UnScripts:A Case For Euthanasia
(Scene opens in a study in a country club/ old peoples’ home with wood panel walls, wingback chairs and other stereotypically upper class furnishings. Two elderly gentlemen sit in armchairs either side of a fireplace.)
Toff 1: How are you old boy?
Toff 2: Quite fine old chap, and you..er..Sorry, I can't quite.. recall your name.
Toff 1: Ah yes..It would appear I have forgotten myself, as it happens
Toff 2: Ah capital, capital. Tell me have you been following Wimbledon?
Toff 1:What! No! No, how dare he accuse me!
Toff 2:No,no old chap the tennis tournament .
Toff 1:..told him before, it was just the wind rustling those bushes..
Toff 2: Something on your mind old bean, seem to have lost you there
Toff 1:What, hmmph, sorry..tennis..yes. Yes I have been, as the youth say "Watching the Tennis". I think it's a disgrace, those dusky young women wearing such short skirts and skimpy tops and..
(Toff 1 begins to sweat and sway in his seat)
Toff 2:Are you all right my good man? Only you appear to be drooling.
Toff 1: (Speaking breathlessly) ..and sometimes when they spill their drinking water(.)What, sorry miles away there
Toff 2:Load of nonsense anyway now. All these jumped up Americans winning everything, and now they’re changing the rules. Now they play with these things called "rackets" and "tennis balls", whatever they are, on something called a "court"
Toff 1:Yes, back in my day we played with good British oval-shaped balls and you didn't have these one-on-ones, you had proper British teams and a proper goal to aim at.
Toff 2:That's right. We used to play it in a little town(.) I can't remember where, but it began with an R. We used to call it the game they play in R. And we had “The game they play in R league” and “The game they play in R union”. Damn good game. Pity they don’t play it any more.
Toff 1; Isn’t that Rugby old boy.
Toff 2: ..(2)..No. Rugby’s the one with a bunch of chaps in white, with bats and wickets, and such nonsense.
Toff 1:Ah yes, well back at my finishing school there was only one sport we bothered with.
Toff 2: And what’s that my good fellow?
Toff 1: Tiger hunting.
Toff 2: Is that legal,
Toff 1:Oh, yes. Of course. You popped over to India, you had your butler flush the blighter out and you bally well shot him. I didn’t see what was so had about it, they were these enormous, slow-moving grey things, you could hardly miss, don’t you know.
Toff 2: These tigers, did they have big ears.
Toff 1:Yes that’s right.
Toff 2; And big tusks?
Toff 1: Absolutely spot on.
Toff 2: My good sir, that was, in fact an elephant.
Toff 1:Was it? I thought that tiger-skin rug we had at home was just extremely deep pile.
Toff 2:No, what you had was in fact a dead elephant draped across the floor.
Toff 1:Oh yes.(2) I do recall you had rather a charming picture of elephants back at your family’s place.
Toff 2: (puzzled) Er.. yes..
Toff 1: You know, the one in the parlour.
Toff2: That, dear sir, was a family portrait.
Toff 1: (brow wrinkling in puzzlement) Why did you have a family portrait with a damn great elephant in the middle?
Toff 2: That was my mother!
Toff 1:Did she often dress in elephant suits?
Toff 2; NO!
Toff 1: But...
Toff 2: She wasn’t an elephant, she didn’t dress up as one. She just happened to have (.) grey skin and a trunk.
(Trumpeting in background. Enter elephant in a dress and wig.)
Toff 2: Mother!?
Mrs Toff:*Elephant noise*