Posh

Laura Wade

• Verlag: Oberon Books
• Jahr: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781849432948
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Literatur
• Thema: Britisches Drama

"I've got a new law for you mate, it's called survival of the fittest, it's called fuck you we're the Riot Club." In an oak-panelled room in Oxford, ten young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. Members of an elite student dining society, the boys are bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence and bloody good wine. But this isn't the last huzzah: they're planning a takeover. Welcome to the Riot Club.

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

A Gentlemen’s Club in London. A wood-panelled room with two big leather armchairs and a small table between them.

JEREMY sits in one of the chairs, sipping from a glass of whisky. GUY stands opposite him.

JEREMY: Don’t stand there like a schoolboy, GUY – take a seat.

GUY: That a new chap on the desk?

JEREMY: They’re all bloody new.

GUY: Told me you were upstairs in the Blue Room.

JEREMY: Idiot.

GUY: I said concentrate, mate – I’m not even a member and even I know the Blue Room’s the one downstairs,

JEREMY: Which isn’t actually blue.

GUY: Which isn’t actually blue. The one you’re talking about, despite having blue walls, I said, is actually the Oak Room.

JEREMY: Bloody foreign staff. Couldn’t run a piss up in a bath.

GUY: So. How’s the mood in the camp?

JEREMY: Oh, you know.

GUY: Amazing, yeah – feet under the table, back in the saddle, ducks in a row, heads above parapets,

JEREMY: Too many metaphors.

GUY: Just the table one, then.

JEREMY: Standing there with a dustpan and brush in your hand, clearing up after someone else’s party.

GUY: No, yeah, course. I mean, what, thirteen years on the sidelines? Long winter.

JEREMY: Hard to make people love you when it’s all cut cut cut.

GUY: No, sure.

JEREMY: Just set up a group to work on Operation Charm Offensive.

GUY: Excellent.

JEREMY: All they’ve dreamed up so far is a monthly backbenchers’ Curry Night.

GUY: Poppadoms and policy.

JEREMY: Men of the people, you know.

GUY: And women.

JEREMY: People of the people. More offensive than charming, so far.

How’s college?

GUY: Yeah good good.

JEREMY: Playing any Rugger?

GUY: Only when they’re desperate.

JEREMY: Your mother tells me you’re seeing some girl.

GUY: Well. Yeah. I mean it’s not –

JEREMY: Bit out of the loop, aren’t I?

GUY: Yeah, it’s been a while.

JEREMY: Bit remiss with the godfathering?

GUY: No, god no. I mean I totally know you’re here when I need you, so –

GUY pauses.

JEREMY: Drink?

GUY: Yes please.

JEREMY pours two tumblers of whisky.

JEREMY: Water?

GUY: Ice please.

JEREMY looks at GUY: wrong answer. He puts some ice into GUY’s drink.

JEREMY: So what’s her name?

GUY: Lauren.

JEREMY: Lauren.

D’you know, I don’t know a single person called Lauren isn’t that remarkable?

GUY: Not really.

JEREMY: Lauren what, Lauren who?

GUY: Lauren Small.

JEREMY: Small. Is she?

GUY: Not where it matters.

JEREMY: Where’s she from?

GUY: Hastings.

JEREMY: Charming. And the parents?

GUY: They have a chain of shops.

JEREMY: Selling what?

GUY: Magazines, newspapers.

JEREMY: A newsagent?

GUY: Chain of them. Several.

JEREMY: Cigarettes and chocolate. Well, people always popping out for a pint of milk. Or scratch cards.

GUY: Language.

JEREMY: Where’d she go to school?

GUY: In Hastings.

JEREMY: Day school?

GUY: Comprehensive.

JEREMY: Clever girl, getting to Oxford.

GUY: First in the family.

JEREMY: Goes like the clappers as well, I expect.

Wonderful thing about girls like that, if I remember, is they’re very cheap to run.

GUY: God yeah. Think you’re a high roller if you go to Cafe Rouge without a voucher.

JEREMY: But not a keeper.

GUY: No no. God, no. Girls for now, girls for later.

GUY sips his drink.

JEREMY: In case it helps, Guy, I’m liable to be called back to the Lords any moment, so if you’ve something to ask, I’d spit it out.

GUY: Right, no, of course. You’re very busy.

OK, right.

It’s the – It’s the Riot Club. We’re back in business. This term.

JEREMY: Yes, I thought it might be that.

GUY: You knew, did you?

JEREMY: Yes.

GUY: James had a call from – James Leighton-Masters, the p...