Comedy - I Want to Read My Boucicault (I Want to Read My Book)

I WANT TO READ MY BOUCICAULT

(I WANT TO READ MY BOOK)

This was a collaborative effort. I came up with the dialogue, which was deliberately stilted in a terribly self-aware acknowledgement of the sketch's strained dash for the punchline. Feeling that it lacked visual interest, Dan Smith added the business with the blackboard (or, as it turned out, flipchart).

It was staged in Wadham Theatre in Oxford as part of CUP's More Than Just Chicken revue. Proctor was played by Mat Page, and Gamble by Russell Dewhurst. Mat and Russell added an extra layer of embellishment in the form of pantomime body language and facial expressions. These are not reproduced here.

I WANT TO READ MY BOUCICAULT (I WANT TO READ MY BOOK)

Text by Philip Purser-Hallard
Visual aids by Dan Smith

[Enter PROCTOR and GAMBLE. They are normal, but fake and fraudulent and mere devices of the sketch, poor things. There is a blackboard, or similar display thing behind them, unobtrusively. They sit down and begin to chat.]

PROCTOR: My uncle died the other day.

GAMBLE: Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that.

[He turns and acknowledges the audience, and raises one finger of his left hand, and with that same hand, reaches into his pockets and gets out a piece of chalk or a marker pen, depending upon the species of display object behind him. He gets up and crosses to the board. PROCTOR follows him. GAMBLE writes UNCLE on the board, then crosses it out and writes NOW DEAD next to it. As he writes:]

Uncle: now dead. Did he leave you anything in his will?

PROCTOR: Yes, he left me his entire book collection.

GAMBLE: He left you his entire book collection? [Finger. Pen. He draws one book.] Was there a lot of it?

PROCTOR: Yes, an awful lot of it.

[GAMBLE writes X 4000 next to the book]

But I gave most of it away.

GAMBLE: You gave most of it away?

[He immediately crosses out the 000]

PROCTOR: Yes, that's right. I gave most of it away. The only things I kept were the Complete Plays of Dion Boucicault and the psychological works of Carl Gustav Jung.

GAMBLE: The Complete Plays of Dion Boucicault and the psychological works of Carl Gustav Jung?

[He crosses out the 4 and writes 2 above it, and writes BOUCICAULT and JUNG as well] Why did you keep those?

PROCTOR: Well, you know how sexually frustrated I've been feeling lately.

GAMBLE: Yes, I do know how sexually frustrated you've been feeling lately.

[He draws a bed, then crosses it out, then a sad ‘smiley’ next to it]

PROCTOR: Well, within a day of my giving away all of my uncle's book collection [GAMBLE indicates for the audience] except for the Complete Plays of Dion Boucicault and the psychological works of Carl Gustav Jung [GAMBLE indicates], twelve separate women offered to go to bed with me.

GAMBLE: Twelve separate women? Offered to go to bed with you?

[PROCTOR nods. GAMBLE looks doubtful. PROCTOR nods more. GAMBLE shrugs, and totally scribbles out the sad face, and draws a hugely grinning face, then X 12 next to it, and a sweeping arrow to the bed.]

PROCTOR: Yes, twelve separate women.

GAMBLE: How astonishing. And why did that happen?

[GAMBLE draws a rather large and thick ? over most of the board]

PROCTOR: Well, you know what they say.

GAMBLE: [Wee pause] No, I don't know what they say.

PROCTOR: Yes, you do know what they say, you must do.

GAMBLE: [Searches his brain hesitatingly] No, in fact I don't know what they say, and I'm becoming increasingly desperate to be told. What is it that they say?

PROCTOR: [Produces his own pen, and demonstrates for all with the pictures] ‘Keep Jung and Boucicault, if you want to be loved.’

GAMBLE: Oh yes, I remember.

[They look at each other for a moment, then at the audience, then exeunt rapidly.]

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