The Clink

Stephen Jeffreys

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781854594440
• eBook ISBN: 9781788500845
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A riotously funny satirical farce in the tradition of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Shakespeare in Love, from the author of The Libertine.

Elizabeth I is tottering at death's door. Conspirators are everywhere. Lucius Bodkin, an Elizabethan stand-up comedian, becomes unwillingly involved in the political skullduggery and jiggery-pokery surrounding the ailing queen.

The Clink could pass itself off as a long-lost Elizabethan comedy. In fact it is a brilliant political satire offering many sharp parallels with our own times, when art must be sponsored, but to be sponsored it must be 'safe'.

Stephen Jeffreys's play was first staged by Paines Plough in 1990 on tour in Britain and Holland.

Scene One

THE FOOLS

Bare stage. Two men, LUCIUS and THOMAS BODKIN, are performing a routine of acrobatic physical warm-ups. They are an Elizabethan comedy duo. They wear loose, practical clothes rather than ‘costumes’ and they do not wear clown make-up. THOMAS, the elder of the brothers, has the air of an old pro. LUCIUS is strange and earnest. They have a large cloth bag with them. After some moments, a GUARD comes on.

GUARD. All right?

THOMAS. Played worse.

GUARD. Double act, eh?

THOMAS. Lucius. Bag there.

GUARD. They’re not going for double acts any more. Your single fool, that’s the fashion. Saws and riddles. Pithy, a bit deep. Little song at the end. Not your double act. Your solo fool.

LUCIUS has opened the bag. It spreads out to become a performance cloth with jesters’equipment arranged on it. THOMAS gives orders. LUCIUS obeys.

THOMAS. Masks there. Bladder there.

GUARD. She’s seen twelve acts today already. Mostly crap between you and me. No double acts. Still, the word is she hasn’t hired anyone yet.

THOMAS. She?

GUARD. The Lady Beatrice. Beneath her father’s dignity, this sort of work. Can see his point.

THOMAS. The tambour. The windpipe.

GUARD. What you call yourselves?

THOMAS. The Bodkin Brothers.

GUARD. The what?

THOMAS. We used to be the Brothers Bodkin. Now it’s the Bodkin Brothers. Going for a different sort of audience, see?

GUARD. Bodkin.

THOMAS. Cap. Bells. Dildo.

GUARD. Bodkin. Wasn’t there a fool called –

THOMAS. Hieronymous.

GUARD. Hieronymous Bodkin, the very man.

THOMAS. Our father.

GUARD. There’s a thing. It must be years. Big black beard. Did a routine taking the piss out of medieval hunting.

THOMAS. That’s the one.

GUARD. Saw him, some terrible dive in Southwark. Bloody great live hawk on his head. Big bugger. And a stuffed hawk on either hand. A speech and a song and then he’d shuffle them round. The bird acted dead, you couldn’t tell which one was real. Wrist to head to wrist, shuffled them at lightning speed, then bit two of the heads off at random. You could have sworn he’d picked the wrong one, then it would chirp up and they’d sing a two-part catch together.

THOMAS. His last show he did.

GUARD. What?

THOMAS. Pick the wrong one. Blood everywhere.

LUCIUS. Bits of beak.

THOMAS. Bits of beak, yeah, plumage. I still say it was no accident. The bird had become the star, see.

GUARD. Christ. Hieronymous Bodkin. He was a good fool.

THOMAS. He was a fool’s fool.

GUARD. Yeah. Well I’ll bring in her ladyship if you’re ready.

THOMAS. We’re always ready.

The GUARD makes towards the door, then stops.

GUARD. Heard the one about the Spaniard with the –

THOMAS. Three-foot ruff. Yes we have.

GUARD. I’ll fetch her ladyship.

The GUARD goes.

THOMAS. Syphilitic ponce.

THOMAS inspects the performance area gravely, clears his throat, strikes an attitude or two.

LUCIUS. Thomas. Let me.

THOMAS. No.

LUCIUS. Just a few minutes of the new stuff. One speech.

THOMAS. There is no new stuff. This is a traditional act. No politics, no arseing around. They know what they’re going to get, give it to them. Now, the codpiece gag. When you do your somersault, give it a bit more time, let it register before –

LUCIUS. The codpiece gag! We will not get this job with the codpiece gag, or any of that old material –

THOMAS. If they don’t want us, we don’t want them –

LUCIUS. There’s nothing funny about codpieces any more –

THOMAS. Men have pricks, that is funny, it will always be funny –

LUCIUS. We’re talking about a sophisticated audience. Visiting ambassadors and businessmen from the Dutch Republic. It’s a new society, a young society, based on trade and success. These people speak five languages and do double-entry bookkeeping, they don’t want to hear songs about bollocks!

BEATRICE comes in. She’s in her late twenties, striking, assertive. She’s followed by her maid ZANDA, a young black woman who carries a footstool. The GUARD stands in the doorway.

BEATRICE. The Dutch Republic, quite so. Did someone mention the Dutch Republic?

LUCIUS. I –

THOMAS. Thomas Bodkin, ma’am. And my brother Lucius.

BEATRICE. In point of fact there are only two interesting facts about the Dutch Republic: one it is stuffed full of Protestants and two it is stuffed full of money. Politics and commerce. We are wooing the Dutch, gentlemen, and, as with wooing, one moves in orderly stages: the meeting of the eyes, the inclining of heads, the dallying of fingers, then of lips. These have their counterparts in the whisperings of diplomats, the exchange of useless presents and – mark this in the trade delegation. In the wooing of nations, gentlemen, the trade delegation is like a hand placed upon a thigh. The timing and the pressure must be exact. Do I make myself clear?

THOMAS. Er… yes… your ladyship.

BEATRICE. My father, being a councillor of state, is occupied with the weightier side of this event. He has instructed me to choose the entertainment. The Dutch are a swinish people much given to strong drink. Their natural churlishness has stood them in good stead against the Spanish –

She spits copiously on the floor.

They do not take to madrigals and fine wine. They are for beer and buffoonery. So they must be entertained here, in the Liberty of the Clink where greater licence is extended, beyond the City Fathers’ reach. I am these Dutch. We are these Dutch. Entertain us.

The BODKIN BROTHERS glance at each other, each having heard something to support their own viewpoint. THOMAS’s authority carries the day and they launch into their traditional act. He dons the jester’s cap and picks up the bladder. BEATRICE puts her feet on the stool for ZANDA to cut her toenails.

THOMAS. By the mass if ’tis not Signor Bordello, newly come, or so his gait betells, from some house of drabbery. This fellow is a most notable dealer in flesh, a very fishmonger, fowl-trader and jack-the-knife i’ the shambles. How now, Signor Bordello, what make you here amongst honest men?

LUCIUS comes on as Signor Bordello.

LUCIUS. I cry thee pardon, Master Wart, I took thee for but a simple fool.

THOMAS. Who takes an honest man for a fool i’ the street makes swift despatch to hell.

LUCIUS. How so, whoreson?

THOMAS. Why, to take an honest man in the street – (Sexual mime.) means that man is fallen, and to be deceived that he is a fool is yourself to be gulled. And if the Almighty will not let a sparrow fall in the street, sure to let a gull so drop, why man, ’tis certain brimstone.

They pause for the laugh. ZANDA who is simultaneously watching the scene and pedicuring BEATRICE looks questioningly at her mistress.

LUCIUS. Faith, you equivocate to a hair’s breadth.

THOMAS. Indeed, sir, I shall prove a most punctilious barber to your tongue. Let but the smallest mole sprout and Wart shall trim thee. But to’t again – what make you here?

LUCIUS. Faith, I am but newly come from business at the Exchange –

THOMAS (aside). Indeed I have heard the stews so called, for therein a man may spend freely and yet be called to account when the month is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Ian Rickson
• Introduction by Annabel Arden
• Epigraph
• Original Production
• Characters
• Prologue
• Scene One: The Fools
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information