Beached (NHB Modern Plays)

Melissa Bubnic

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781788501842
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Melissa Bubnic's Beached is a darkly funny comedy about modern freak shows, love and cream buns. Loads of cream buns.

Arty is the world's fattest teenager. At sixty-seven stone, he is a young man literally going nowhere.

All that is set to change when a reality TV crew moves in to ruthlessly document Arty's supposed transformation from bedridden walrus to trousered sophisticate.

But with the cameras rolling, something totally unexpected happens – Arty falls in love.

Beached had its British premiere at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, in 2014 before transferring to Soho Theatre, London. It won the 2010 Patrick White Playwrights Award at the Sydney Writers' Festival.

'Funny but thoughtful... a moving and sensitive exploration of extreme obesity' - The Stage

'Touching and sensitive... a satisfyingly chewy four-hander' - Evening Standard

'A very funny, recognisable and hugely entertaining play' - Daily Telegraph Australia

PRODUCER. To camera

JOJO. And so when I’m looking at him, right, I still see him as my baby. I know he’s a big boy now and I’m careful not to look at his winkle when I lift his belly apron coz he needs his dignity like but I make sure it’s clean all the same. I looked after him when he were no bigger than a squirming watermelon and he could be as big as the sky and I’d still look after him – no different. It’s the same in the animal kingdom you understand. You don’t see a mum tossing her baby aside just coz he’s a beluga whale and weighs a tonne do ya? Your baby’s your baby no matter how big they are. And Arty’d be my boy even if he were a beluga whale.

Beat.

Not that he is but y’know, coz of the size.

She looks down at her outfit.

These clothes make me look like I’m drinking cider out the front of Ladbrokes. How’s it ‘ruin the illusion’ if I wear me pearls again?

PRODUCER. Cue Theme Music

Shocking Fat Stories theme music plays.

DOC V/O. This is the home of Arthur Arthur.

PRODUCER. Cut to

Enormous young man in a muumuu wheezing with the effort of trying to force his wedged frame through the door

DOC V/O. At nineteen years old and weighing sixty-seven stone, that’s a staggering nine hundred and thirty-eight pounds, Arthur is the world’s heaviest teenager. He weighs as much as a horse, and more than five times the average man – but Arthur is anything but average.

ARTY. It’s not like something I tried for, y’know, but… it’s kinda nice being in the books for something. Otherwise I’m no special piggy.

He tries to laugh, as though this was a joke.

But I hear there’s a lad coming along in Houston, in America, who’s only fifteen and already like fifty-five stone like, so, y’know, the competition’s out there.

Beat.

Not that I’m competing but… y’know.

DOC V/O. His weight has reached critical proportions but for now everyday life goes on as normal.

ARTY. I wake up, have breakfast, and then I might watch some telly or read, and y’know, have lunch and more telly –

JOJO. Or Scrabble.

ARTY. Or Scrabble, and… I don’t really do much.

JOJO. I never beat him at Scrabble do I, Moon? He’s got a real good vocabulary, like knows all these words don’t you, love?

ARTY. This is what I call icing coz she’s laying it on real thick now.

JOJO. I know every mum thinks her baby is the best but you look at some kids and think, I don’t care if your mum does reckon you’re the bee’s knees, I know a gimped-up little monkey when I see one. But seriously my Art-Art’s got a gift with words. Like what was that one you come up with the other day?

ARTY is embarrassed but proud.

ARTY. ‘Epitome’ – that was the word.

JOJO. See what I mean?

JOJO and ARTY beam.

But I’m better than him at Jessica Fletcher, aren’t I?

ARTY. We love Jessica Fletcher.

JOJO. Even the episodes that aren’t any good when it’s Jessica’s acquaintances doing mystery-solving somewhere that’s not even Cabot Cove. But I always guess right the killer don’t I, Moon?

ARTY. She just looks at someone start of the episode and says, ‘It’s him – he done it’ and I say, ‘What you mean? How you know it’s him when there hasn’t even been a murder yet?’

JOJO. I got an instinct for people.

Beat.

And I seen most of the episodes already so that helps too.

DOC V/O. Almost immobile Arthur lives with his mother Joanne, who takes care of him full-time.

ARTY. I’m really lucky to have Mum. If it weren’t for her I…

PRODUCER. Cut to

JoJo tucking Arty into nest with a hot-water bottle

Folding the duvet under his body so he doesn’t catch draught

And planting a volley of kisses on his forehead

ARTY. Coz I know… no matter how big I get, how disgusting I am, she loves me. And there’s a lot of people who don’t have someone who loves ’em. And I feel really sad when I think of that.

JOJO. Like we saw on the telly right, when we were watching… Arty, y’know, with Batty-bra?

ARTY. She means David Attenborough.

JOJO. But we call him Batty-bra, don’t we? That’s what we call him, it’s funny.

Beat.

ARTY. Yep.

JOJO. On Batty-bra, there were foxes wanting a tasty gosling but the geese mums weren’t having it. They went absolutely mental with the flapping and the pecking and honest-to-god these foxes with their sharp teeth ran straight the other way coz a mother’s love is not to be trifled with. And that’s the same with me and my Moon. Oh, that’s what I call him don’t I, love? Coz when he smiles it’s like a great big light gone on in the dark. So I’d dare them foxes to have a go coz it won’t be pretty when I’m finished. Blood on the floor there’d be. Blood on the floor.

DOC V/O. But the burden of living life as a sixty-seven-stone man is starting to take its toll on Arthur’s health.

ARTY. When I had the second heart attack when I was like… seventeen yeah, and the second heart attack, just a couple months after the first I thought… yeah, this is me done.

JOJO. It was like the light was disappearing and everything turning grey. And I said, ‘I can’t lose him. I won’t.’ That’s what I said to the doctor, I said, ‘I don’t care what you do but you bring my Moon back safe to me.’

ARTY. And that’s why, y’know, I need the gastric bypass. They said if I don’t lose weight I’m gonna die so…

ARTY stares off into space.

I never think about the future. What I’m gonna be when I grow up. I think I’ve already grown up. I think this is it. And there’s no point having dreams.

JOJO. And that’s when I contacted Shocking Fat Stories. Coz we need help. Coz I can’t lose my boy.

ARTY. Night-night, Mum.

JOJO. Night-night, Moon.

259 days before surgery

DOC V/O. To prepare for his new life post-surgery, Arthur is receiving assistance from Jobcentre Pathways to Work Officer, Louise Jelenic.

LOUISE. Disability is a state of mind. The best form of welfare is work. It doesn’t matter if you’re missing a leg or have no fingers, there’s a job for you.

PRODUCER. Cut to

Young man with Down’s syndrome, smiling for the camera, pushing trolleys at Iceland

LOUISE. For too long the disabled have been a wasted resource, denied the opportunity to be economically active – to our loss. The Real Deal is a range of programmes to enhance the social usefulness of the disabled and long-term unemployed. So we offer interpersonal skills-building and interview-preparation workshops, job matching and a referral service, and one-to-one consultation.

Beat.

No I haven’t uh… worked with a super-morbidly obese client before. I’ve had loads of overweight clients but their weight didn’t make them disabled, just unattractive. Which in itself, well, depending on the severity of the aesthetic misfortune can be an impediment to securing employment.

LOUISE relaxes.

We laugh sometimes and say that should be one of the boxes on applications. Do you consider yourself hearing impaired, visually impaired, aesthetically impaired because the reality is no one wants...