Up On Roof

Richard Bean

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781840029130
• eBook ISBN: 9781849431729
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Four plays by Richard Bean with an introduction by Chris Campbell. Includes: Harvest, In the Club, The English Game and Up on Roof. 'Funny, poignant with a heart as big as a house, this is a rich Harvest indeed.' The Daily Telegraph on Harvest 'It is rare to spend two hours of unadulterated pleasure in a theatre, even for somebody who occupies theatre seats on a constant basis. This play...is beautifully crafted, well written and as funny as anything currently on stage.' British Theatre Guide on In the Club 'There have been many good plays about cricket before...but none that told us so much about our splintering land.' The Guardian on The English Game 'Wonderful lightness of touch...[his dialogue] takes your breath away.' The Daily Telegraph on Up on Roof

Act One

SCENE ONE

(To black. Strobe lighting. Sounds of rioting, sirens, smashing of glass, smashing of tiles. ‘White Riot’ by The Clash plays.

The riot moves on and the strobe lighting ends. It’s just before dawn on Wednesday 1 September. The roof area is transformed, tiles have been torn from the roof leaving holes, the chimney pots have gone, coping stones are torn from the roof edge. Distant sounds of traffic.

Enter MAD HATCHET JACK from stage right, ie; the roof that would connect to the Centre. He is bare chested, covered in tattoos. He has a full face spider web tattoo. He carries a home-made spear made out of a bit of two by two and a pair of scissors. His body shows the results of body building and self mutilation.

JACK goes downstage and stares up at the moon. He is relatively calm in this speech.)

JACK: In the beginning God created the ’eaven and the earf. And the earf was f f f f f facking formless. And darkness was over the deep, and God’s spirit was hovering over the surface of the water. And God said ‘Let there be light’ and there was light. And God called the light ‘facking day’, and the darkness he called ‘night’. And the evening and the morning were the f f f f facking first day.

(Exit JACK stage left along the roof and off towards the Centre. The sun comes up. Sound of traffic on Hedon Road. It’s very sunny. SINGE is standing on the chimney stack looking into the distance down the river to the sea. YEBSLEY is standing on the edge of the roof holding a TV over his head about to chuck it down. Singe, a middle aged man, is wearing prison issue trousers, prison issue shirt which is open to let the sun on his chest. He has placed his various pets and his prison potty which is full of urine downstage. A budgie in a cage, a bag with a corn snake in it and a goldfish bowl with goldfish. His slop potty is also on the roof. YEBSLEY is a young man wearing a prison officer’s peaked cap, prison issue trousers adorned with random yellow patches. He is wearing a Che Guevara T shirt and a balaclava with eye holes cut out. He has a ring of stolen keys around his belt.)

SINGE: Yebsley!!

YEBSLEY: What?

SINGE: Why are yer chucking a perfectly good telly off the roof?

YEBSLEY: It’s political, innit. Destroying consumer goods is a legitimate revolutionary act for the disempowered working class.

SINGE: You are not a member of the ‘disempowered working class’ Yebsley. The technical term sociologists use for people like you is ‘wanker’. Or, if they’ve met yer, ‘total and complete fucking wanker’. Now put that telly down. Even them Irish lads over in C wing, they’re not gonna be thick enough to chuck their telly off the roof.

YEBSLEY: That’s racist that is.

SINGE: I said they are not thick enough to chuck their telly off the roof. There’s a full card at Haydock. As A wing bookie I’ve got responsibilities.

(YEBSLEY puts the telly down. YEBSLEY takes his mask off.)

YEBSLEY: Hot innit?

SINGE: Yeah. I’m sweating like a Scouser in a personality test.

(SINGE comes down off the stack. During the next he unfurls a sheet and starts writing out a slogan on the sheet. He’s using a paint brush and black paint. The slogan reads 336 CALVERT NOT INVOLVED IN RIAT.)

YEBSLEY: What yer doing?

SINGE: I’m out in two months. That’s cos of me three years remission for arse licking. I’ve done six and half year. I can’t do another three. It’d kill our lass. What’s more important is, it’d kill me. I’m staying put, here, up on roof, my roof, while this is ovver. Where the whole fucking world can see it in’t me smashing the place up, bonning up the offices, and what have yer.

YEBSLEY: Why’ve yer brought yer pets up?

SINGE: Cos six month back Mad Hatchet Jack said he’d eat them. I owe him fifty quid don’t forget.

YEBSLEY: They wunt let Jack out.

SINGE: Them IRA boys are letting everybody out.

YEBSLEY: Yeah but yer gorra be mad to let Jack out.

SINGE: The IRA are mad. Blow up a pub, killing twennie Brummies and blame it all on Oliver Cromwell. What’s that if it in’t fucking mad?

YEBSLEY: They’re political prisoners.

SINGE: My arse.

YEBSLEY: Give Edna some sun then.

(He pulls the shade off the budgie.)

SINGE: Put that cover back on!

(YEBSLEY complies.)

YEBSLEY: They love the sun, budgies. They come from Brazil.

SINGE: Not that one. She’s from Whitesides on Hessle Road. She’s allergic to sunshine. If she weren’t in a cage, she’d be up and off, migrating in search of drizzle.

YEBSLEY: How d’yer know she’s a she?

SINGE: She must be a she. Cos nothing I ever do is good enough.

YEBSLEY: That’s a sexist er…patriarchal narrative you’ve got running in yer head.

SINGE: Good. It’s not full of shit then like yours?

YEBSLEY: ‘Woman is the nigger of the world’. John Lennon.

SINGE: ‘Bollocks’. Singe Calvert. You wait until you live with a woman, then you’ll find out who’s really in charge. You’ll be singing a different tune after four or five years of leaving yer dick in the fridge every time yer go down the pub.

YEBSLEY: You know what Singe? This riot…this has gorra be a good time to escape.

SINGE: You? Escape? Yer couldn’t break out of Boys’s.

YEBSLEY: Declan told me they’re gonna give it a go.

SINGE: The whole of Britain’s watching this prison expecting a break out. Every spare screw in Yorkshire is camped on Hedon Road waiting. Yer on telly right now. News at Ten. Over there. Look North...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two