I Caught Crabs in Walberswick

Joel Horwood

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781848420380
• eBook ISBN: 9781780016399
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A fast-moving, exhilarating play about teenage hopes, dreams and frustrations in a rural part of England.

Wheeler is a high-flying comprehensive kid destined for university, while football-mad Fitz is struggling to cope with his dysfunctional father and his schoolwork. They live in Walberswick, a sleepy Suffolk village known for hosting the British Open Crabbing Championship.

Set on a sweltering summer's day on the eve of their last GCSE exam, they are ambushed by Dani, the fittest (and poshest) girl on the beach. So begins a crazy twenty-four hours that will change the lives of the three sixteen-year-olds for ever.

Joel Horwood's play I Caught Crabs in Walberswick was first performed at the 2008 HighTide Festival in Suffolk in a co-production with Eastern Angles.

The production transferred to the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, as part of the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then toured the UK before a sell-out run at The Bush Theatre, London, in November 2008.

During the pre-set, ten filthy minutes of techno heaven. LOUD!!

ONE and TWO acknowledge the presence of the audience with a look or a nod and then signal for the music to cut into the sounds of summer. They begin their presentation.

FITZ begins rolling a joint.

TWO. Walberswick, a picturesque village on the east coast of England, also known as Hampstead-on-Sea.

ONE. This summer, expensive, family-friendly cars file along the A12 from as far away as Chalk Farm and Notting Hill to fill their usually empty second homes, dribble organic ice cream, and paddle in the beer-coloured sea.

TWO. Only nice people live in Walberswick.

ONE. Only the nicest.

WHEELER. We sign up for Psychology next year and we get crème bru-laid, café au-laid – Four girls to one.

FITZ. You gotta have Biology to do Psychology?

WHEELER. Like, ‘C’ or something.

FITZ. I should be revising.

WHEELER. Gonna be like a Lynx advert.

FITZ lights the joint.

ONE. This is Fitz and this is Wheeler.

WHEELER. How come you haven’t squeezed that whitehead, get all the poison out?

FITZ (covering it). Make it worse.

WHEELER. Not with the double squeeze – Squeeze it ’til it bleeds, come here –

FITZ. What?

WHEELER. I’ll do it – here.

A brief and silly struggle that almost jeopardises the joint before it stops.

TWO. On the hottest day of the hottest summer ever recorded, they’ve walked from the cheaper property in Reydon, to Walberswick’s prime crab-fishing spot.

ONE (indicating). Rickety wooden bridge, muddy creek, crab-fishing.

TWO. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.

FITZ (passing the joint). That poem was in the English exam yesterdee, weren’t it?

WHEELER. …?

FITZ. He runs scissors through a Bunsen burner, passes ’em over, that one –

WHEELER. Armitage.

FITZ. You totally fell for that.

WHEELER. You branded me.

FITZ. S’only a scar, that’ll fade, pansy.

ONE. We should clarify, these are those scrawny brown crabs you catch with bacon on a string, keep in a bucket for a bit, then chuck back.

WHEELER takes a drag on the joint.

WHEELER (coughing). Woah-woah-woah – What’s all this? Weak as. (Passing joint back.) Barely affecting me.

FITZ. How come them kids already got a bucketful and you han’t got no crabs?

WHEELER looks at FITZ.

WHEELER. How many people know about that?

FITZ. Not many.

ONE. Wheeler had slept with Tara Hodgkinson in a one-man pop-up tent on a school trip to Mid-Wales. Nicknames such as Crabby –

TWO. Hive-head.

ONE. Itchy.

TWO. Scratchy. Walker’s Crab Bag.

ONE. The nicknames had stuck.

FITZ (passing the joint). Here y’are, Crabby-Claw, wash your hands first though, yeah?

WHEELER (sarcastic). That’s so funny! D’you get that off Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps? (Pulls on the joint.) You know that French teacher? Does oral, pencil skirts, you know?

FITZ. Oral.

WHEELER (passing the joint). Yeah. It’s on.

FITZ (giggling). Oral.

WHEELER. Exam today, she’s s’posed ta go through the whole syllabus with everyone, right?

FITZ. Their oral exam.

WHEELER. Yeah – Shut up – She could go through anything from buying a croissant –

FITZ (trying to pronounce it correctly). Croissant.

WHEELER. – to what pets you’ve got. Know what she asks me? Asks me about my hobbies.

FITZ. Croissant.

WHEELER. Mon passe temps, yeah? She wants to know how I spend my personal time, I mean, it is on.

FITZ (pulls on the joint). Bite! You got a bite, look, two of ’em humping, pull ’em up!

WHEELER. Ugh –

FITZ. Pull ’em up, pull ’em up – Humping crabs, pull ’em up!

WHEELER. Stop saying ‘Pull ’em up’.

FITZ. They love bacon like it’s crack. You reckon they’re gonna – like little tanks, raid the pig sties – ‘Vee vant bacon! Vee vant zee bacon!’ Quick, git ’em up, come on –

WHEELER. Crabs aren’t German – (Passes out.)

FITZ. Wheels?

FITZ takes a long toke and looks around.

Shit.

FITZ holds WHEELER’s wrist for a pulse.

TWO. For the past three years, Fitz has spent an hour before bed reading and re-reading the correct methods of resuscitation in the case of an emergency.

FITZ lets WHEELER’s hand fall.

FITZ. Orlroit, not an emergency.

ONE. We’d like to present the one night that changes everything.

TWO. Before Wheeler pulled his whitey –

ONE. Sorry, his what?

TWO. Before Wheeler passed out, at two forty-five p.m., Fitz had just got in from a sweaty shift at the book-binding factory.

Sounds of an aeroplane computer game.

BOB. It is FUCKEN HOT! (Farts loudly.)

TWO. When his mother died three years ago, Fitz’s dad contracted ‘The Condition’. Instead of working he plays aeroplane-simulation games, not the fun fighter games with Spitfires and stuff, the games that involve hours of flying in straight lines.

FITZ. I’m goin’ down Budgens, gettin’ lunch… Got paid, could get steak, veg, make some roasties… Get a Sara Lee Double Chocolate Gateau –

BOB. Huh?

FITZ. Sara Lee Double –

BOB. You want me to crash and kill four hundred innocent passengers? Trying to fly these people from Mon-fucken-golia and you’re talking ’bout – what you talking ’bout? LUNCH! Talkin’ ’bout lunch –

FITZ. I’m just gonna go down –

BOB. Budgens, whoopdee fucken – hang on – (In a special pilot voice....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Original Production
• Characters
• I Caught Crabs in Walberswick
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information