Sketching

James Graham, Naomi Westerman, Sumerah Srivastav, Himanshu Ojha, Ella Langley, Chloe Mi Lin Ewart, Alan Gordon, Adam Hughes, Aaron Douglas

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781350107618
• eBook ISBN: 9781350107632
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: British Drama

Charles Dickens' London is reimagined for the 21st century. Twenty-four hours in the life of a city that has 371 people in every square kilometer, where every street and square shelters heroes and villains, emotional turmoil, violent allegiances, adventures, the remarkable and the everyday. Olivier Award-winning playwright James Graham forges a uniquely crowd-sourced play, incorporating scenes by emerging writers into his own sweeping narrative. Dickens' panoply of London and Londoners, his big characters and fantastic stories in Sketches by Boz are updated for the modern age, incorporating the broadest range of voices from across the community in a theatrical whirligig of wonder and imagination.

Act Two

In the darkness, above us, the flapping of a raven’s wings.

One

Lights fade up on the rafters of Westminster Abbey. The ancient library . . . The soft sound of a choir, rehearsing below.

Lilibet is (sadly – as ever) reading a book when she hears the sound of a bird – looks – sees, a raven land on the ledge of the open window. She gasps.

Lilibet . . . hello. It . . . You’re one of them. Aren’t you . . .?

She tentatively moves towards it. Speaking softly.

It’s OK . . . you’re OK . . . I’m no danger . . .

How did you get up here . . .? With those clipped wings?

The raven squawks, a little, edging forward.

The scaffolding?

You find us, in a state of ‘repair’. Trying to, anyway. What does escape feel like?

(Glancing around her library.) I’m here by choice, you know. Yes, you could say hiding. It wasn’t always the case. I lived. I lived badly. I was born, into ‘bad’. My family . . . we were ‘known’. Round my end. Oh yeah. And when you get known for something, when people expect things . . .

Well. You know all about that, don’t you.

The raven squawks. She gently, carefully strokes it . . .

You are ‘death’. You are ‘bad luck’. You are ‘prophecy’. The reincarnation, of murdered souls . . .

That must suck.

I know about murdered souls. My family. Until I was cast out. Not for that.

I fell in love. Yeah. It’s one of those stories . . .

With the wrong man. From the wrong family. Trust me, if you want to be in love, with the wrong man, don’t have secrets. Secrets that can be found, used against you, by other Bad Men. Bad men who come to you from the shadows. Blackmail you with those secrets. Secrets that incarcerate you, forever . . .

The choir begins properly, beneath them. She checks her watch.

Morning. The Holy Communion. (To the bird.) This is no place for you, go. GO!

She shoos the raven off, and runs, towards –

Actor Three Lilibet runs, to the triforium edge, overlooking the Abbey.

Actor Four Leaning out! As she always does!

Actor Five Contemplating the fall. The fall towards the Consmati Pavement.

Actor Four A calculation for the end of the world.

Actor Three Had she been looking she would have seen other lost souls, arriving, into Westminster Abbey this morning. This day, of all days . . .

In the pews, one behind each other, have arrived four different ‘worshippers’ to pray. One, Marco, looks behind him. To another, Andy.

Marco Psst. Is it – ‘you’.

Andy Are you ‘him’. The one who called me here?

Marco No, I was called here. Who are you?

Andy Andy Cobb, I’m an engineer for the power grid, there was . . . an ‘envelope’, on my doorstep, this morning, full of . . . something. Who are you?

Marco Marco Bianchi, I’m an ‘infrastructure program manager’ at a data centre. Someone . . . someone has some . . . ‘texts’, some text messages, I sent, that, that my wife –

Andy Big deal, if it’s your wife?

Marco – would kill me, if she read.

Andy Oh. I get you.

Marco (referencing) It might be her?

Andy (turning, to another worshipper, Nico, behind them) Psst. Is it ‘you’, did you bring us here?

Nico No. I was told to come. Are you with the Feds?

Andy No, what are the Feds? Who are you?

Nico I’m a computer hacker. White-hat computer, I turned straight after . . . something, but this morning I got a –

Peter Sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The man in the pew in front of them turns round.

Peter Do you mind. Some of us have sins, to confess. I know for a fact that you lot do.

He smiles. They look at him unnerved.

Marco Are we meant to know who you are? Why did you bring us here, what’s your plan.

Peter Ah, at last. The bit where we reveal ‘the plan’.

(At Andy, giving him a map.) I need you to cut the power to this part of the Central London grid, can you do it?

Andy . . . Why?

Peter Can you do it?

Andy I can, but –

Marco (taking the map) That’s where my data centre is.

Andy What’s a data centre?

Nico It’s where the internet ‘is’.

Marco We control around 10 per cent of all UK traffic.

Andy You can’t shut it down. The UPS will kick in, Uninterruptable Power Supply.

Peter Not if someone on the inside of the data centre prevents that from happening. ‘Human error.’ Ey, Marco?

Marco I want to know why.

Peter . . . I’m going to steal the internet.

(Beat, then, indulging him.) These data centres are highly protected, impossible for me to break into. Think of all the things they store on their servers? Our texts, photos, our music, our money, bank transactions, our purchases, our swipes left, swipes right, thumbs up. If they go down, there’s a failsafe. They eject the data, in what are called network packets, little bundles, and send these packets to the next, nearest possi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Sketching Play Journeys
• Sketching
• ‘Sketching’
• Characters
• Prologue
• Act One
• Act Two
• ‘Mo’s Second Hand Shop’
• ‘The Physicist and the Fortune Teller’
• ‘The Emancipation of Shona Bellé’
• ‘Arnav the Route Master’
• ‘The Hand of Hozan’
• ‘Petra’s Polski Sklep’
• ‘The Conceptual Artists’
• ‘The Keycutter’s Daughter’
• eCopyright