Feed the Beast

Steve Thompson

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781780016061
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A fiercely funny look at the rocky relations between our press and politicians in a world of spin doctors and phone hacking.

Michael is moving into 10 Downing Street and there will be no charm offensives with this Prime Minister, not with a country to run. There's no time for lunches with the press while there are children living in poverty. And there's certainly no time to comment on a minister's illicit affair while the country needs more nurses.

But when his family's private life looks set to be the next big story, Michael seeks help from a press secretary who advises, 'Feed the beast before it turns on you.' Can Michael keep politics centre stage or will he become the big story himself?

Steve Thompson's play Feed the Beast was premiered at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in April 2015.

ACT ONE

Scene One

10 Downing Street. The private study.

Pale walls, antique furniture, sash windows. Two doors.

Bright light of morning.

MICHAEL stares out of the window, watches the street below. Sounds of London.

Sharp knock. Door opens. CLIVE enters, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

MICHAEL. Clive.

CLIVE. Prime Minister.

They shake hands cordially.

Can I be the first to say it? ‘Well done.’ So delighted.

MICHAEL. Thank you. (Breath.) What about?

CLIVE (‘Isn’t it obvious?’). You won.

Beat.

MICHAEL. You’re delighted?

CLIVE. Yes. (Beat.) Don’t I seem it?

MICHAEL. No, you do. You seem it. And you are. The two don’t necessarily follow.

CLIVE (laughs). Ah.

MICHAEL. You’re not the first, though.

CLIVE. ‘The first’?

MICHAEL. To congratulate me.

CLIVE. Busy day for you.

MICHAEL. Packed.

CLIVE. Assembling a Cabinet.

MICHAEL. Chocka.

CLIVE. Meeting the team. Stroking the talent.

MICHAEL. Like the dinner party from hell. ‘Where do I put everyone?’ (Beat. Smiles.) You brought a letter?

CLIVE. I… (Baffled.) A letter?

MICHAEL. Resignation.

Long beat.

CLIVE. You want me to resign?

MICHAEL. It’ll save you some embarrassment, later on.

Beat.

CLIVE. I’m confused.

MICHAEL. Get in there quick. Jump before you’re pushed. Tell the press we couldn’t rub along.

Pause.

CLIVE. You’re firing me?

MICHAEL. Not if you resign.

Beat.

CLIVE. You’re firing me.

MICHAEL. Yep. Can we move the conversation on?

CLIVE. This is about the leadership contest. (Beat.) Because I… threw my weight behind the other man. (Beat.) We all said things. During the campaign. Surely… this is… (Can’t find the words.)

MICHAEL. ‘A time for Party unity’?

CLIVE. Exactly.

MICHAEL. Nope. This is a time for you to piss off, I think. I can lend you some paper if you want to dash off that note.

CLIVE (rallying). It’ll look like churlishness.

MICHAEL. Know what? It’ll look like that because I’m churlish. Man gets called a truculent shit – usually means he’s a truculent shit. No hidden depths in politics.

CLIVE. Look… I didn’t support your campaign because I thought you… lacked… a certain… sheen.

MICHAEL. You’re vindicated. Bravo. I lack a lot of things. ‘Tolerance’ for one. Chief of my failings: I CAN’T TOLERATE YOU.

CLIVE. Michael…

MICHAEL. I respect your hatred, Clive. You don’t like me. Never have. Somehow I cope. What I can’t stomach is the way you’re pretending to adore me right now. Just to save yourself. Please, bugger off.

CLIVE (blustering). Four straight quarters of fiscal growth. I’m a success!!

MICHAEL. Lovely. How many push-ups can you do?

CLIVE. You can’t afford to lose your best people.

MICHAEL. You’re not my people. Never were.

CLIVE. Michael…

MICHAEL. No. I WON’T!! (Beat.) I won’t do it. It would sicken me – the masquerade. Every Cabinet meeting, pretending you esteem me. We are nothing unless we are ourselves. Honesty is all. GO AND BE FREE. FREE TO HATE ME.

Scene fades…

Scene Two

Mid-morning.

MICHAEL is with his Chief of Staff (SALLY, forties) and the Party Chairman (DENIS, fifties).

Coffee served by the CHIEF STEWARD. MICHAEL is woofing his way through a plate of biscuits, inescapably hungry.

DENIS. Settling in?

MICHAEL. Oh, you know. Sort of. Grab what space you can. (Gestures around.) I bagsied this. (Breath.) Turns out there’s no actual office.

DENIS. No.

MICHAEL. Like being a kid again. I used to fight with my brother to get the top bunk bed. (Stares around.) Wilson chose this room.

DENIS. Oh?

MICHAEL. Apparently. (Points to the desk and chair.) Sat there. Abolished the death penalty.

DENIS. He did.

MICHAEL. Invented social liberalism. Made ‘bum sex’ legal, sitting right there, on that cushion. (Made himself laugh with the choice of phrase. Properly giggling.) I mean can you imagine the conversation. Loved to have been a fly on the wall for that one. There’s no statesmen-like language, is there? ‘Gentlemen, I’m putting “bum sex” top of our agenda.’

His wife ANDREA knocks and enters. Looks rather flustered.

ANDREA. Sorry, sorry.

MICHAEL. No, come in.

ANDREA. Sorry to intrude.

MICHAEL. Is everything okay?

DENIS (greeting her ebulliently). Andrea.

ANDREA. Denis. Hello. (For MICHAEL.) Just popping out. Need furniture. For Ellie’s room. Nothing here suitable for teenage kids, you know.

MICHAEL. You want me to come?

ANDREA. Aren’t you… governing?

MICHAEL. Er… (Making an assessment.) Not yet. Let me come. We can find an Ikea.

ANDREA. She needs a duvet. And a desk. (Catches DENIS’s expression.) Stay. I’ll get the guard to run me.

MICHAEL. Stop at a garage. Bring chocolate.

ANDREA. Right-oh.

Gives him a kiss and is gone. MICHAEL nods at the door after she has disappeared.

MICHAEL. Total bodge, whole bloody house.

DENIS. Oh?

MICHAEL. Pokey little bedrooms. But then a dining room you could land a plane in. Plus the kitchen’s right down in the basement. Three flights every time I want a KitKat.

DENIS (steering hi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Original Production
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Characters
• Feed the Beast
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information