Neville Shunt’s latest West End Success, “It all Happened on the 11.20 from Hainault to Redhill via Horsham and Reigate, calling at Carshalton Beeches, Malmesbury, Tooting Bec and Croydon West,” is currently appearing at the Limp Theatre, Piccadilly. What Shunt is doing in this, as in his earlier nine plays, is to express the human condition in terms of British Rail. Some people have made the mistake of seeing Shunt’s work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables, but clever people like me who talk loudly in restaurants see this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for understanding in a mechanised mansion. The points are frozen, the beast is dead. What is the difference? What indeed is the point? The point is frozen, the beast is late out of Paddington. The point is taken. If La Fontaine’s elk would spurn Tom Jones the engine must be our head, the dining car our oesophagus, the guards van our left lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first class compartment the piece of skin at the nape of the neck and the level crossing an electric elk called Simon. The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? Over there in a box. Shunt is saying the 8.15 from Gillingham when in reality he means the 8.13 from Gillingham. The train is the same, only the time is altered. Ecce homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew its sister and knew her bloody well. The point is taken, the beast is moulting, the fluff gets up your nose. The illusion is complete; it is reality, the reality is illusion and the ambiguity is the only truth. But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box? No, there isn’t room, the ambiguity has put on weight. The point is taken, the elk is dead, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol stops at nothing, I’m having treatment and La Fontaine can get knotted.
This is getting rather silly.
Mm-hm. Crucifixion party. 'Morning. Now, we will be on a show as we go through the town, so let’s not let the side down. Keep in a good, straight line, three lengths between you and the man in front, and a good, steady pace. Crosses over your left shoulders, and, if you keep your backs hard up against the crossbeam, you’ll be there in no time.
She’s a good Sheila, Bruce, and not at all stuck up.
Yes, yes, yes. You can move a little bit. Yes. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so dogmatic when I came in. Obviously you can all move a little within reason. There are certain involuntary muscular movements which no amount of self-control can prevent. And obviously any assertion of authority on my part, I’ve got to take that into account.
Aren’t you going to say something about ‘mine aren’t but the Big Cheese gets his at low tide tonight’?
'Ello 'ello 'ello - what’s all this, then?
I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must cross this bridge.
Pointed sticks? Ho, ho, ho. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I’ll tell you something my lad. When you’re walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don’t come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit. When your assailant lunges at you with a passion fruit, thus…
The BBC would like to apologize for the poor quality of the writing in that sketch. It is not BBC policy to get easy laughs with words like bum, knickers, botty or wee-wees…
Sssssh!
No, no, no, my fish’s name is Eric, Eric the fish. He’s an halibut.
Venezuelan Beaver Cheese?
Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
In Nova Scotia today, Mr. Roy Bent of North Walsham in Norfolk became the first man to cross the Atlantic on a tricycle. His tricycle, specially adapted for the crossing, was ninety feet long, with a protective steel hull, three funnels, seventeen first-class cabins and a radar scanner. Mr. Bent is in our Durham studios, which is rather unfortunate as we’re all down here in London. And in London I have with me Mr. Ludovic Grayson, the man who scored all six goals in Arsenal’s 1-0 victory over the Turkish Champions FC Botty.
(Go Arsenal!)
Thank God for that. For one ghastly moment I thought I was… too late. If only more people would call in the nick of time.
No-time Toulouse. The story of the wild and lawless days of the post-Impressionists.
I chose him out of the thousands, I didn’t like the others, they were all too flat.
iOS 7, anyone?
Having once identified a mason immediate steps must be taken to isolate him from the general public. Having accomplished that it is now possible to cure him of these unfortunate masonic tendencies through the use of behavioural psychotherapy.
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. 'E’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!
Your highness, when I said that you are like a stream of bat’s piss, I only mean that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around it is dark.