The Evil Doers

Chris Hannan

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781780018409
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Tracky is a teenage heavy metal fan with life issues. Her mother's an alcoholic. Her father's a taxi driver with delusions of becoming a tour guide. Now they're being pursued by a loanshark. None of this is going to end well...

Chris Hannan's play The Evil Doers is a chaotic, violent, comic odyssey through the dismal streets of 1980s Glasgow.

'An alcoholic is not someone who drinks too much; an alcoholic is an emotional whirlwind, a destructive force which tears up everything in his or her path, and then passes, disappears, utterly unaware of the devastation caused. The Evil Doers is about the whirlwind and those in its path.' Chris Hannan

First produced at the Bush Theatre, London, in August 1990, The Evil Doers won a Time Out Award, a Plays and Players' Critics Award, and that year's Charrington London Fringe Award for Best Play.

ACT ONE

Scene One

Bridge over the Expressway. A glass thing with red steel ribcage. SUSAN and TRACKY saunter on. Both are about fifteen. Both are heavy metal fans, and wear the leather jackets etc.

TRACKY. So what did they say?

SUSAN. I told you.

TRACKY. Did they say you weren’t to go back?

That’s what I’d’ve said. I’d’ve said away back to the swamp, swamp brain.

I thought you didn’t want a baby.

SUSAN. I don’t.

TRACKY. So — right.

SUSAN. I’m only fifteen. I’ve got my whole career ahead of me.

TRACKY. Well then!

SUSAN. Well then! — that’s three times in the last five months I’ve been negative. Why is everything so dead negative. I try being like positive. Like we’re all going to die anyway so what’s it matter, right? — but that only cheers me up for about three seconds. Know what I thought last night? I was lying in my pit and I’m thinking about the universe, because that’s much more important than we are, right? And I thought: I’m like the discarded larva of a gigantic Zardoid ant.

Pause.

TRACKY. I wish you’d use contraceptives.

SUSAN. I know.

TRACKY. It’s completely irresponsible, Susan.

SUSAN. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now, Tracky!

TRACKY. Like what?

SUSAN. Like! — Oh god, Tracky, what if I’m infertile? Oh god, I’m so tragic! D’you think I should get a test? Quick, come we’ll go: I feel faint.

TRACKY. Go where?

SUSAN. Quick — I don’t know what we’re doing here, we’re inside someone’s ribcage.

TRACKY. Are you about to throw a flakey, ya creep?

SUSAN. Look— there’s your Da.

TRACKY (upset). Because don’t make things up, Susan.

SUSAN. Down there, there’s his taxi.

TRACKY. Not as fast as that!

SUSAN. Calm down, we’re all going to die anyway, what’s it matter?

TRACKY. I don’t like lies.

SUSAN. You should change your prescription, Tracky.

TRACKY. We’re on a bridge over the Expressway going to the Exhibition Centre. It’s just got red steel metal -

She draws rib-shaped metal things in the air.

ribs.

SUSAN. Come we’ll go annoy him.

TRACKY. Who?

SUSAN. Your Da! Don’t be so pedestrian — he’s down there trying to chat up some tourists.

Still suspicious, TRACKY goes to look.

There.

TRACKY sees him.

TRACKY. So what. That’s his job.

SUSAN. That is so weird.

Beat.

TRACKY. He just looks like somebody.

SUSAN. Let’s go see him: this is meant to be, Tracky. We’re just kicking about like lost in space the night after a rock concert and then we see your Dal? — I’m going.

And she goes. TRACKY looks down at the somebody that’s her Da, as the scene changes round about her. Then she follows SUSAN.

Scene Two

Outside. Hot day. Finnieston Quayside. A young man comes on, twenty-one at most, in a good suit. He’s carrying a red toolbox. This is TEX. He stands watching someone offstage. Then he sees the someone approaching. He smiles, puts the toolbox down and waits.
On comes SAMUEL DOAK in jeans and T-shirt. He’s carrying a hoarding, which says ‘Danny Glasgow’s Taxi Tours’ in Rennie Mackintosh lettering, and a cellnet phone. He’s thirty-seven. He’s the husband of an alcoholic— and this shows itself in his physical tension and mental distraction.

SAMMY. Don’t waste her time? Don’t waste her time? (Hotel receptionist) calm as you like she said it — I’ve been standing looking at (clock right behind her!) for thirty-five minutes! It’s one of those clocks looks like it’s got all the time in the world. Cool green marble thing. And the hotel receptionist, she’s cool. She’s got the grey skirt and the smart white blouse on, hasn’t she. She’s got the all-over-air-conditioned body.

Still. This is me now. Danny Glasgow. The wide open spaces. Are you - ?

Just been in at the hotel there, picking up a few fares. Ahch, they never showed. — Fucking tourists. Because I love this city. I love this city. I actually love it. That’s what you can’t communicate to them... Glasgow.

Ah well. Happy happy happy, so long as I’m happy. — So, no offence. I’ll make my pitch here — this is the way the tourists come. No offence.

TEX. Let me ask you a question. Do you know me?

Pause.

SAMMY. How? Do I know you?

TEX. You tell me. Do you know me?

SAMMY. Not to my knowledge. Not unless you’re (who I think you are). Are you?

TEX. Because from the way you were prattling on like a pranny, I was surmising you knew me.

SAMMY. I talk to any bastard! That’s why they call it the Friendly City, isn’t it: talk to any bastard.

TEX. So I’m a stranger to you.

SAMMY. Far as I know.

TEX. Then how come I know you?

SAMMY. Haw.

TEX. Ih?

SAMMY. Come on....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Production
• Introduction
• Epigraph
• Act One
• Act Two
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information