NSFW

Lucy Kirkwood

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781780011875
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Teatro

Lucy Kirkwood's sharp comedy looks at power games and privacy in the media and beyond.

Carrie's getting them out for the lads, Charlotte's just grateful to have a job, Sam's being asked to sell more than his body, and Aidan's trying to keep Doghouse magazine from going under. Set in the cut-throat media world, Lucy Kirkwood's timely new comedy exposes power games and privacy in the age of Photoshop.

[NSFW = Not Safe For Work, online material which the viewer may not want to be seen accessing in a public or formal setting such as at work.]

1.

The editor’s office of Doghouse magazine, a weekly publication for young men. The magazine’s name appears in neon on the wall. Beyond the door, an open-plan office.

There is a pool table, a fridge of drinks. A dartboard. The editor’s desk has a desktop Apple computer on it. There are framed prints of topless photo shoots on the walls. A cricket bat in the corner. An enormous Liverpool FC flag strung from the ceiling. The pool table is strewn with toys and gadgets and computer games that the magazine has reviewed or is reviewing.

CHARLOTTE, a middle-class girl from outside of London who now lives in Tooting, is sitting on a chair, a folder in her lap, furiously writing notes. She has other files on the floor which she consults from time to time.

RUPERT, an upper-class boy from Berkshire who now lives in Hoxton, watches her. Bored, he yawns, looks about the office. Wanders over to the pool table and gives it a kick.

RUPERT. When I first started here, we used to play on that all the time.

This place has gone to the fucking dogs.

He sits down on the floor at CHARLOTTE’s feet.

Scratch my head.

Without looking away from her work, or stopping writing, CHARLOTTE reaches a hand out and scratches RUPERT’s head. He groans in pleasure.

SAM, a working-class, university-educated boy from outside of London who now lives in Archway, enters, juggling a cardboard tray of coffees. He’s sweaty and frantic.

SAM. Am I late? Is he here?

CHARLOTTE takes one of the coffees. RUPERT takes another.

CHARLOTTE. He’s in a meeting with finance. Running late.

SAM. There was this woman in Starbucks, and she couldn’t make up her mind, she kept saying ‘There’s so much choice, isn’t there!’ and laughing, / I nearly –

CHARLOTTE. Sam? Calm down.

SAM. No just the thing is, is I was late on Monday too and I can’t, / I just can’t –

RUPERT. Mate. Last year I was reviewing absinthe for the June issue. I got completely munted, walked in here, Aidan’s taking a meeting with Roger fucking Highsmith, yeah? I don’t remember a thing but apparently I took out my cock and balls, jiggled them in my hand, said ‘How d’you like them apples?’ and threw up on his folding bicycle. I’m still here, aren’t I? It’s media. You’re not going to get fired for being late with some coffees.

CHARLOTTE. Yeah well, it’s different for you, isn’t it.

RUPERT. How is it different for me? I am a member of the workforce.

CHARLOTTE stares at him.

CHARLOTTE. D’you know how Rupert got this job, / Sam?

RUPERT. Classy. Really fucking classy, Charlotte.

CHARLOTTE. D’you think he did an interview? D’you think he spent hours checking the font on his CV?

RUPERT. Century Gothic, thank you and actually yes I did an interview and FYI, I didn’t conduct it on my knees, like some / people we COULD MENTION –

CHARLOTTE. He got a / THIRD. In ART HISTORY.

RUPERT sings, in a rather beautiful baritone, to the tune of ‘Mandy’ by Barry Manilow:

RUPERT. ‘Oh Charlotte, you came, and you gave me chlamydia.’

CHARLOTTE. Shut up! What’s wrong with you?

RUPERT. What? I’m just messing with you.

CHARLOTTE. Sam doesn’t know that.

RUPERT. Sam, I was messing about. It was jokes.

CHARLOTTE. I did not give him chlamydia.

RUPERT. No. Of course she didn’t. Of course.

Of course.

He winks at SAM, scratches his crotch. Mouths the sentence ‘It was crabs’ at him, shielding his mouth from CHARLOTTE’s view.

CHARLOTTE. What did you say?

RUPERT. I said IT WAS CRABS.

CHARLOTTE throws down her files, goes for him, he dodges her, laughing.

Her Secret Garden’s crawling with pests, Sam! Omnem relinquite spem, o vos intrantes!

She catches him, puts him in a headlock, sinks him to his knees.

CHARLOTTE. Where’s your copy? Aidan’s going to ask, what am I going to tell him?

RUPERT. You’ll think of something! / (Laughs.) Ow!

CHARLOTTE. Do I look like your mother? Do I look like your / fucking mother, bitch?

RUPERT. Oh, don’t let’s fight, darling! Not in front of the child!

CHARLOTTE. I’m serious, you fucking waste of space –

RUPERT. Sam, she’s flirting with me! You’re a witness, she’s flirting and it’s hurting!

AIDAN enters. A middle-class, educated, good-looking man. He is carrying a large oblong item, covered in brown paper and protective wrapping.

He stops, stares at the scene. CHARLOTTE and RUPERT disentangle themselves. Beat. AIDAN carries on across the room to his desk, takes his jacket off, dumps his bag.

AIDAN. Great issue. I really mean that.

SAM rushes to bring AIDAN his coffee.

(No, I’m alright, Sam, had one upstairs.)

SAM takes the lid off the coffee, knocks it back in one go.

The circulation’s finally taken a leap, it’s early days, but the heart monitor is flickering, it’s definitely flickering. Print journalism lives to fight another day.

A half-hearted cheer from the others. He holds up the parcel.

Just arrived from the print shop.

He pulls off the wrapping to reveal a large framed print of a topless girl, kneeling on an unmade bed. It’s not a professional-standard image, it’s been taken by an amateur. The girl has very large breasts, and is in a pose that emphasises this, arching her back, presenting her arse. A sexy face, lips apart, a finger in her mouth. She is undoubtedly beautiful, but also very natural, her make-up is a little crudely applied, her hair is a little wild, she wears a white-cotton pair of everyday pants, chipped blue nail varnish, plastic bangles on her wrists. AIDAN takes down last year’s winner from where it hangs on the wall, and places the new print in its place.

Lady and gentlemen, meet Doghouse’s Local Lovely, 2012.

They all look at it.

CHARLOTTE (reading from the caption). ‘Carrie, eighteen, likes Twilight books and theme parks.’

RUPERT. Chestington World of Adventures!

CHARLOTTE. It’s retarded. At least last year’s had the reading age of a grown-up.

RUPERT. Charlotte was reading Proust when she was eighteen.

CHARLOTTE. Rupert was playing soggy biscuit when he was eighteen.

RUPERT. Still do. Lovely end to an evening, a good round of old SB.

CHARLOTTE. What were you doing when you were eighteen, Sam?

SAM. Revising.

CHARLOTTE. No but for fun.

SAM. Revising. Pretty much from when I was sixteen, to when I came here, I was revising.

AIDAN’s looking up at the print on the wall.

AIDAN. I really like this.

RUPERT. Carrie, meet Humbert Humbert.

AIDAN. No, I do, I mean. Aesthetically. I think this is what we should be going for. Much more natural than last year’s. Natural’s good. There was a sort of, plastic quality to last year’s, around her –

CHARLOTTE. Tits.

AIDAN. No, I meant more in her / energy –

CHARLOTTE. Tits.

AIDAN. I mean, there was a quality, an overall quality that I found a bit, intimidating. But this is good, it’s very real very next-door very normal. How many entries did we have this year?

SAM. Nine hundred and sixty-nine.

RUPERT laughs. CHARLOTTE gives him a look.

RUPERT. Sixty-nine.

AIDAN. Not bad. Up on last year.

CHARLOT...