The Ginger Ale Boy

Enda Walsh

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781780014104
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Enda Walsh's debut play, The Ginger Ale Boy is a cabaret-style piece about a ventriloquist who has a nervous breakdown.

The play was written for Corcadorca Theatre Company and first performed by the company at the Granary Theatre, Cork, in March 1995.

The set is dominated by two large staircases that sweep up dramatically into a small boy’s box bedroom. Up in that room a boy/man is sleeping. This is BOBBY. The alarm sounds loudly and he is up fast and suddenly holding a ventriloquist dummy, BARNEY, on his knee.

Music begins and BOBBY’s manager DANNY appears, singing, as DANCERS dance.

DANNY. He walked… cross the river towards Rio.

He talked… to many natives on the way.

He asked… ‘Is it found here in Brasilia?’

They said… ‘Fame is a stranger here.’

In the bedroom BOBBY and BARNEY run through their ventriloquist routine.

So he ran… ’cross the deserts of Kurdistan.

He rang… on every bell in Istanbul

He asked… five thousand belly dancers.

They said… ‘Fame is a stranger here.’

Oh Fame, my rosary.

Fame, my PhD.

Everyone’s lookin’ for the high life.

You gotta get ya through

Life’s like a funeral parlour.

With Fame that body ain’t you.

Back home… so tired and yes, bewildered.

The boy… told his mother he tried but failed.

She said… ‘Just settle down, my sweet little one,’ (Sigh.)

And she told him… this story of a family.

BOBBY drops BARNEY and dresses himself.

Through hardship and sickness this family battled.

Through thick and through thin they fought.

And just when their hearts grew weaker.

Fame saw the youngest and thought:

‘I’ll give him… a gift that folks would die for.

I’ll make him… a tap-dancing superstar.’

’Cause Fame… no matter how you sweat your tail off.

It’s Fame… that does the searching near and far.

BARNEY gets to his feet, runs down the stairs and performs an outrageous tap-dance routine.

Oh Fame… elusive morning.

Oh Fame… rosary.

Oh Fame… I’m gettin’ closer.

Fame… just you wait and see!

The song ends and DANNY and the DANCERS are gone.

A clock is heard ticking.

BOBBY’s MOTHER cleans a toilet. She’s from Liverpool.

MOTHER. Did you leave that mess in the toilet?! It’s like bloody Pearl Harbour in there! Can’t you learn how to piss straight?! At least crouch down and give an aim a little! I’ll tell you, sweetheart, one look at that rim, too late mind you, and I thought, ‘Father’s son! Oh, here we go! What’s this?’ I’m out with the scouring powder… knees on soiled toilet rug… giving the loo floor the once-over with your father’s old knickers. I catch my reflection in the silver flusher handle and I mouth my epitaph… ‘There must be more to life than this!’ Arm down, I finally dislodge that enormous creature from the toilet bowl. Felt like one of those great English dam-busters from the great colonial days. All the time I’m gripping the edge of the toilet bowl with sheer peril, when… ‘Oh fuck me sideways!’ Little yellow puddles of piss hang about the rim like yesterday’s Smarties down in our local pool. ‘Oh Bobby!’

BOBBY (aside). My mother.

MOTHER. And it’s not that I haven’t tried! I have tried! I have! I was there! Twenty-five hours a day if necessary! A slave! A little baby cough is all it took and there I’d be, pounding that baby-sized cough right out of those baby-sized tiny lungs! ‘Stop hitting the baby!’ your father would say! ‘I’m saving the poor dear’s life!!’ What did he ever know? What does he know now? What do men know about babies, anyway? But you, son! I gave you, I did! I gave you the best… I gave you them, Bobby! I gave you the best years… the best years of your father’s life! The least you can do is talk to the miserable old bastard!

BOBBY. Hello, Dad.

MOTHER. Don’t you ‘Hello, Dad’ him!! ‘Thank you, Dad! Thank you, Dad!’ Education doesn’t come cheap and he should know! Do you think he liked crawling out of bed at 5.30… a.m. ‘A’ bloody ‘M’, and just to stop and started another in the p.m. A bit of respect is all that’s asked, Bobby!! Break his heart! Crawling home all knackered for a two-hour sleep just to start it all over again! He was never there for me either! Is it any wonder he’s the way he is?! Appreciation, Bobby! Be glad of that full-colour poster with English football memorabilia!

BOBBY. I never wanted that stuff! We’re Irish!

MOTHER. Not me! I’m English, bread and bloody buttered and given half the chance, boy, I’d get out of this Emerald Pile! But like you, son, I’m stuck… and worse still, we’re stuck where we are! My motto’s ‘Make the Most’. When your days and nights send forth only misery and shite, think daisies and blossom smells! It pays to keep the lid off your dreams, Bobby! How do you think I’ve stuck with your father for so long?

BOBBY comes down the stairs having dressed in a black velvet ‘showbiz suit’.

BOBBY. The business of the day is me. These days, it always is. I’m ready, it seems. Bourbon cream in hand, she clears a space, and I stand there ready.

BARNEY hops off the floor and sits on BOBBY’s knee.

MOTHER. Barney looks good. So what do you have for me?

BOBBY. Then I begin. It’s me and Barney. We’re mixing new material with the old. I’m cutting a word too long and adding that one word too less. The words are flashing in front of my eyes… I grab them and I speak them out. From him or me. I speak words now, though you can’t tell, can you? My lip-control is flawless. My tongue connects with my hand and it becomes Barney’s tongue. His head pivots on my hand. To me, Barney’s become alive. With lever and rope, yes, but most of all… it’s me… I’m the one who’s woken him. Without me he’s nothing. A twist of my hand is all it takes and a pinch of the lever, and with that look, Barney’s always there for me. ‘Aren’t you, Barney? You’ll alw...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Original Production
• Characters
• The Ginger Ale Boy
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information