The Mentalists

Richard Bean

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781840022872
• eBook ISBN: 9781849432528
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

War, poverty, corruption, spiralling taxes, bad behaviour, inter-personal violence and over-population. Do these things worry you?
Middle-aged manager Ted, hits on a utopian plan to change the way we live in this darkly funny play.

SCENE ONE

Summer, and a sunny day.

A bed and breakfast hotel room in Finsbury Park, London. The establishment is a poor quality, but not seedy, two or three star hotel. It has been created from a two Edwardian town houses knocked together. Furniture consists of a trouser press, double bed, mini-bar, telephone etc. The door is up stage left, the double bed centre stage, and there is an en-suite bathroom just off stage right. There is a full length horizontal mirror on the wall stage right. There is a television and a telephone on a full-length-of-the-wall shelf stage right. The decor is death defyingly bland pastel. In the back wall there is a large double sash window, which opens onto the back of the hotel and the kitchen bins. A coffee table is centre stage on which is a half full bowl of fruit. There is a double bed in the centre of the room. A foil platter of fresh sandwiches in clingfilm suggests someone is expected. The general state of the decor is one of worn out bland conformity in need of a clean.

Enter TED. TED is a man in his early fifties, with neat grey hair. He is gaunt to thin. He carries a briefcase with papers and books and a suit in a thin plastic dry cleaner’s bag with wire hanger, and black business shoes. He deposits these on the stage left side of the double bed. He is wearing smart creased shorts and a white short sleeved shirt with deck shoes and no socks. He stands in the middle of the room and looks around disapprovingly with hands on hips.

TED: Typical. Tut! Look at this, eh? Morrie?!

TED sticks his head out into the corridor looking for MORRIE.

Morrie! We’re in here. (To himself.) Daft bastard.

Enter MORRIE laden down with a video camera, box, tripod and a plastic carrier bag. He is in his mid fifties and well kept in a mutton dressed as lamb sort of way. He is overweight to a cuddly degree. He wears smart, cream, chino style slacks, white shoes, and a dark, nightclub style silk shirt. His hair, which is grey, suffers from having had a far too trendy, spiky cut. MORRIE deposits the camera boxes on the stage right side of the bed and immediately inspects the sandwiches. TED paces about the room, looking critically, and with some disenchantment, at the space from different angles.

TED: Bloody typical isn’t it. Eh? I wanted a bigger room with two singles. Hard work moving a double. And it’s small. Huh, and when you want a double, you know, to sleep in – can you get one? No, you bloody can’t!

MORRIE: (Inspecting the sandwiches.) Meat. Ted! Every single last one of them’s bleeding meat.

TED: I like a bit of meat.

MORRIE lights a cigarette.

MORRIE: Bad for you meat. Kill you in the end.

MORRIE puts the platter aside, sits on the stage right side of the bed and looks at the room.

Class hotel this, once.

MORRIE stands looking for an ashtray. He finds one, puts it in the palm of his hand and sits again.

TED: Should’ve gone to that Trust House Forte place near Shepshed. It’s shit at Shepshed, but at least it’s purpose built. This is a conversion.

MORRIE: It would’ve been easier if you’d come and picked me up instead of me having to get a taxi.

TED: I’ve had a long drive as it is.

MORRIE: Did you get stuck in traffic?

TED: A435, A417, A419, M4, North Circular, Westway, Marylebone Road, Euston Road, bang, two hours. Huh! Nobody gets in my way when I’m driving matey.

MORRIE: Is that your car then?

TED: Company car. Couldn’t exactly be the fleet manager without having a nice car myself, eh? Three litre, sixteen valve, air conditioning, bluetooth, ABS as standard, driver’s air bag – the bloody lot. It’s not a Vauxhall Vectra.

MORRIE: What’s ABS?

TED: ABS. It’s a braking system. They test the car in Iceland. Drive it about on glaciers, and bloody hell mate, that, that is the place to test a motor. You see, if an elk jumps out on you when you’re cornering on ice at fifty you’ve got to have ABS brakes or you’d total the elk, total the car, and kill yourself into the bargain.

MORRIE: Why do the elks jump out at the cars?

TED: Instinct matey. Fucking instinct.

MORRIE: Do they hide in the bushes, waiting?

TED: Do I look like an elk expert?

MORRIE: But why do they do it?

TED: It’ll be a territorial thing. I dunno, maybe they don’t like cars coming into their territory so they jump out at them in an attempt to piss on them.

TED sits on the bed, picks up the instructions on how to dial out, and dials.

Service. It’s a dirty word in this country. You go to America, ha! – anything you want – and! – with a smile, and a ‘have a nice day’. And you know what?

MORRIE: What’s that China?

TED: They bloody well mean it!

TED picks up the phone and dialls.

(On the phone.) Denise, hello darling, it’s me, Ted, I thought you might be at lunch, well I’ll just leave a message, I’m in Exeter. Don’t try the mobile, it’s out of juice. Er…that’s about it, actually, nothing more to say. Exeter. Bye.

He puts the phone down.

MORRIE: You’re in Finsbury Park Ted. London, N5.

TED: (TED taps the side of his nose smugly.) I know.

MORRIE: Who’s Denise?

TED: My personal assistant. Secretary. But you can’t call them secretaries any more. Sexist. I’m not allowed to look at her legs. Your own secretary.

MORRIE: You called her darling on the phone.

TED: Did I?

MORRIE: Yeah.

TED: Fuck.

He manhandles MORRIE gently sideways, and walks to the window. He opens it and looks out as if checking his car. Satisfied, he closes the window. TED wets his finger and runs it along the sill.

(Showing his finger.) Look at that. Filth. Switzerland, that’s another one. Tut! You can eat your breakfast off the streets. You know what? You’re not allowed to have a shit after twelve o’clock at night in Switzerlnd. Not if you live in a block of flats. You’d get arrested. Too much noise you see. Ha! They don’t bloody mess about like we do. You don’t see anyone begging, nobody starving. There was a beggar outside here, sitting there with his mutt, he said ‘have you got any spare change’ – I said ‘Of course I fucking have’ and walked o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Characters
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• By the Same Author