Replay

Nicola Wren

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781350058675
• eBook ISBN: 9781350058699
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: British Drama

An intimate, moving and ultimately uplifting new monologue play. Replay is the story of a woman revisiting her childhood, coming to terms with the significant pain of her past and finally realising that she needs to embrace the memory of her brother in order to move on with her life. Heart, honesty and humour are at the core of this moving play in which Wren explores what it is to grow up, accept loss, be vulnerable and celebrate the past, however painful.
This edition was published to coincide with DugOut Theatre's production at the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2017.

Scene One

The stage is bare but for a grey bench and vinyl grey flooring. As the audience enters, the sound of a tape being rewound can be heard. When the audience are seated, the lights dim and we hear the click of a button pressed, stop, followed by another click, play.

W enters, stands facing the audience, concerned. The lights snap up as she is suddenly inspired.

W Prawns!

Prawns.

That’ll be it. Ate them last night, must have been dodgy. And it was late for eating. Ten-thirty. That’s late for eating. You’ve gotta be so careful with the little fuckers. I’ll call the restaurant tomorrow, give them a talking to. Just a gentle warning. I’ll drop in the fact I work for the police, makes people listen. They’ll apologise. Maybe even offer me a consolation meal of more prawns, which I’ll politely turn down.

Prawns. Christ. It was an alright restaurant as well, not the sort I’d normally go to. I don’t go out for dinner much, but, last night, Paula asked me to join her. Wanted to give me a pep talk ahead of my interview for sergeant in a couple of days. I’d say Paula’s the best sergeant in the borough by a long way, probably one of the best in the Met. Knows her stuff. She’s been in the job almost eighteen years and, well, reckons I’ve got what it takes, so she’s been mentoring me. Last night we talked through this assessment centre I did a week ago. She said so far I’m definitely hitting three out of the four key competencies. That’s: one – a sharp mind; two – drive and energy; three – being yourself; four – leading others. She thinks I could work on the ‘being yourself’ one. Said I could afford to relax a bit, let my personality shine through.

Beat.

What does that even mean, ‘be yourself’?

I am being myself. I am relaxed! This is my personality.

Beat.

Personally, I think my time would be better spent going over the appropriate information. The stuff that’s actually relevant. But of course, when a bit of advice comes from someone like Paula, you just smile and nod, be grateful for her time and get through the rest of the dinner. Which was nice, apart from that comment.

And the prawns.

Beat.

They didn’t seem to affect me at all until this afternoon.

This morning, I thought being paired with Derek for the third time this week was the worst it would get. The staff rotation system has gone to shit and I keep getting lumped with this big, fat, bloody over-sharer.

Sat in the car with him all morning, listening to him going on and on about his wife and daughters. Says he can’t imagine how hard it must be being a woman, though I’d say he’s pretty well in touch with his feminine side, soppy old git. Says he’s feeling sorry for his wife Janet at the moment ’cause she’s pregnant again and suffering from recurrent thrush. Said he just doesn’t know how we women do it with

Derek Everything so close together down there.

W Remarkable the prawns didn’t kick in then.

Beat.

This afternoon, just as we were due to finish, this call comes in, asking us to check in on a woman who found her husband dead this morning. Suicide. Not suspicious. Been dealt with, just need to show a bit of extra support. We’d been sorting out a confrontation in Camden Market so were close enough to take it on.

We pull up. I knock on the door and a young girl opens it, can’t be much older than eleven. She looks me straight in the eyes but says nothing. That’s when I feel this twinge in my stomach and it rumbles, pretty loudly. Ask her if her mum’s there. She takes us into the kitchen where her mum sits. Gormless. I offer to make a cup of tea and she nods.

Derek sits down and they get talking. I go to the kettle, open the lid and notice all these little white flakes inside. Limescale. The thought of swallowing those makes my stomach turn again, harder, and I wretch.

I do not want the woman to see me wretching over her kettle, so I excuse myself and head upstairs, tell her I just need to have a look around. Open a door I think is the bathroom. It isn’t. Dead man’s study. Looks a mess. Picture of him on the desk dressed as Superman, his daughter dangling off his arm, looks like she’s about to shit herself laughing.

Reckon I’ve got two seconds to find a bathroom before my stomach completely goes. I turn around to see the girl standing by the doorway, fiddling with this black ring on her finger. She looks up and gets me dead in the eyes again. I swallow the saliva that’s started to flood in my mouth, manage to maintain a professional look. Then she asks:

Lily Why would he want to leave me?

W And at that moment, my stomach goes. And I mean, totally goes. I start sweating and think I’m going to faint so I push past her, run down the stairs, go out onto the street and vomit until there’s nothing but bile.

Beat.

Prawns.

Beat.

After a while, Derek finished up and came out of the house looking concerned, put his hand on my shoulder and said,

Derek Hard not to let those jobs get to you, isn’t it?

W I say that’s not the reason I’m throwing up. He asks if I’m pregnant, I tell him I haven’t had sex for ages. He says he always knows when Janet’s pregnant because she pukes after sex. Knew I shouldn’t have shared.

I got up, brushed my uniform down and got back in the car. Did wonder what that poor little girl must have thought.

Derek straps in, wipes a few tears from his eyes. Says the dead man must have been in a really bad way to leave his little girl like that, suggests we come back tomorrow to check in. I tell him there’s nothing really we can do but, okay. He offered to drop me home and took the car back to the station.

Beat. She sits on the bench.

Haven’t been sick again since I got home.

When I got back, a couple of birthday cards had come in.

One with a picture of a cat on it that I suspect is from my neighbour, Julian. Julian loves cats. Can’t shut him up about them. I think he grooms them for a living or something ’cause they’re always coming and going. The one that’s here full time Julian says is the reincarnation of his great-aunt. Nutter. Bit weird that he knows when my birthday is. Maybe one of these magical, mystical cats told him.

Got a card from Dad and his wife, Sarah. She’ll have picked it, she’s got a ‘thing’ for glitter. Card says I should come up to Derby to visit them, they’d love to have me, the kids are ‘longing’ to get to know me and ‘they really do say the funniest things!’ Fuck off. Dad’s too old to have young kids. He had me when he was forty, and my brother Jamie when he was thirty-one. But Jamie’s dead and I live in London so it’s all about the youngsters now.

Parcel from Mum that arrived this morning still sitting on the kitchen table. Thought it would be another box of eggs that she’s home-farmed, but I was wrong. Card on the top said she’d been clearing out the garage and found an old birthday present from Jamie that I might want to keep.

Don’t think that counts as a birthday present, dragging shit up from the past.

Beat.

Prawns. Christ. Should have put two and two together before. Hope Derek hasn’t gone blabbing to the station about what happened. Hope the woman hasn’t complained. Hope that little girl’s alright.

Beat.

Well, I won’t be using today as an example of my competency at the interview, but at least now I’ve got to the bottom of it I can finally switch off the lights, go to sleep and end this shit, fucking birthday.

Scene Two

Lights change to a dream-like state, W’s attention is pulled stage left and she moves there. As the scene progresses, the sounds of what she is seeing in her dream increase in intensity.

W I’m back on the dead man’s street. Standing outside a big, red door with the number 12 on it. Rusty.

Run my hands up and down the railings while I stand on the step and wait. Jamie’s lanky body is in front of me, his T-shirt damp with sweat as he fiddles with his keys. It’s one of those hot autumn days. The wheelie bins outside smell like stale pizza and old beer bottles. My feet throb from walking so much. My stomach is firm under a layer of fat, sore from laughing.

The door flies open, Jamie drops to his knees, tells me to get down, be quiet – it could be dangerous – tigers could be anywhere! I squeeze the railing tightly as the army crawls across the floor to the stairs and strides up them. I follow, taking two steps at a time, just like him, as we pass u...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• The Company
• Dedication
• Contents
• Characters
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Modern Plays
• Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Contemporary Dramatists
• Acknowledgements
• eCopyright