Alan Bennett: Plays, Volume 1

HEADMASTER: Miss Nisbitt. Don’t let this brief parole from the Bursary go to your head. Tomorrow you will once more be chained to your typewriter.

  FRANKLIN: What is it exactly that you are objecting to, Headmaster?

  HEADMASTER: This … this confirmation class … this defamation class. Ha ha.

  MATRON: Ha ha.

  HEADMASTER: It’s not funny, Matron.

  TEMPEST: I’m sure it wasn’t anything like yours, Headmaster.

  HEADMASTER: Not like mine? Of course it was like mine. It was mine.

  TEMPEST: But the boys and I improvised it together.

  HEADMASTER: Improvised? Improvised? It is word for word as I have been delivering it these forty years. Improvised indeed! Cribbed and ridiculed. No wonder you discouraged me from the rehearsals. I suppose that is where all this improvising as you call it went on. Well, I won’t have it. I’m all in favour of free expression, provided it’s kept rigidly under control.

  MATRON: It’s only entertainment, sir, when all’s said and done.

  HEADMASTER: All is by no means said and done and it is not entertainment. Do I look entertained? And look at my sister, Nancy. Fast asleep. At least I think it’s sleep. It may be deep shock.

  FRANKLIN: Have you ever thought, Headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date?

  HEADMASTER: Of course they’re out of date. Standards always are out of date. That is what makes them standards. I am as broad minded as the next man… (The next man is MATRON.) … but I have heard matters discussed here which ought never to be mentioned, except in the privacy of one’s own bathroom, and even then in hushed tones. This is Albion House, not Liberty Hall.

  MATRON: I think you ought to sit down, Headmaster.

  HEADMASTER: Yes, I think I had. On my last day as Headmaster. You might have waited, Franklin.

  MATRON: Shall I undo your collar?

  HEADMASTER: You’ll undo nothing. You’ve undone quite enough as it is. All these years I have been at Albion House, years which have seen the decline of authority, the decay of standards, the slow collapse of all I hold most dear. And now this. Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.

  FRANKLIN: You are a different generation, Headmaster.

  HEADMASTER: So are you, Franklin. However daring and outspoken you are, to the boys you are a master, and all your swearing and your smut, your silk handkerchiefs and your suede shoes can’t alter that. We’re in the same boat, Franklin, you and I. Now what was going to be next? (He consults his programme.) Ah, yes. Sapper! That sounds a bit better.

  FRANKLIN: Perhaps you’d like to read this next bit, Headmaster. It’s more up your street.

  HEADMASTER: Yes … yes … this is more like it: this is the twenties and thirties, isn’t it … the difference is, you’d read it with your tongue in your cheek … just because there were hundreds of thousands of unemployed doesn’t mean there weren’t some of us trying to lead upright decent lives.

  MISS NISBITT: I remember I had some lovely holidays in St Leonards.

  HEADMASTER: That is a page of memory I’m quite ready to leave unturned. And let’s have no more of it. Simply because I am the Headmaster does not mean I am a complete fool. (CHARTERIS alters the hymn board to 1936.) (At lectern.) Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever is best in England I take to be the Breed. That exclusive club, whose members are the very pith and sinew of this island. You may run across them in the Long Room at Lord’s, or dining alone at White’s. Once met you will always know them, for their hand is firm and their eye is clear and on those rare occasions when they speak it is well to listen for they choose their words dangerously well. They hold themselves on trust for God and for the Nation, and they will never fail her for the Breed never dies.

  FRANKLIN: No. The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery with Violence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature. Novels for the discontented, for ex-officers who profess and call themselves majors long after the war is over and sink their savings in barren smallholdings out beyond the by-pass where the ribbon development ends. A few hens, a pig, a scrawny wife who plays single-handed patience in their converted railway carriage and dreams of Andover and freedom with the man who comes alternate Thursdays with the Calor Gas. It had seemed such a nice little going on in 1919. Novels full of the lost meals of childhood, new baked scones and fresh churned butter, novels of a Europe where history is still a human process, and thrones rise and fall at the behest of international villains.

  A BOY: (Sings) Hark the Herald Angels sing, Mrs Simpson pinched our King Now she knocks on Edward’s door She’s been married twice before. (FRANKLIN, who plays LEITHEN, has donned an overcoat and motonng goggles, TEMPEST, who plays HANNAY, is in plus fours.)

  LEITHEN: You’ve got some first-class Holbeins.

  HANNAY: Ned.

  LEITHEN: Yes?

  HANNAY: I asked you here for a purpose.

  LEITHEN: Yes.

  HANNAY: Do you remember the last time I saw you?

  LEITHEN: Intimately. It was at a little thing called Mons.

  HANNAY: Since then I seem to have lost your spoor.

  LEITHEN: I came through the war more or less intact. I lost an arm here, an ear there, but I was all right, a damn sight better off than a few million other poor devils anyway. Then I got back home and there were these Weary Willies and Tired Tims in their hand-woven ties, writing gibberish they called poetry saying we’d all been wasting our time. I couldn’t see it myself. If we’d done nothing by 1918 at least we’d saved the follow-on.

  SANDY CLANROYDEN (lectern reader): Ned. Did you ever hear of a man called George Ampersand?

  LEITHEN: Bostonian philanthropist and friend of kings! Who hasn’t?

  SANDY: I had some talk with Mr Baldwin this morning. I never saw a man more worried.

  HANNAY: Of late, Ned, there have been a succession of small disasters, oh trifling in themselves … a Foreign Secretary’s sudden attack of dysentery at the funeral of George V, an American ambassador found strangled in his own gym-slip, and in Sudetenland, most mysterious of all, a Laughing Leper who destroys whole villages with his infectious giggles.

  SANDY: The tide is flowing fast against monarchy in Europe. Scarcely a week passes but a throne falls. Mr Baldwin thinks it may be our turn next.

  LEITHEN: Who is behind it all this time?

  HANNAY: Who? That poses something of a problem. To the good people of the neighbourhood he is a white-haired old man with a nervous habit of moving his lips as he talks. To the members of a not unfamiliar London club he is our second most successful theologian. But the world knows him as … George Ampersand.

  LEITHEN: Ampersand. Good God.

  HANNAY: (Handing him snapshots) He is surrounded by some of the worst villains in Europe. Irma, his wife. Nature played a cruel trick upon her by giving her a waxed moustache. Sandro, his valet. A cripple of the worst sort, and consumptive into the bargain.

  LEITHEN: Is he sane?

  SANDY: Sane? He is brilliantly sane. The second sanest in Europe. But like all sane men he has at one time or another crossed that thin bridge that separates lunacy from insanity. And this last week the pace has quickened. Else explain why a highly respected Archbishop of Canterbury, an international hairdresser and a very famous king all decide to take simultaneous holidays on the Black Sea.

  HANNAY: Take a look at this snapshot. It’s of a simultaneous holiday on the Black Sea.

  LEITHEN: But that’s…

  HANNAY: Exactly. A young man not entirely unconnected with the English throne.

  LEITHEN: Who is she?

  SANDY: She’s beautiful, isn’t she. An American. Women are queer cattle at the best of times but she’s like no other woman I’ve ever known. She has all the slim grace of a boy and all the delicacy of a young colt.

  LEITHEN: It’s a rare combination. Who’s this? br />
  HANNAY: Completely Unscrupulos, the Greek shipping magnate.

  LEITHEN: He’s got himself into a pretty rum set. And yet he looks happy.

  HANNAY: That’s what Mr Baldwin doesn’t like about it. During the past few months certain reports have been appearing in what for want of a better word the Americans call their newspapers.

  LEITHEN: About her?

  HANNAY: Yes.

  LEITHEN: And him?

  HANNAY: Yes.

  LEITHEN: But … I don’t understand … where lies the difficulty? If he loves her …

  HANNAY: I don’t think you understand. She is what we in the Church of England called a divorced woman.

  LEITHEN: God! It’s filthy!

  HANNAY: A divorced woman on the throne of the house of Windsor would be a pretty big feather in the cap of that bunch of rootless intellectuals, alien Jews and international pederasts who call themselves the Labour Party.

  LEITHEN: Your talk is like a fierce cordial.

  SANDY: As yet the British public knows nothing. Mr Baldwin is relying on us to see they remain in that blissful state.

  LEITHEN: I like the keen thrust of your mind, but where does friend Ampersand fit into all this?

  HANNAY: That is what I want you to find out. Sandy will accompany you disguised as a waiter. That should at least secure you the entrée. But be careful. And on no account let His Majesty know that you are meddling in this affair. A sport called Shakespeare summed it up: There’s a divinity that doth hedge a king. Rough hew it how you will. (Two boys sing one verse of the song, ‘Hey, Little Hen’.)

  NURSIE: You make a better door than a window.

  MOGGIE: You ought to be still for a minute. You’ve never stopped since it started.

  NURSIE: It’ll be time enough to sit still when we get to the duration.

  MOGGIE: What’re you doing?

  NURSIE: I’m doing what Mr Beveridge says we’re going to have to do, adapting myself to changing circumstances. I’m sewing a button on your mink coat. (Enter HUGH.)

  HUGH: The invasion’s started.

  NURSIE: Queen Anne’s dead.

  HUGH: I’ve just seen Winston announcing it in the House, face as white as a sheet.

  MOGGIE: Do you know, I thought the canteen had been busy. I thought my baking must be improving. It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?

  HUGH: Better ask the Americans. They’ve got as much to do with it as we have. You’d never have guessed, listening to them cheering in the House today, that these were the same men who marched year by year, into the lobbies behind Baldwin and Chamberlain.

  MOGGIE: You want to be thankful they came to their senses in time.

  HUGH: I wish I thought they had. One of my colleagues actually stood up in his constituency the other day and said that if only Hitler had indulged in the fine sport of fox-hunting Europe would not be in the condition it’s in today.

  MOGGIE: I suppose some of the men in the barges this morning were fox-hunters.

  HUGH: All of them no doubt reading over the St Crispin speech. And I suppose I am one of the gentlemen of England now abed.

  NURSIE: Why is it called D-Day particularly?

  HUGH: I wish I thought we were all fighting for the same England. I thought when it started this war would see the end of the business-men, the property developers, the mulberry-faced gentlemen with carnations in their button-holes, the men who didn’t want this war. As the end draws nearer you see they’re still there. Ranged behind Churchill now are the very men who kept him out of office all through the thirties. And they will destroy him yet, because it is their England he is fighting for … the England of Halifax who went hunting with Goering, the England of Kingsley Wood who wouldn’t bomb Krupps because it was private property, the England of Geoffrey Dawson altering the despatches from Berlin. We shall win this war, but when it ends there will have to be a reckoning. Then they will go down, and they will drag Churchill with them. And us too. That is the England of The Breed. They were saying down at the House that there’ve been some peculiar rocket planes falling in Kent. But it’s all very secret.

  (CHARTERIS alters the hymn board to 1938.)

  LECTERN: September 1938. Harold Nicolson and the Announcement of Munich. ‘It was twelve minutes after four. Chamberlain had been speaking for exactly an hour. I noticed that a sheet of Foreign Office paper was being passed rapidly along the Government bench. Sir John Simon interrupted the Prime Minister and there was a momentary hush. He adjusted his pince-nez and read the document that had been handed to him. “Herr Hitler”, he said, “has just agreed to postpone his mobilization for twenty-four hours and to meet me in conference with Signor Mussolini and Monsieur Daladier at Munich.” For a second the House was hushed in absolute silence. And then the whole House burst into a roar of cheering, since they knew this might mean peace. That was the end of the Prime Minister’s speech and when he sat down the whole House rose as a man to pay tribute to his achievement. I remained seated. Liddall, the Conservative member for Lincoln behind me, hisses out “Stand up, you brute.”’ (Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1930–39) (The stage becomes a court room.

  The JUDGE is the HEADMASTER in a full bottom wig,

  TEMPEST the COUNSEL and FRANKLIN, CHAMBERLAIN.) (Drum roll.)

  JUDGE: The Court of History is now in session. Put up the prisoner.

  COUNSEL: You are Neville Joseph Chamberlain, formerly of No. 10 Downing Street … (MR CHAMBERLAIN should be in Homburg hat and carrying his umbrella, and still waving his scrap of paper.)

  JUDGE: One moment, one moment. Everybody knows who the prisoner is, but who are you?

  COUNSEL: Counsel for the Defence, m’lud. The solicitors appearing for the defendant are Messrs Wealthy, Witty and Wise. I am Witty, m’lud.

  JUDGE: That will be for me to judge. However, before we proceed further I must warn you, Mr Chamberlain, that this court is not a court of justice, it is a court of history. And in this court we judge solely by appearances. And I don’t like yours. Why are you wearing that ridiculous wing-collar?

  CHAMBERLAIN: It was the fashion when I was alive, m’lud.

  JUDGE: Fashion? Fashion? Slavish adherence to fashion is hardly one of the qualities one looks for in a Prime Minister. It is the fashion nowadays to wear long hair, but I don’t. You’ve got off to a very bad start, Mr Chamberlain. Proceed.

  COUNSEL: Mr Chamberlain. You are charged that on the night of September 30th, 1938, you did indecently expose yourself at the windows of your home, No. 10 Downing Street, clad only in a scrap of paper and shouting ‘Peace With Honour‘,’ Peace with Honour’. How say you, guilty or not guilty?

  CHAMBERLAIN: I’m not sure.

  JUDGE: Mr Chamberlain. You are either guilty or not guilty. That is something you must decide for yourself. The Court cannot decide it for you.

  CHAMBERLAIN: I thought that was what courts were for.

  JUDGE: Don’t be impertinent or I shall have you smacked on the back of your legs. I shall now proceed to the sentence. (Drum roll.)

  COUNSEL: But the evidence, m’lud.

  JUDGE: The prisoner has come here for sentence. Let us get that out of the way before we hear the evidence. First things first.

  COUNSEL: It’s usual to have the evidence first, m’lud.

  JUDGE: Don’t try and tie me up in legal mumbo jumbo. I know the trial procedure backwards.

  COUNSEL: On a point of law, m’lud, the defendant has his umbrella in the dock.

  JUDGE: So he does. Are you expecting rain, Mr Chamberlain?

  CHAMBERLAIN: No, m’lud.

  JUDGE: Because I must warn you that in this court rain does not fall on the just and on the unjust but solely and indeed heavily upon the latter. Proceed.

  COUNSEL: The charge arises out of a visit made by the accused to Munich to see Herr Hitler in the autumn of 1938.

  CHAMBERLAIN: By aeroplane.

  COUNSEL: What has that got to do with it?

  CHAMBERLAIN: I went by aeroplane. I was sixt
y-nine. I had never flown in my life before. I was the first Prime Minister ever to fly.

  COUNSEL: That may be the substance of a small footnote in the history of aeronautics but it is of no relevance to the court of history. What was your occupation at the time the offence was committed?

  CHAMBERLAIN: Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party.

  COUNSEL: Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party. You were doing two jobs?

  CHAMBERLAIN: There was very little distinction between them.

  COUNSEL: There was very little distinction between them. That was partly the trouble, wasn’t it?

  JUDGE: Oh, you’re excelling yourself, Mr Witty. You’ll have to do better than this, Mr Chamberlain.

  COUNSEL: Let us look at Herr Hitler. You are not blind, your eyesight is not defective… it must have been perfectly obvious Herr Hitler wore a moustache.

  CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, I did notice that.

  COUNSEL: You did notice it, I see. You did not, I take it, recall that Kaiser Wilhelm, one of the prime causes of the First War, also had a moustache?

  CHAMBERLAIN: Yes.

  COUNSEL: Mr Chamberlain, do you learn nothing from history?

  JUDGE: You’re getting into your stride, Mr Witty. You’re going to have to pull something out of the bag very soon, Mr Chamberlain.

  COUNSEL: Getting back to Herr Hitler. It must have been obvious to anyone that he was a patent scallywag.

  CHAMBERLAIN: He was not a gentleman certainly, but he was very fond of dogs.

  COUNSEL: For sovereign states to conclude agreements on the basis of a mutual fondness for dogs seems to me to be barking up the wrong tree.

  CHAMBERLAIN: But it was what the people wanted.

  COUNSEL: The law of history is not a law of supply and demand, Mr Chamberlain.

  CHAMBERLAIN: They were dancing in the streets.

  COUNSEL: Dancing in the streets, what has that got to do with it. The purpose of international relations is not simply to enable the idle populace to take to the streets and do the fox-trot.

  JUDGE: What is the fox-trot? (COUNSEL seizes MISS NISBITT, and they dance as the boys sing a snatch of ‘Boom, why did my heart go boom?’)

  JUDGE: Thank you, Mr Chamberlain. You seem to me if I may say so … and since I am the Judge I may say so … a man of the most frivolous mind.