The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

Robert Tressell, Howard Brenton

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780015071
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Passionate, highly entertaining and gloriously funny - Robert Tressell's classic pre-First World War account of the working lives of a group of housepainters and decorators is vividly adapted by Howard Brenton.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists recounts the little daily successes and the disasters of a group of working-class men, living under the constant fear of being laid off by employers forever looking for new corners to cut. Both workers and bosses are caught in a system spiralling out of control, but why is it the workers always come out worse?

Howard Brenton's stage adaptation, first performed at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool in June 2010 in a co-production with Chichester Festival Theatre, lays bare the many social injustices perpetrated on these men whilst capturing their individual characters with touching truth to life.

ACT ONE

The doors, walls, firegrates, windows, floors of a large, rundown two-storey Victorian house in the South Coast town of Mugsborough.

Scene One
‘Upwardly Mobile’

KIRSTY, an estate agent. ALAN and JULIE, prospective buyers. JULIE is artistic. ALAN is a businessman, sharp masked by cheerfulness.

A mobile phone rings.

ALAN (answers his mobile). Alan here. (To KIRSTY and JULIE.) Excuse me.

KIRSTY. And this is the dining room.

JULIE. It’s a lovely space.

KIRSTY. The house was built in 1856. There was a major renovation in 1904. Otherwise it’s more or less untouched…

ALAN (overlapping). Yes, I’m ready to make an offer. I’ll get back to you.

KIRSTY.… Entrance porch and lobby, four reception rooms, six bedrooms, one bathroom but the two upstairs bedrooms can be easily converted to en suite, and there’s an old-style kitchen and scullery. Work is needed but there’s great potential. And it’s a walled garden, not overlooked.

ALAN. The scullery back there. How did they live like that?

KIRSTY is about to speak but JULIE jumps in.

JULIE. The brownstone sink is wonderful. Find a way of keeping that. (Looks up.) The ceiling roses, they original?

KIRSTY. They are. Victorian.

JULIE. Rather painted over.

KIRSTY. It’s the patina of age.

ALAN. You mean the layers of crud. (Smiles.)

KIRSTY. They can be restored, there is a specialist firm in Mugsborough…

ALAN. What, run by a cousin of yours?

KIRSTY laughs uneasily.

JULIE (low). Alan. (To KIRSTY.) Of course, we’re really looking for a vicarage.

KIRSTY. Well, the house does have gravitas…

ALAN. ‘Gravitas.’ You mean it’s gloomy. That why it’s called The Cave?

JULIE. There’s lots of space, Alan. The second-biggest reception room could be a studio. (To KIRSTY.) I pot.

KIRSTY. Haven’t the faintest how you do that, lump on a wheel and – (Gesture with fingers and thumbs.) hey presto: jugs, tea sets…

JULIE. I do throw, but I prefer to coil.

KIRSTY. Cool.

JULIE. I believe in arts and crafts.

KIRSTY. Don’t we all.

A moment.

So, Mr and Mrs Flotter, you’re moving down from London…

JULIE. Bromley.

ALAN. I’ve been made South East Area Manager of BargainBest Stores.

KIRSTY. BargainBest are opening in Mugsborough?

ALAN. Oh yeah.

KIRSTY. Great for the town.

ALAN. Very, I’d say.

JULIE wanders away and is looking at a wall.

Look, I’m interested.

KIRSTY. Good…

JULIE. There’s a green wallpaper underneath.

ALAN (ignoring her). But the place is almost derelict and it’s on for four-fifty? That’s just way too much.

KIRSTY. Well of course, as the agent, I have to represent the vendor’s interests…

ALAN. I understand that.

JULIE. I think it’s Edwardian.

ALAN. Kirsty, isn’t it?

KIRSTY. Yeah.

JULIE. Embossed.

JULIE pulls a length of paper away, up the wall.

And there’re some kind of paintings…

ALAN. Look at it like this, Kirsty: BargainBest could single-handedly trigger a bit of a property boom. And when did Mugsborough last see one of them? Three-ninety.

KIRSTY (almost jumps). No no, I’m very sorry, Mr Flotter, the vendor wouldn’t go that low.

JULIE. Did you say renovated in 1904?

KIRSTY. Yes, Mrs Flotter…

JULIE (looking up). Chinese landscapes, Edwardian oriental…

ALAN. Old woman selling, right? Needs cash for her care?

KIRSTY. I really can’t…

ALAN. Just tell me how low you think she’d go.

KIRSTY. It would have to be over four.

ALAN. Four-oh-five. And we’re sold up, no chain.

KIRSTY (taking out a mobile). I’ll make a call. (Going off.) Could I speak to Mrs Sweater, please…

She has gone.

JULIE. I love it, Alan. (She nods.) Look, someone did some beautiful paintings. We could have them restored.

ALAN. Oh well, into the money pit…

JULIE. If you think…

ALAN. No no, it’ll be okay. A new life, Julie.

JULIE. Yes.

ALAN. I’ll go and twist this girl’s arm.

He goes off. JULIE squints at the paintings.

JULIE. Birds by a lake.

FRANK OWEN enters. He carries a brush and a pot of white paint. He is in the working clothes of 1904. JULIE turns and, for a moment, they look at each other.

OWEN (aside). I did those paintings. In nineteen hundred and four.

JULIE. They’re beautiful.

OWEN. Beauty’s not the half of it. Watch.

Scene Two
‘A Song’

A work session. FRANK OWEN, WILL EASTON, OLD JOE PHILPOT, JACK SLYME, FRED HARLOW, BUNDY, young BERT WHITE and the silent BARRINGTON are all working hard: scraping, washing down, filling.

BUNDY sings. After a while BERT goes off.

BUNDY (singing).

Now I’m not a wealthy man,
But I lives upon a plan,
Wot will render me as happy as a king;
An’ if you will allow, I’ll sing it to you now,
For time you know is always on the wing.

ALL but OWEN (singing).

Work, boys, work and be contented,
So long as you’ve enough to buy a meal.
For if you will but try, you’ll be wealthy – by and by –
If you’ll only put yer shoulder to the wheel.

PHILPOT is in trouble. OWEN sees it and goes to him, careful to check the other workers have not seen.

OWEN. Joe, bear up.

PHILPOT. It’s my knee, it sort o’ gives way.

OWEN. Just go softly, it’s nearly dinner time.

PHILPOT. I can’t go softly, Frank, Bob Crass’ll tell Old Misery I’m not up to it.

OWEN. Crass isn’t here. He’s down below mixing his colours.

PHILPOT. I got to keep on the right side of ’em. They musn’t know ’bout this bloody knee.

OWEN. Let me finish that off.

PHILPOT. No, Frank, I got me pride.

OWEN (turning away). Oh pride, that we have. No sense, but buckets o’ pride.

BUNDY (singing). Now I’m not a wealthy man…

OWEN (interrupting him). Can we ’ave done with your racket?

BUNDY. Don’t yer like a song then, Owen?

OWEN. Not that song.

BUNDY. What’s wrong with it, then?

OWEN. Don’t it bother you, the meanin’ of what you’re singin’?

BUNDY. It just means: ‘I’m singin’.’

OWEN. It’s a Tory, free-tariff song and you know it. And you’re only singin’ it to get up my nose.

BUNDY. Up your red nose you mean?

HA...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Original Production
• The Story of a Book
• Characters
• The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information