A Mad World My Masters

Thomas Middleton, Phil Porter, Sean Foley

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781783190195
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783195183
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Thomas Middleton's outrageous 'city comedy': a brilliantly plotted, farcical satire of lies and lust, translated from Jacobean London to the Soho of the 1950s.

A dashingly impecunious bachelor, Dick Follywit, in need of quick cash and a good time has to live on his wits so turns con-man to fool his rich uncle. He variously becomes a Lord, a high-class call girl and a poor actor. Meanwhile, Truly Kidman, a high-class call girl – poor but quick-witted – needs to fool and then marry a rich young man…

Sean Foley and Phil Porter's edited version of Middleton's play is faithful to the original text but adapts it to fit the seedy world of 1950s Soho, updating character names and including songs of the time to enhance the biting satire of lust and deception in the life of Bohemian London.

1.1

The Flamingo Club, 1956, Soho.

The HOUSE BAND strike up… As the characters of the play enter, they acknowledge members of the audience as old friends, or fellow punters…

The Singer belts out…

SONG: ‘BIG LONG SLIDIN’ THING’ by Eddie Kirkland and Mamie Thomas

In the applause at the end of the song DICK FOLLYWIT leaps onto the stage and attempts to kiss the singer. His ardour is not reciprocated. A massive FIGHT breaks out, spreading to include everyone…

…and ending with FOLLYWIT and his cohorts being thrown out, drunk, laughing and bloodied, into a rubbish-filled and piss-soaked back alley…

OBOE: What shall I call thee, Master Dick Follywit? The noble spark of bounty, the life-blood of Society!

SPONGER: A very rascal! A midnight surfeiter! The spume of a brothel-house!

FOLLYWIT: Call me your Brains Trust, you sons of whores.
When you come drunk out of a tavern, ’tis I must cast your plots into form still; ’tis I must manage the prank if we’re to earn a louse; ’tis I must risk my social standing, turn wild-brain and stretch my wits upon the tenters… You have no occupation but sleep, feed and fart.

SPONGER: Ooh, nothing conjures up wit sooner than poverty!
Our little Brains Trust!

FOLLYWIT: Hang you, you have bewitched me among you.
’Til I fell to be wicked I was well born. I went all in black, never did blaspheme, never came home drunk. God’s eyelid, here’s a transformation! My own Uncle wouldn’t know me… Now I’m put i’th’mind of a trick, can you keep your countenance, Private Oboe?

OBOE: I shall keep my face straight.

FOLLYWIT: Then, thus… Have I ever told of the possibilities of my hereafter fortunes, and the humour of my uncle, Sir Bounteous Peersucker?

SPONGER: Never! (Aside.) Time without number he has us this recounted!

FOLLYWIT: His death makes all possible to me: I shall have all when he has nothing; but now he has all, I shall have nothing. And since he has no will to do me good as long as he lives, by mine own will, I will do my self good before he dies, I will. And now I arrive at the purpose.

OBOE: At last.

FOLLYWIT: You are not ignorant, I’m sure, you true and necessary implements of mischief, first, that my uncle Sir Bounteous is tremendously well-endowed; next, that he keeps a house like a Shoreditch wench’s legs, open to all comers; thirdly and lastly, that he stands much upon the glory of his complement, the fecundity of his larder, and the glorious generosity of his fancy dress balls. He’s a snoblick of the first – mere Sir’s or Ladies impress him not, but he thinks himself never happier then when some stiff Lord or country Countess alights, to make light his dishes. Fancying them his friends he bends backwards like a fool as they chomp on his tenderloin, and ne’er thinks e’en to ask them to sauce his asparagus as they gobble him dry.

SPONGER: Come again?

FOLLYWIT: These ingredients being well mixed together may give my project better encouragement. To be short, and cut off a great deal of dirty way, I’ll down to my uncle like a lord.

SPONGER: How, captain?

FOLLYWIT: I shall tell you – Sergeant Sponger! Private Oboe!

OBOE: Sir.

FOLLYWIT: An Italian suit, a thin moustache and a strong perfume will do’t. I’ll live like a Lord at his expense, and you shall be my servants.

SPONGER: You’re mad, sir.

FOLLYWIT: Me, mad?! You desire crowns?

SPONGER AND OBOE: Ay Captain!

FOLLYWIT: Why, then carry yourselves but plausibly and you’ll carry away plenty.

OBOE: (In awe.) The noble spark of Bounty!

Enter PENITENT BROTHEL.

FOLLYWIT: Mr Penitent Brothel.

BROTHEL: Sweet Master Follywit.

Exeunt all but BROTHEL.

BROTHEL: Here’s a mad-brain o’th’first, whose pranks scorn to have precedents, whose only glory is to be prime of the company, to be sure of which he maintains all the rest. He is the carrion and they the kites that gorge upon him.
But why in others do I check wild passions
And retain deadly follies in myself?
I tax his youth of common receiv’d riot,
Time’s comic flashes, and the fruits of blood;
And in myself soothe up adulterous motions:
Love to the wife of Mr Littledick,
Over whose hours and pleasures her sick husband,
With a fantastic but deserved jealousy,
Bestows his serious time in watch and ward.
And therefore I’m constrained to use a prostitute,
Whom Mr Littledick
without suspicion innocently admits
To his wife’s company, who with tried art
Corrupts and loosens his wife’s most constant powers.

Enter TRULY KIDMAN.

TRULY KIDMAN: Mister Brothel.

BROTHEL: See, here she comes; a virtuous, well brought up whore – her mother is her pimp! Miss Truly Kidman. The news, the comfort?:

TRULY KIDMAN: Y’are the fortunate man, sir. There wants but opportunity and she’s wax of your own fashioning. She had wrought herself into the form of your love before my art set finger to her.

BROTHEL: Did our affections meet? Our thoughts keep time?

TRULY KIDMAN: So it should seem by the music. The only jar is in that grumbling base fiddle, her husband.

BROTHEL: Oh, his waking suspicion!

TRULY KIDMAN: Sigh not, Mr Brothel. Trust the managing of the business with me; ’tis for my credit now to see’t well finished.

BROTHEL: Heart, I would give but too much money to be nibbling with that wench!

TRULY KIDMAN: If I do yo...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editors Note
• Characters
• Chapter 1.1
• Chapter 1.2