MRS. THING AND MRS. ENTITY/ BEETHOVEN'S MYNAH BIRD/ SHAKESPEARE/ MICHELANGELO/ COLIN MOZART (RATCATCHER)

  

Fade into a bench in a public park, garden or square. A pepperpot is sitting on the bench. Another pepperpot comes by pushing a shopping trolley.

 Mrs. Thing and Mrs. Entity

First Pepperpot: (E.I.) Hello, Mrs. Thing.

 

Second Pepperpot: (G.C.) Hello, Mrs. Entity.

 

First Pepperpot: How are you then?

 

Second Pepperpot: Oh, I have had a morning.

 

First Pepperpot: Busy?

 

Second Pepperpot: Busy - huh! I got up at five o'clock, I made myself a cup of tea, I looked out of the window. Well, by then I was so worn out I had to come and have a sit-down. I've been here for seven hours.

 

First Pepperpot: You must be exhausted.

 

Second Pepperpot: Mm. Oh, have you been shopping?

 

First Pepperpot: No. I've been shopping.

 

Second Pepperpot: Funny.

 

First Pepperpot: I'm worn out. I've been shopping for six hours.

 

Second Pepperpot: What have you bought, then?

 

First Pepperpot: Nothing. Nothing at all. A complete waste of time.

 

Second Pepperpot: Wicked, isn't it?

 

First Pepperpot: Wicked. It'll be worse when we join the Common Market.

 

Second Pepperpot: That nice Mr. Heath would never allow that.

 

First Pepperpot: It's funny he never married.

 

Second Pepperpot: He's a bachelor.

 

First Pepperpot: Ooooh! That would explain it, Oh dear me, this chatting away wears me out.

 

Second Pepperpot: Yes. I bet Mrs. Reginald Maudling doesn't have to put up with all this drudgery, getting up at five in the morning, making a cup of tea, looking out of the window, chatting away.

 

First Pepperpot: No! It'd all be done for her.

 

Second Pepperpot: Yes, she'd have the whole day free for playing snooker.

 

First Pepperpot: She probably wouldn't go through all the drudgery of playing snooker, day in, day out.

 

Second Pepperpot: No, it would all be done for her. She wouldn't even have to lift the cue.

 

First Pepperpot: She probably doesn't even know where the billiard room is.

 

Second Pepperpot: No, still, it's not as bad as the old days. Mrs. Stanley Baldwin used to have to get up at five o'clock in the morning and go out and catch partridges with her bare hands.

 

First Pepperpot: Yes... and Mrs. William Pitt the Elder used to have to get up at three o'clock and go burrowing for truffles with the bridge of her nose.

 

Second Pepperpot: Mrs. Beethoven used to have to get up at midnight to spur on the mynah bird.

 

First Pepperpot: Lazy creatures, mynah birds,..

 

Second Pepperpot: Yes. When Beethoven went deaf the mynah bird just used to mime.

 

The picture begins to wobble as in flashback; appropriate dreamy music effect.

 

First Pepperpot: (looking at camera) Ooh! What's happening?

 

Second Pepperpot: It's all right. It's only a flashback.

 

Cut to Beethoven's living room. A model mynah bird is opening and shutting its beak. Beethoven is sitting at the piano.  

 Beethoven and the mynah bird

Beethoven: (J.C.) You don't fool me, you stupid mynah bird. I'm not deaf yet.

 

Mynah: Just you wait... ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! (Beethoven pulls a revolver and shoots the bird which falls to the ground) Oh! Bugger...

 

Beethoven: Shut up!

  

Mynah: Right in the wing.

 

Beethoven: Shut your beak. Gott in Himmel... I never get any peace here.

 

He plays the first few notes of the fifth symphony, trying vainly to get the last note. Mrs. Beethoven enters.

 

Mrs. Beethoven: (G.C.) Ludwig!

 

Beethoven: What?

 

Mrs. Beethoven: Have you seen the sugar bowl?

 

Beethoven: No, I haven't seen the bloody sugar bowl.

 

Mrs. Beethoven: You know ... the sugar bowl.

 

Beethoven: Sod the sugar bowl... I'm trying to finish this stinking tune! It's driving me spare ... so shut up! (she leaves; he goes into opening bars of 'Washington Post March) No, no, no, no, no.

 

Mrs. Beethoven comes back in.

 

Mrs. Beethoven: Ludwig, have you seen the jam spoon?

 

Beethoven: Stuff the jam spoon!

 

Mrs. Beethoven: It was in the sugar bowl.

 

Beethoven: Look, get out you old rat-bag. Buzz off and shut up.

 

Mrs. Beethoven: I don't know what you see in that piano. (she goes)

 

Beethoven: Leave me alone!! ... (gets the first eight notes right at last) ... Ha! ha! ha! I've done it, I've done it!

 

Mrs. Beethoven comes in again.

 

Mrs. Beethoven: Do you want peanut butter or sandwich spread for your tea?

 

Beethoven: What!!!!

 

Mrs. Beethoven: PEANUT BUTTER...

 

Beethoven: I've forgotten it. (plays a few wrong notes) I had it! I had it!

 

Mrs. Beethoven: Do you want peanut butter or sandwich spread?

 

Beethoven: I don't care!!

 

Mrs. Beethoven: Ooooh! I don't know. (she goes out)

 

Beethoven: I had it. I had it you old bag. (at the same moment as he gets it right again, the door flies open and Mrs. Beethoven charges in with a very load vacuum) Mein lieber Gott. What are you doing? (a terrible clanking and banging comes from the wall) What's that! What's that!

 

Mrs. Beethoven: (still vacuuming loudly) It's the plumber!

 

A jarring ring of the doorbell adds to the din.

 

Beethoven: Gott in Himmel, I'm going out.

 

Mrs. Beethoven: Well, if you're going out don't forget we've got the Mendelssohns coming for tea so don't forget to order some pikelets.

 

Beethoven: Pikelets, pikelets. Shakespeare never had this trouble.

 

Shakespeare washing up at a sink present day.

 Shakespeare

Shakespeare: (E.I.) You wanna bet? Incidentally, its da-da-da-dum, da-da-da-dum.

 

Cut back to Beethoven. 

 

Beethoven: You're right. Oh, incidentally, why not call him Hamlet?

 

Cut back to Shakespeare

 

Shakespeare: Hamlet I like much better than David. (he shouts through open window next to sink) Michelangelo! You can use David. I won't sue

 

Cut to Michelangelo's studio. Michelangelo is in middle of feeding and looking after at least six screaming little babies. His statue of David is in the foreground.

 

Michelangelo: (T.J.) Thanks, but I've had a better idea.

 

Camera pans down to show engraved on plinth beneath statue the words 'Michelangelo's Fifth Symphony'.

 

Wife: (G.C.) (off-screen) Michelangelo!

 

Michelangelo: Yes, dear!

 

Wife: I've had another son.

 

Michelangelo: Oh, my life.

 

Cut to Mozart. He is scrubbing the floor.

 

Caption: 'W. A. MOZART'

 

Mozart: (M.P.) (Jewish accent) Composer? Huh! I wouldn't wish it on my son. He's a sensitive boy, already. I'd rather he was a sewage attendant or a rat catcher.  

 Colin Mozart (Ratcatcher)

Cut to street with old-fashioned shops. Exterior. Camera tracks in to a shop front with a large sign outside: 'Rodent Exterminating Boutique - Colin "Chopper" Mozart (Son Of Composer) Ratcatcher To The Nobility And Ordinary People, Too - Ici On Parle Portugaise'. At the door of shop stands Colin Mozart. A kid runs up to him bearing a long cleft stick, Mozart takes the note from the cleavage and reads it.

 

Colin Mozart: (M.P.) Aha! Rats at 42a Kartoffelnstrasse. Hey Mitzi! I gotta go to Potato Street.

 

Mitzi: (off-screen) Put your galoshes on.

 

Mozart leaps on to a bike carrying two shrimp-nets, and rides off.

 

Superimposed caption: 'MUNICH 1821'

 

Colin Mozart: (shouting) Depressed by rats? Do mice get you down? Then why not visit Colin Mozart's Rodent Extermination Boutique. Rats extirpated, mice punished, voles torn apart by Colin Mozart, Munich's leading furry animal liquidator.

 

Colin Mozart cycles up to Beethoven's house. Outside is a notice board saying:

 

MR AND MRS EMMANUEL KANT

FRAU MITZI HANDGEPACKAUFBEWAHRUNG

MR DICKIE WAGNER

K. TYNAN (NO RELATION)

MR AND MRSJ. W. VON GOETHE AND DOG

HERR E. W. SWANTON

MR AND MRS P. ANKA

MR AND MRS LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTE

 

Caption: '13.4 SECONDS LATER'

 

Beethoven's front door is opened by Mrs. Beethoven.

 

Mrs. Beethoven: (G.C.) Yes?

 

Colin Mozart: Colin Mozart.

 

Mrs. Beethoven: Oh, thank goodness you've come. We're having a terrible time with them bleeding rats. I think they live in his stupid piano already.

 

They go into the house. We hear the first two bars of Beethoven's Fifth counterpointed by loud squeaking.

 

Beethoven's Voice: (J.C.) Get out the bloody piano you stupid furry bucktoothed gits! Get out! Gott in Himmel. Get your stinking tail out of my face.

 

Mrs. Beethoven opens the door and we see for the first time a strange sight. Rats are flying across the room (thrown from out of vision) others scuttle across floor (pulled by strings) others up wall. One sits on Beethoven's head. The squealing is deafening. Beethoven plays on relentlessly. Mozart and Mrs. Beethoven run into room and start trying to catch the rats with the shrimp-nets.

 

Caption: '13.4 MINUTES LATER'

Beethoven 

Colin Mozart is sitting on the piano. He rakes the rat-infested room with machine-gunfire.

 

Beethoven: Shut up!

 

The picture starts to wobble and mixes back to the two pepperpots.

 

Second Pepperpot: So anyway, Beethoven was rather glad when he went deaf.

 

Mix to Beethoven pushing the keys of the keyboard which is all that remains of his piano. He listens vainly. The mynah bird opens and shuts its beak. In the corner an old horn gramophone plays. We hear Jimmy Durante singing the end of 'I'm the guy that found the lost chord'.

 

   

 

   
 

Back to Season 2 index