Gasping - the Play (4 page)

PHILIP:
Not now Sandy.

SANDY:
It’s just that, if the machine is
extracting all the oxygen from the atmosphere, what are we going to breathe?

CHIEF:
Good point young fellow.

PHILIP:
I encourage all our people to come
up with good points Chief.

CHIEF:
Good. Are you grooming him?

PHILIP:
Like he was a horse Sir.

SANDY:
I’m not sure it’s working actually,
nothing very much seems to be happening
(his knees buckle)
.

PHILIP:
Get up Sandy, stop playing the giddy
ass.
(he collapses)
Sorry Sir, ruck in the carpet.

CHIEF
(gripping desk unsteadily):
What the devil is going on!

SANDY
(pulling himself up unsteadily):
I think it’s the machine Sir, we don’t notice we’re suffocating
because the replacement elements fool the lungs into believing that they are
breathing normally.

PHILIP
(crawling to feet):
Sandy, are you trying to say that we have stupid lungs because, if
so, I take a pretty dim view ...

CHIEF:
I’m getting dizzy, somebody open a
window or I shall sack the lot of you!!

(All very
wobbly and faint.)

PHILIP
(trying to pull up metal screen):
They’re all on the security timer Sir! ...

SANDY:
I’ll call Miss Hodges ...
(he
moves to the intercom)
hallo ... hallo ... She can’t hear me, the damn
thing’s on security shut-off too ...!

PHILIP:
Techno let-down. Try upping the
volume on your natural communication system.

SANDY:
What?

PHILIP:
Shout.

SANDY
(squeaking):
Help ... help ... I’m not sure I can Philip ...

CHIEF
(struggling to get the words out):
If anyone can think of something sensible they will be making a most
advantageous career move ...

(The machine
is now grunting and shaking. The balloon is full.)

SANDY:
Well it’s just a thought, but we
pressed the button marked ‘suck’; maybe we should press the one marked ‘blow’ ...

PHILIP
(lying prostrate on his back
staring upwards, says faintly):
I was wondering how
long it would take you to notice that Sandy. Well done, memo me to intensify
your grooming process ...

(SANDY
staggers to button, the whirring changes. The balloon quickly
deflates. Almost instantly they all go
‘AAAAAH’
with relief)

PHILIP:
Obviously the instruction manual
will have to be very clear on certain points.

(Blackout.)

SCENE FOUR

The office of ‘Image Control’, a top
advertising agency. Total cool, designer work place, big glossy blow-up photos taken
from previous campaigns.

KIRSTEN CARLTON,
a top ad lady.

KIRSTEN
(on phone):
No dammit Anton, I can’t see you! This is a major pitch for me,
Lockheart are launching an entirely new product and I want the bloody account......
Listen if you can’t handle sleeping with someone in a higher income bracket
I’ll bike you round a bloody bimbo! Don’t bother to call!
(phone down, hits
intercom)
Graham darling, send in the gentlemen from Lockheart.

(Enter
PHILIP
and
SANDY
...)

PHILIP:
Kirsten, at long last, I’m Philip,
this is my top man Sandy ... I can call you Kirsten? You give such good fax I
feel I almost know you, anyway formalities are totally inefficient. Whoever
said ‘manners cost nothing’ never had to play hard ball across eight time zones
with the Tokyo stock exchange.

SANDY:
Those guys are tough.

PHILIP:
Terry
tough! By the time you’ve said ‘greetings honourable colleagues’
they’ve bought your company, miniaturized your lawn mower and eaten your
goldfish.

KIRSTEN:
Phil, Sand, let me tell you
something about me. People tend to address me in one of two ways — it’s either
‘Kirsten’, or ‘that tough bitch’, you can have it whichever, whichways,
whatever way you want it.

PHILIP
(laughing):
I think we’re going to get along just fine Kirsty.

KIRSTEN:
When you come to Image Control, you
come to the best. The media is a minefield of no-talent, sad-act companies
whose address is a portable fax machine on the back seat of a Mini Metro.

PHILIP:
Exactly.

KIRSTEN:
You do
not
require some
member-munching mincer with a Design Centre security laminate on his tit ...
(PHILIP
grunts with exasperated recognition)
a Marks and Spencer crudité
dip in the saddle bag of his ten-speed racer
(again
PHILIP
understands)
and an ad concept featuring a basking iguana, an enigmatic male model and
no mention whatsoever of the actual product because that would be naff.

PHILIP:
God, you’ve met them too?

KIRSTEN:
You’ve come to us because we empty
shelves.

PHILIP:
That’s what the word is on the
streets. I play squash with a guy from Imperial Biscuits who says you brought
the Jammy Dodger back from the
dead.

KIRSTEN:
I had a small, chemically produced
biscuit with a blob of red sticky stuff in the middle of it and my cute little
ass was on the
line.
Imperial had given me a
donger
of a budget
to push the Jammy Dodger up market, get it out of the tuck shop and into the
executive dining room.

PHILIP:
It was inspired, I’ll never forget
it, Penelope Keith pushing the wafer mints away ...
(plummy voice)
‘Pass
a Dodger, Roger.’

SANDY:
Brilliant casting, Nigel Havers as
Roger was just
so
stylish.

KIRSTEN:
Disappointing in bed, surprisingly.

PHILIP:
Hmm, yes, well anyway ... Sandy, I
believe you’ve accessed Kirsty on the relevant base-line information and she’s
Suck and Blow compatible.

KIRSTEN
(gathering her visual aids
together):
Sandy’s good Phil, very good.

PHILIP:
Believe me he’s being groomed. Now
then Kirsty I’m not going to pussyfoot around here, I  respect you too much and
know you have no time for feet in your pussy so tell me, how do you feel about
Suck and Blow?

KIRSTEN: Suck and Blow is the most exciting product I’ve encountered
since the Pot Noodle.

PHILIP: Did you hear that Sandy? Rendezvous with destiny or what!
This lady worked on the Pot Noodle!

KIRSTEN: My first job ... ‘Put on the kettle, Gretel.’

SANDY: ‘Fill my pot, Dot.’

KIRSTEN
(touched):
You remember it.

PHILIP:
I feel
very
good about this
project, let’s have
lunch!

SANDY:
Uhm, perhaps we should ask Kirsten if
she’s had any time to come up with some ideas yet?

PHILIP:
Oh come on Sandy! You’ve only just
accessed here.

KIRSTEN:
I like to work fast Phil, I toyed
for a while with ‘share my air, Claire’ but I think it’s time to go radical ...
Let me run this by-line past you ... ‘Other people’s air, it’ll get right up
your nose.

(Short pause,
they are thrilled.)

SANDY:
It’s ... brilliant! quite brilliant! PHILIP:
There’s a rare and savage beauty to your copy Kirsty.

KIRSTEN
(briskly assembling story boards,
presentation portfolios etc):
I’d want to use the
fellow who does the Creamy Churn Dairy Spread voice-overs, he turned round
their whole campaign with that quiet, sinister way he has ...

(Hits a
button, we hear a tape  
)

TAPE:
‘Half
the
calories of butter or margarine, but
all
the buttery taste ...

PHILIP
(excited):
I buy the damn stuff myself! ...
(correcting himself)
I mean
it always seems to be in the fridge ... I’ve got this absolute treasure, I’d
probably look totally
Biafran
without her.

KIRSTEN
(hands over designer folder):
You’ll find the text on blue ... We saturate local radio for a fortnight,
classic rock and current affairs stations only of course — not a lot of point
pitching to some twelve-year-old heavy metal fan whose testicles are still
somewhere in the region of his armpits.

PHILIP:
With you on that. What about the
Telly?

KIRSTEN:
I’ve been thinking hard about
television ... Let’s try a little word association game Philip, just for the
fun of it, throw me back your instant reactions OK ... Class.

PHILIP
(instant list):
Bogart, Chivas Regal, Sergeant Pepper, Harley Davidson, Johann
Amadeus Bach, mist on a moonlit lake, friendship.

KIRSTEN:
You missed something out Philip.

PHILIP:
I did?

KIRSTEN:
Sandy?

SANDY:
Suck and Blow?

KIRSTEN:
Exactly.

PHILIP
(short pause, slightly miffed):
Hmm, yes well, I rather thought that went without saying.

KIRSTEN:
Nothing goes without saying in
advertising Philip, think of Coca Cola. We all
know
it adds life and is
the real thing, we don’t need reminding that it unites the world, and you can’t
beat the feeling ...

SANDY:
It really is an incredibly now
beverage.

KIRSTEN:
Exactly, but if their agency had
made the mistake of imagining those things went without saying, we’d be still
under the illusion that Coke was just a sweet, sticky drink that can completely
dissolve a tooth inside twenty-two hours.

PHILIP:
I hope you’re listening to all this
Sandy. Because you’re interjecting on a grade ‘A’ marketing seminar.

KIRSTEN:
OK let’s move onto the actual TV
time slots. I’m thinking of a sophisticated restaurant scenario here, we’re
talking real ...