I bet you're really sick of looking at Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Sorry about the silence, I've had my hands a bit full of writing and recording the new series of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, which is now DONE, and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 starting next month.
(In the meantime, you can buy the first series, and pre-order the second, on CD here:
)
…but this is very bad manners, to disappear for the best part of six weeks, and then just hit you with adverts; so here's something else: a sketch from the new series which I really like, but which we can't use, because a good friend sorrowfully broke the news to me after the recording that it's got a lot in common with a bit of stand-up Ricky Gervais used to do. So, here it is, for your eyes (and no-one but the studio audience's ears) only, as a sort of DVD extra…
THE
KING’S MEN
FX HORSE
GALLOPS UP TO GATES.
KNIGHT (LAWRY)
Watchman, ho! Raise the alarm! The Vikings are invading! Summon the King’s men,
they must immediately ride out to battle!
WATCHMAN (JOHN)
The King’s men?
KNIGHT Yes!
WATCHMAN Oohh…
they’re not in.
KNIGHT Not
in? What do you mean, not in?
WATCHMAN They’re
out.
KNIGHT What,
all of them?
WATCHMAN Yep,
all of them.
KNIGHT Well,
where have they gone?
WATCHMAN They’re,
um… Well, I’ll tell you what they’re doing. They’re trying to put an egg back
together again.
KNIGHT …An
egg?
WATCHMAN Yep.
KNIGHT Why?
WATCHMAN It
got broke. Fell off a wall. Very nasty.
KNIGHT An
egg?
WATCHMAN Yep.
KNIGHT And
the King has sent… all his men?
WATCHMAN Yep.
And all his horses.
KNIGHT His
horses? Why?
WATCHMAN To
get ‘em there faster, I spose. I can’t imagine it’s to help fix the egg.
KNIGHT It
seems an awful lot of trouble to go to for an egg.
WATCHMAN True,
sir, very true. But it’s a special egg. We’re all very fond of it.
KNIGHT Are you.
WATCHMAN Oh
yeah. We even gave it a name.
KNIGHT Right.
Well, in that case, send a messenger after them with all speed, while I rouse
the townfolk!
WATCHMAN Aren’t
you going to ask what name we gave it?
KNIGHT No!
I’m trying to protect the kingdom from Vikings, I don’t what to know what you
call the egg!
WATCHMAN Humpty.
KNIGHT Humpty.
Humpty the egg.
WATCHMAN Not
finished yet. Humpty… Dumpty.
KNIGHT Oh,
so the egg has a surname?
WATCHMAN It’s
not a surname, really, so much as a nick-name. On account of his comical shape.
KNIGHT What
shape?
WATCHMAN Egg-shaped,
sir. Did I not mention he was an egg? I thought I had.
KNIGHT Right.
So you’re telling me that the kingdom has been left at the mercy of the
approaching Viking hordes because the king’s entire military strength, human
and equine, have been dispatched to reassemble an egg-shaped egg, which has
fallen off a wall?
WATCHMAN Could
be, sir. Or, it could be that I’m not really the watchman at all, so much as a
Viking advance guard instructed to stall you from raising the alarm by telling
you whatever old nonsense comes into my head.
KNIGHT Zounds!
Are you?
WATCHMAN …No,
sir. Just messing about. It’s the egg one.
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