Great Britain

Richard Bean

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781783192137
• eBook ISBN: 9781783197125
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Teatro britannico

Richard Bean's fast and furious new play is an anarchic and foul-mouthed satire about the press, the police and the political establishment. Paige Britain is the ambitious, morally-bankrupt young news editor of The Free Press, a tabloid newspaper locked in a never-ending battle for more readers.

Act One

SCENE ONE

The open-plan newsroom of THE FREE PRESS. A placard hangs from the ceiling – TRUTH, BEAUTY and JUSTICE. Two TV screens upstage, one showing 24-hour BBC news and one 24-hour Sky news. Upstage a cut out of Terry, a thirty-ish man with a fag, a pint, and a leer, looking at a copy of THE FREE PRESS open at a topless model page. Adjacent a cut-out of his wife, Tracy, playing the paper’s Bingo – smile on her face. Many desks, all with PCs, and hacks working away or sitting chatting, or taking phone calls.

Enter JIMMY THE BINS, carrying two bin bags which he sells to DICKIE. Having done that he moves on to PAIGE with a Sainsbury’s carrier bag containing a laptop. WALLACE is watching Sky TV which is showing a Millwall goal.

WALLACE: Jimmy!

PAIGE: (Aside.) This is Jimmy the Bins. Every bin tells a story. Sometimes it’s brilliant, sometimes it’s rubbish.

JIMMY: Gazza’s laptop. He left it in a black cab.

PAIGE: What would Gazza want with a laptop? He can’t kick it, he can’t drink it, and he can’t fuck it.

JIMMY: The Mirror have offered me two K.

PAIGE: This is an auction is it?

JIMMY: I gotta make a living.

PAIGE: Three K.

JIMMY: Done.

PAIGE: Dickie! Get someone to clone this hard drive. Tina! Jackie! Ring Gazza, tell him we’ve got his laptop here. Tempt him in with a photo op with a couple of Page 7 beauties, then take him to lunch, get him pissed, and try and get a picture of him in a canal, drowning.

(GARTH approaches.)

GARTH: How much is this going to cost me?

PAIGE: (Aside.) This is Garth, money man, hard man. (JIMMY hands GARTH an invoice.)

JIMMY: Cash.

GARTH: We’ve stopped paying cash.

JIMMY: Waeeurghhh!?

GARTH: Go to Western Union in St. James, take some ID, tell them that Mrs Orla Gilhooley, your grannie, has sent you your birthday money, money transfer from County Offaly.

JIMMY: My gran lives in Australia.

HOWARD: (Spills coffee.) Shit!

PAIGE: (Aside.) This is Howard. He’s been here forever, and he’s a man of principle. He says things like –

HOWARD: (To audience.) – Journalism is not a profession, it’s a human right. There is no journalism in Zimbabwe, Belarus, or North Korea.

PAIGE: (Aside.) Which is why I’ll be the next editor.

JACKIE: Stella… –

STELLA: Stone.

JACKIE: Stella Stone.

HOWARD: We like your portfolio, very much, Stella Stone.

JACKIE: But could you drop a dress size?

STELLA: Yes.

JACKIE: And have you ever considered breast enlargement?

STELLA: I can’t afford a boob job!

HOWARD: We, The Free Press, would pay for your operation. Then you reduce that debt to us with every Page 7 that you do.

STELLA: I’d have to work my tits off!

HOWARD/JACKIE: (Beat.) Yes.

WALLACE: Hey, look at this.

(WALLACE turns up the TV sound. An image of twin twelve-year-old girls both wearing puffa waistcoat/jackets.)

REPORTER: ‘ – identical twins, Pippa and Paula Mills, disappeared from their parents’ caravan…’

HOWARD: Wallace! Some of us are at work!

(WALLACE zaps down the volume.)

WALLACE: Sorry man, my bad! (To STELLA.) Fuck, hello!

PAIGE: (Aside.) Wallace writes the TV column ‘How Big’s Your Telly!?’ His life is consumed by the inane, and the ephemeral. One day someone will invent Twitter and make his life complete.

(Enter BORIS TUDOR, a Countryside Alliance type. He approaches PAIGE with a letter.)

TUDOR: Excuse me, I have an eleven o’clock meeting with Howard Woolf. I’ve come all the way from Tewkesbury. And I’m seventy-three now.

PAIGE: How old were you when you set off?

(Reading.) Dr Boris Tudor, Laburnum Cottage, Badgeworth.

TUDOR: That’s me.

PAIGE: (Re. the letter.) And Howard wants your story?

TUDOR: Yes, he’s very interested in it. I’m not worried about the money.

PAIGE: We’re not Blue Peter, we don’t give badges.

HOWARD: (On the phone.) Yes, hello? (PAIGE stands and ushers him to an interview room.)

PAIGE: Howard is not in today, but I can take your story. After conference, you and I will go out for a proper coffee.

HOWARD: (HOWARD approaches, suspicious.) Hey, is that my civilian? Boris Tudor?

PAIGE: No, that is Gerri Halliwell’s osteopath.

GARTH: Gather, gather.

(Enter WILSON followed by GARTH. GARTH has a pineapple in his hand. WILSON is ringing a bell. Andrew ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• National Theatre
• Characters
• Contents
• Prologue
• Act One
• Act Two