Toast

Richard Bean

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781840021042
• eBook ISBN: 9781849431880
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

Seven men come together to bake enough bread to feed the population of Hull. It's just another Sunday. Nellie's so worn down from a lifetime making dough, he loses his vest in the mix. First, Owen Man's on a promise. The ovens are cranked up and running, and the wholemeal's pleasingly big going in. But there's a spanner in the works which threatens bread production in Hull for good, and life as they know it for the men on the shift. Toast is Bean's second play, first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in February 1999.

Scene 1

1975.

The smell of bread baking. The industrial thump, thump, thump of a bread plant oven drive.

The canteen of a bread factory. Stage right, along the wall, are various vending machines, and a hot water boiler over a sink with a mirror above. A health and safety notice board carries various notices and warnings, and has minutes of meetings stuck to it with drawing pins. An old joke notice, originally ‘YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE MAD TO WORK HERE – BUT IT HELPS!’, has been defaced and now reads simply ‘HELP !’ The original wording is crossed out but legible. There is a pay phone attached to the wall near the door. Next to that is a store cupboard. The floor is red industrial lino. From the door to the sink the floor is black with dirt and grease. A waste bin overflows with dead tea bags. The wall behind the bin is splattered with used tea bag hits and the floor about the bin has one or two tea bags which have missed their target. There is a partition running the whole length of the back wall. This partition is made up of two large glass windows either side of an opaque glass door. Through the stage right window we can see a flight of steel steps rising to the bread plant. Through the stage left window the steps descend to the ground floor, the offices and the locker room. Two large steel tables down stage are arranged lengthways, parallel to the vending machines. There is a large clock above the door – it shows ten to three. There is no way of knowing whether it is morning or afternoon. Similarly there is no clue as to the season.

ROBERT BLAKEY enters from the bread plant. He is wearing baker’s whites, which have seen three or four shifts, and a striped office shirt with an open collar. He wears Buddy Holly style black spectacles. His hair is mid-seventies style with sideburns. His sleeves are rolled up. He is a physical man, prone to bouncing on his feet and touching his crotch unnecessarily. He has tattoos on each forearm. Slung over one shoulder is a holdall, over the other an acoustic guitar in a vinyl sleeve. He puts the holdall on the steel table nearest the sink and unzips it. The guitar he props against the table. He takes out a mug, a tea bag, and a small jam jar with a screw top which contains milk. He puts the tea bag in the mug, walks to the boiler and fills it with...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Characters
• Scene 1
• Scene 2