TRAILER

‘Trailer’ was the finale to CUP's More Than Just Chicken revue. In many ways it's absurd to reproduce it here, since the comedy arose entirely from the audience hearing lines they'd heard earlier on in the evening, taken out of context and used to construct a faux movie trailer for the show. Very little of that comes through in isolation. Still, for posterity if nothing else, here it is.

The actors referred to in the script were me, Helen Bright, Mat ‘Colin’ Page, James ‘Silk’ Davey, Russell Dewhurst, Bea Purser, J-P Stacey and the show's director Pete Gillin in a cameo appearance. The recorded voiceover was provided by Simon Davies. The staging was immensely complicated, very satisfying when we got it right and a nightmare when we didn't.

Please note that, while the sketch itself is mine, the vast majority of the actual lines are other people's.

TRAILER

[The following is performed at frenetic speed. The Voice Over on the speaker sounds precisely like that gravelly-voiced American bloke who appears to have done every single film trailer ever. The staging for this sketch involves people moving with rapidity between three spots – one containing a counter, one containing nothing and one containing a chair. The spots flick on and off to highlight whoever is currently delivering. JP has the inflatable parrot concealed about his person; Phil has, similarly concealed, a second cucumber. All the lines are delivered as close as humanly possible to their original emotion, intonation and posture. If we can make the beginnings and ends very slightly clipped, as if edited out of context, then so much the better.]

PHIL: That's the best you can do is it? – That simply isn't good enough. You'll have to do better. – Idiot idiot idiot, all I have to deal with is idiots!

HELEN: I'm sorry, sir, but there's nothing I can do.

COLIN: [sinisterly] What about murder?

VO: When a man with no sex life...

COLIN: Well, you know how sexually frustrated I've been feeling lately.

SILK: I don't suppose you fancy going out with me, do you?

RUSSELL: Don't you realise, my darling, I love you?

PHIL: [slaps forehead] ...Damn, I forgot to masturbate this morning.

VO: ...meets a woman with very little else...

BEA: [enthusiastically] Shuddering, bulging eyes, bucking and writhing.

J-P: Took me bloody ages to find it –

HELEN: [ecstatic] And I want him to do it again!

VO: ...there can be only one result.

RUSSELL: – pull back the duvet, and STAB! STAB! STAB!

[JP bangs the parrot repeatedly against the counter.]

[Phil grabs the cucumber in both hands and snaps it once more.]

COLIN: [sinisterly] Murder.

VO: Cruel and Unusual Punishment present More Than Just Chicken.

[Helen climaxes loudly.]

BEA: – I think you'll find quite a lot of women fancy Kenneth Branagh –

SILK: I'm sorry, what?

COLIN: Formulaic.

VO: Witty and literate...

J-P: To be, or not to be –

HELEN: Fuck off.

VO: ...a triumph of sophisticated comedy.

BEA: – words such as winkle, –

SILK: [camp] Anyway, he got out his enormous hose –

RUSSELL: [Russian] Get your hands off my cucumber, Dick.

BEA: – bum, –

RUSSELL: Have you been nibbling at our fundament?

HELEN: How much POO?

BEA: – and pants.

PHIL: – shagging the pants of Helena Bonham-Carter –

HELEN: Sorry, just my coil playing me up.

SILK: I think I might masturbate too much.

VO: Starring Helen Bright...

HELEN: Oh, do get out of my life –

VO: James Davey...

SILK: I don't know if my penis is large enough.

VO: ...Russell Dewhurst...

RUSSELL: [Russian] This dutchman has destroyed my vegetable!

VO: ...Philip Hallard...

PHIL: [camp] Ooh, what a disappointment that is for a girl.

VO: ...Mathew C Page...

COLIN: Ah, tell him to fuck off.

VO: ...Beatrice Purser...

BEA: – going a bit floppy towards the end.

VO: ...and John-Patrick Stacey.

J-P: Rigor mortis!

[Pete enters and prances a bit.]

VO: And introducing Peter Gillin as the Irritating Man.

Pete: - it's because of a tropical disease! [exit]

VO: Funny...

RUSSELL: Oh, it was painful, it was torturous, it was hell...

VO: ...heartwarming...

COLIN: My uncle died the other day.

VO: ...and very, very original.

SILK: I wish to register a complaint!

VO: More Than Just Chicken.

PHIL: [Dutch] You put me off my food.

VO: From the people who brought you Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

COLIN: I'm sure I've had this strange feeling of deja vu somewhere before...

VO: More Than Just Chicken. Playing now, at Wadham Theatre everywhere.

RUSSELL: I never thought it would end like this.

[Blackout]


© Cruel and Unusual Punishment 1996

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All material © Philip Purser-Hallard 2003 except where otherwise noted, and not to be used without permission.