A Few Man Fridays

Adrian Jackson

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781849432184
• eBook ISBN: 9781849432580
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Cardboard Citizens presents the story of an entire nation made homeless, starting in the age of Cold War secrets and ending in the era of global warming. A Few Man Fridays unearths an inglorious episode of British history. Between 1967 and 1973, the population of the Chagos Islands was evicted to make way for a US military base. For forty years they have fought for justice in an epic struggle that is unlikely to end even when the European Court of Justice delivers a ruling later this year. A Few Man Fridays traces the displacement of these 'unpeople' and the successive denial of their right to nationhood. Cardboard Citizens has worked with homeless people and the marginalised for 20 years, marrying personal stories and historical subjects into an epic theatre that challenges public perceptions of social exclusion. This new play explores the fantasies of the powerful, set against the dreams of the powerless.

SCENE 1

Caption: Queen Mary University, London, July 2010

This scene is a filleted version of the first half of the final scene of the play. A short series of extracts of that scene is performed, with blackouts and compression sounds in between. They concern mainly a white man, the CONSERVATIONIST, who is just finishing a lecture, and a black man, PROSPER, who engages in conversation with him.

CONSERV: We did it. The dream has come true. Yeah! (He ends in fist in air gesture.)

    Blackout.

    He is speaking intently into the microphone.

    When I first found the giant manta, this noble creature had nowhere to run. Like an aeroplane running out of fuel –

    and those of you who have seen it know that it is a bit like a small aeroplane, up to seven metres from wing to wing, sleek, black, double hulled, beautiful.

    Blackout.

    He meets PROSPER.

CONSERV: Hello.

PROSPER: You don’t remember me?

CONSERV: I have a face recognition defect, face-blindness, I don’t recognise people, sometimes I take photos.

PROSPER: Like a spy.

CONSERV: Most people have a kind of rolodex of faces in their head, to recognise others, I have to take photos.

PROSPER: You never took a photograph of me.

    Blackout.

CONSERV: Look you seem to be angry with me – I don’t know why – we don’t even know each other.

PROSPER: I am not a significant other.

    Blackout.

CONSERV: That’s not what I said, and not what I think.

    Of course you are more important than a turtle.

    Blackout.

    He is on his mobile.

    Okay. So when exactly did Ronnie Barker go missing?

    Blackout.

    PROSPER is looking at the screen of the CONSERVATIONIST’s laptop.

PROSPER: (Referring to the projected images.) Who’re all the people?

CONSERV: Friends, acquaintances, I told you I suffer from faceblindness, it’s none of your business.

    That’s my son,

PROSPER: You need a photo to remember what your son looks like?

CONSERV: (Snatching back his laptop.) Of course not, that’s my screen saver.

    Blackout.

PROSPER: Listen? Do you hear?

    There is nothing.

CONSERV: What?

    Hear what?

    We hear a bell, the CONSERVATIONIST doesn’t.

PROSPER: That’s what you call a wake-up call. We call it the bellcall.

    Blackout.

    A dog ball bounces on from stage right – the COUNSELLOR picks it up.

    Blackout.

SCENE 2

A lighthouse sweep may dazzle us, a collage of voices and faces, different parts of the stage, different scales, probably a bit mad, overlapping. A sliding projection screen crosses from left to right. First MADAME TALATE, on screen in Kreol – consistent image, in movement – brief extract of her. Flick through images, stop at real photo of STU BARBER – actor, live beside him, speaks off.

STU: Ever since I was a kid I dreamt of desert islands. I was a sickly kinda kid, stayed home too much, used to collect stamps from islands – never imagined it would end up this way.

Bob Hope on screen, still image, recorded sound, fragment of Xmas show. Flick through various Americans, Paul Nitze, E.H. Peck, Mrs Thatcher, her image, her voice, Mickey Mouse sound, still images, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, Robin Cook, Pere Dussercle, images of some of the actual actors, dancing around between these fragments, back and forth, till finally settling on image of STU BARBER.We see old-ish actor standing next to picture of STU, then being interviewed by a Washington Post JOURNALIST, David Ottaway.

STU: I guess I would have been about 12.

JOURNO: If you don’t mind my asking/ [when would that have been]

STU: 1928 maybe – we were living in New Rochelle.

JOURNO: Just outsida New York.

STU: Days I was sick, I stayed home, arranging my stamps.

JOURNO: You were an avid stamp collector.

STU: It was stamps or a dog, and my folks wouldn’t have a dog in the house, so they kept me quiet with stamps.

JOURNO: Less trouble than a dog.

STU: I should say so. Anyway, sometimes I would be baby-sitting this kid Tommy from next door, or maybe he was supposed to be looking out for me, he was a pain in the ass.

JOURNO: How so?

STU: He would sit there, playing yo-yo, asking questions like you are now, ’cept he wasn’t from the Washington Post, this was just him jabbering, like: What are you doing Stu?

JOURNO: What are you doing Stu?

STU: And I would say, putting my stamps in order, what does it look like, and he would say –

JOURNO: Order of what?

STU: That’s right, and I would say, order of favouriteness.

JOURNO: Where are they from Stu? (JOURNALIST actor takes up the role of TOMMY.)

Caption: New Rochelle, 1928.

STU is arranging stamps, cross-checking with atlas; we see this through camera focussed on table. STU guards his activity, avoiding being spied on.

STU: Isn’t your Ma supposed to have picked you up by now?

TOMMY: She works late Thur...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Epigraph page
• Notes
• Contents
• PREFACE
• SCENE 1
• SCENE 2
• SCENE 3A
• SCENE 3B
• SCENE 3C
• SCENE 4
• SCENE 5
• SCENE 6
• SCENE 7A
• SCENE 7B
• SCENE 8A
• SCENE 8B
• SCENE 8C
• SCENE 8D
• SCENE 8E
• SCENE 9A
• SCENE 9B
• SCENE 10A
• SCENE 10B
• SCENE 11
• SCENE 12
• SCENE 13
• SCENE 14
• SCENE 15
• SCENE 16
• SCENE 17
• SCENE 18
• SCENE 19
• SCENE 19
• SCENE 20
• SCENE 21
• SCENE 22A
• SCENE 22B
• SCENE 22C
• SCENE 22D
• SCENE 23
• SCENE 24
• SCENE 25
• SCENE 26
• SCENE 27
• SCENE 28
• SCENE 29
• SCENE 30