thurso, which is the northernmost train station on the British mainland, I see a little man with a tweed jacket and a cap pulled down over his eyes sitting on a bench with a sign that reads ‘Drummond’. I’ve arranged a car to take me the rest of the way as there’s really no other way of doing it. I approach him only to find he’s asleep. I gently place my hand on his shoulder and . . .

Old Man Fuck you!

Rob He swipes at me with the back of his hand, catching me on the chin.

I point at his sign.

Eh. I’m Drummond.

At this point you’d expect at the very least an apology. An explanation. I was in a war. I have PTSD. I’ve been mugged in my sleep before.

But no. He just nods and walks away. I work out for myself to follow him and he leads me to a twenty-year-old BMW. I get inside. It reeks of dog.

The old man gets in the front. He knows where we’re going.

Old Man Why you going there?

Rob I’m meeting with Eric Ferguson.

The Old Man laughs.

Rob You know him?

Old Man Oh aye, I know him.

Rob He seems to think there’s a Nazi problem up here.

The old man suddenly becomes very serious. And then he says one word, which I’m not sure how to take.

Old Man Problem?

Rob I decide to put my headphones in for the rest of the journey. I’d rather not know what this guy thinks about Nazis to be honest. I don’t want to risk getting in an argument and being kicked out the car on a country road in nowheresville.

The journey takes us two hours. The town, which I’m not going to mention the name of, is a sleepy little poverty-stricken fishing town. Not exactly where you’d expect to find the base of a burgeoning Nazi resurgence.

Eric’s house is modest enough. A semi-detached near the high street with a view of the North Sea. Not bad.

I ring the doorbell and wait for a few minutes but no one appears so I let myself round into the back garden.

And there he is.

Standing at the bottom of a relatively small garden with thousands and thousands of bees buzzing all around him. He’s not wearing a bee keeper’s helmet. Just a hat. His face is uncovered and so are his arms.

I should make it clear that this garden was way too small for so many bees. And they were buzzing their way towards me now. Almost as if they could sense my fear.

Social Justice Bee Keeper just stood there staring at me.

He’s set this up. He knew I was arriving now. He’s done this for me.

He shouts over at me, but I can barely hear him over the buzzing.

Eric ROB!

Rob ERIC!

Eric YOU’VE CAUGHT ME UNAWARES!

Rob Aye, right.

CAN WE GO IN THE HOUSE?

Eric WHAT?

Rob I DON’T WANT TO GET STUNG!

As I’m saying this, well, alright it was a few days later but it’s better for the story if it’s now, as I’m saying this a bee stings me. My first ever bee sting. Which Eric finds hilarious.

CAN WE GO INSIDE?!

Eric ALRIGHT, YOU BIG JESSIE. THE BACK DOOR’S OPEN.

Rob I leap at the invitation to get out of the bee garden and into the house. And after a legitimate twenty minutes Eric joins me.

He’s around fifty-five years old I guess. A wiry wee guy with a scrawny beard and a face that launched a thousand Rizlas. Yellow teeth through a broad, almost manic smile. Red bee-sting weals all over. Constant movement. Everything’s urgent. He seems happy. That’s the thing I really remember. Just a happy man. Hope in his eyes.

Not what I was expecting.

He makes me some tea, toast and honey and I accept all despite liking none. And before I can even properly say hello he launches into one of the most astonishing monologues I’ve ever heard.

I’ve tried my best, as with most of this, to remember what he said.

It went something like this . . .

Eric The Nazis. They sell cocaine to the kids. All over the place. People think I’m on cocaine but I’m not. I’m just naturally energetic. If anything I need drugs to slow me down. A little bit of weed to take the edge off my brain you know. We can do some later if you like. Anyway, Rob, let me tell you, I’m on to them. And they know it. And one day they’re going to kill me for it. I’m telling you, if I die, they did it! Most fishing towns they have a drug problem because, well, it’s fucking boring here. And a few years back this Nazi group moved in down the road and starting selling. Now, you’re going to think this is mental, right, but bees, they have better smelling than dogs, right, and they take shorter to train – you just get them to associate the coke with a reward of sugar water and, bang, the next time they smell coke their little proboscises shoot out and you know – fuck, that’s cocaine. I’m not joking, there will be sniffer bees at airports within the next ten years. So, I thought, fuck me, I can train my bees to sniff out the coke. So I went to the police and asked them for some coke so I could get started with the training and I told them that if they helped me we could uncover the whole thing and get them all locked up. But they were having none of it. And that’s when I realised that they were in on it too. All of them. The police, the council. They’re all in on it.

Rob It’s at this point I ask myself what I’m even doing up here. I could have written my play without this visit. Something about Eric though is undeniably intoxicating. I found myself wanting his stories to be true. I mean they obviously weren’t. Or at least there was so much untrue about them so as to totally undermine the truthful bits. But still . . . Nazis. We all hate Nazis right? Little disagreement there.

We spent the weekend together. He took me up to the house he called the Nazi compound. Disappointingly no one was home. He said they had many bases all along the coast. It seemed far fetched to me. I mean, why? Why move in up here?

Eric Why not? It’s not like this is the only place they are. They’re all over the UK now. Part of the far-right resurgence.

Rob I found myself trespassing that first night. We scaled a fence and went right into the compound. Looking for evidence of drugs. And Nazis. A swastika of coke I think would have sealed the deal . . . but we saw nothing.

On the second night we mainly just hung out down the seafront eating fish and chips. His wife Lucy and his daughter Morag join us. I get the sense that Lucy is reticent to talk about Eric. I’m desperate to know more about why they live apart but I don’t want to ask something so personal so soon.

Eric later tells me that she has something called dissociative disorder. A form of depression that means nothing feels real to her. A kind of defence mechanism against the world he says. Having a discussion with her is like talking to a stoned artificial intelligence. She met Eric shortly after he came up to the community, around fifteen years ago. I ask her about the Nazis and she says . . .

Lucy Oh yeah, Nazis, man. Everywhere.

Rob Morag wants to go so Lucy kisses Eric and says she loves him and she’ll see him tomorrow.

And then they leave. To go to their separate house.

I ask Eric about the local community. What do they all think about the place?

Eric There’s two types of people. Those who keep their heads down and those who look for a fight wherever they can find one. And guess which one’s going to make the difference in the world?

Rob The second one.

Eric This place is full of the first type. Like most places. These da...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Author’s Note
• Director’s Note
• Contents
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• eCopyright