Cosmic Scallies

Jackie Hagan

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781848427112
• eBook ISBN: 9781780019352
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

'We're cosmic scallies, we dance on the off-beat, we're wonky shopping trollies, we're forgotten and trod on, we're gravy-stained and piss-sodden, we're the breath between coughing fits.'

Shaun and Dent grew up best friends on the same council estate in Skelmersdale. Dent left, full of ambition, but ten years later she's back. Can Shaun convince her that Skem is an inheritance better than any house?

Jackie's Hagan's Cosmic Scallies is a witty and touching play about class, friendship and absence. It premiered at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe in a co-production between Graeae Theatre Company and the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, before transferring to the Royal Exchange.

Scene One

The flat. Afternoon. DENT is getting ready to leave. SHAUN has just turned up.

SHAUN. Dent! You little weirdo! Look at you back in your natural habitat!

DENT. My natural habitat is a council flat in Skelmersdale? Cheers.

SHAUN. It’s been for ever.

DENT. I texted you hours ago, I’ve been waiting, I’ve got to go.

DENT starts putting her shoes on.

SHAUN. ‘44 Feltons’. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I read that on the text just now, all I could hear was your high-pitched little voice when we were six. ‘We’ve gorra learn our addresses in case we get kidnapped by a flasher!’ 44 Feltons, Birch Green, Skelmersdale, Lancashire, England, Earth, The Universe. I memorised yours cos I didn’t wanna be took back to mine to sit around in me pants while me ma kicks off at a pack of biscuits. I knew you’d get hold of me in the end. I would have come round before I just –

DENT. I want you to get rid of my mum’s stuff.

SHAUN. What, from in here? All of that?

DENT. I’ll pay you.

SHAUN. But… it hasn’t been that long, you can’t –

DENT. Yes it has. I don’t need two people’s stuff.

SHAUN. Oh. Well, nice to be of help, Little Miss Independence, suppose you don’t mind asking for help when you’re paying. Did you have a chauffeur in Manchester? Butler? Would Madame like a peeled grape and a panini? I know what it’s like, you know, outside Skem, in poshland, people shake hands for no reason and eat food out of the wrong stuff. The pubs have got stupid names like The Fig and Hat Stand, The Mansion and MacBook, The Rape and Apology.

DENT. The Rape and Apology?

SHAUN. Yeah and you eat chips off a bit of wood.

DENT. The Rape and Apology?

SHAUN. Aren’t you pleased to see me?

DENT. I texted the number on the postcard in the newsagent. It said ‘Shaun the handyman’, half of Skem is called Shaun. I didn’t know it was gonna be you.

Pause.

SHAUN. Oh.

DENT. Look, I’ve got to be somewhere. You crack on, I’ll be back later.

SHAUN. No.

DENT. No?

SHAUN. Your mum’s stuff?

DENT. It’s all broken and threadbare and fucked. Bag it up, take it to the tip. You’ll do what I pay you for.

SHAUN. What’s happened to you? Dufflecoat Dave said you had gone posh. He says you’re posher than Posh Anne and she had a dinner party. And she served meringue swans on a bed of green jelly.

DENT. Meringue isn’t posh, it’s eggs. I need to go.

SHAUN. Do you need to buy a monocle?

DENT. I’m going to Ashurst Parade.

SHAUN. What for? The chippy’s gone, Ethel Austin’s gone, that café’s never bloody open.

Beat.

Are you going to the chemist?

DENT. No.

SHAUN. You’re sick.

DENT. No.

SHAUN. You look sick. You’re acting weird.

DENT. Cheers! Shaun, it’s been ten years, people change.

SHAUN. What are you getting from the chemist? You’re the type for Temazepam, is it that? I bet it’s that.

DENT. The type?

SHAUN. A bit Adrian Mole, worrying about whether shit exists. Gripping the end of your sleeves so your feelings don’t fall out.

DENT. It’s not Temazepam.

SHAUN. So you are going the chemist! Lorazepam, Diclazepam? Is it one of the azey-pams? I can get you dog Diazepam off Dufflecoat Dave. I can get you anything really, Oxycontin, a knock-off bedpan.

DENT. Wow. I don’t want anything off Dufflecoat Dave.

SHAUN. Not methadone, you’re not the type for that?

DENT. How am I not the type for methadone?

SHAUN. You’ve got ornaments. Tramadol? Sertraline? Prozac?

DENT. Shaun.

SHAUN. Olanizipine?

DENT. Shaun.

SHAUN. Nortriptyline? Amitriptyline?… What.

DENT. I’m not sharing. You shouldn’t take drugs unless they’re prescribed to you.

DENT puts her coat on and walks away slowly. SHAUN springs up and joins her.

SHAUN. Behave.

She starts leaving.

I’ll come with yer.

SHAUN jumps up and follows DENT out.

Scene Two

The chemist. SHAUN and DENT sit on cramped seats inside a small haphazard chemist. They are the only ones in there. A pharmacist is out the back.

SHAUN. What was that all about on the way here?

She glares at him.

You’re walking like a geriatric flamingo.

DENT. Since when have you seen a flamingo?

SHAUN. Oh and I suppose Manchester is full of the lanky pink bastards, isn’t it. I can get you a disabled bus pass. Mike the Geek knocks ’em up on his laptop.

DENT. I don’t like lying.

SHAUN. Not lying though is it, you are disabled, you’re acting it.

DENT. I went to hot yoga class last night. I used my muscles so effectively they now –

SHAUN. Don’t work?

DENT. Hurt.

SHAUN. What’s hot yoga?

DENT. They do it in London, it’s this thing, sort of like a dinner party, except you have to make the shape of a swan with your body, and then you stretch out flat, that’s called ‘the panini’, and then you all eat meringue and swap ornaments… oh and you have to wear a monocle.

Pause.

SHAUN. You’re taking the piss but that’ll be all the rage next year. They...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Original Production
• Introductions
• Characters
• Cosmic Scallies
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information