Friday 16 August 2013

Digression: The White Queen, Episode 7

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee'll caper and he'll frolic
As if he had the cholic
He'll die an alcoholic
It's George of Clarence (boooooooo)

Edward: I'm pished again, an' me wife's havin' another thingy. Y'know. Baby. Hurrah! [falls off Jane Shore]
Stanley: Indeed sir.
Clarence: [Smoulders]
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Elizabeth: AAARGH! CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT MUMMY!
Margaret: Ma'am?
Elizabeth: IF YOU WAN'T TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL, GO AND GET A JAR OF ELBOW GREASE.
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Stanley: Wassup Mags?
Margaret: Been sent on a fool's errand, but at least gives me an opportunity to measure the pillows in the royal nursery.You know, in case that should ever come in handy...
Stanley: Righty-ho.
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Clarence: Look at you.
Edward: I know, gorgsheoush, aren't I? [falls off Jane Shore again]
Clarence: We didn't fight a war just so we could have a good time.
Edward: Oh yesh we did. [hic]
Clarence: Oh no we didn't.
Frodo: Oh for pity's sake, when did this turn into bad panto?
Omnes: Episode 1!
Clarence: Look, why don't we invade France? Then I can rule something instead of standing in a corner looking pissed-off all the time.
Edward: Good idea. Bugger off to Franshe then. [falls over]
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Margaret: God? Me again. Please can you give me sign I was right to come here?
Flustered lady-in-waiting: Come quickly. The baby's stuck.
Margaret: Cheers God! [High-fives crucifix, jitterbugs down corridor]
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Elizabeth: AAAAAAAAAARGH! [Plop]
Random lady-in-waiting: Oi! Beaufort! Hold this... [squelch]
Elizabeth: Why isn't he crying?
Margaret: Because I'm so good with kids? [Baby starts wailing in instinctive Yorkist terror]
Elizabeth: Oh thank you! Thank you *so* much! Thank you so, SO much, thank you -
Margaret: Hush, fool.
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Frodo: Anne - now we've suddenly acquired a baby, I've brought someone to see you.
Anne: Oh no, not your mother!
Frodo: Worse. *Your* mother.
Anne: FROH-DOH!?!?!? What WERE you thinking?
Frodo: I was thinking I could briefly explain c15th inheritance law with an emphasis on why my brother George is a Bad Egg.
Anne: Whoopy-doo.
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Countess: Set me free, why don't you, baby?
Anne: Oh for pity's sake mum - last time it was Gloria Gaynor, now you've turned into Diana Ross.
Countess: Your husband is trying to steal my fortune.
Anne: If memory serves me right, you were the one who left me on a battlefield with an incomprehensible French running gag.
Frodo: Yes, and you married her to a psychotic Lancastrian emu.
Anne: [whispers] It's e-MO, Frodo.
Frodo: That too. Always get those two mixed up. Although come to think of it a running gag about an enraged Lancastrian emu would be pretty funny too.
Countess: Been done. Can we get back to the point?
Frodo: Which is that you're actually safer here, oddly enough. Otherwise the king could have you declared dead.
Countess: Dead?
Frodo: It's a legal nicety by which your head is no longer considered legally part of your body.
Countess: Charming! Anne - won't you stand by me?
Anne: Now you're doing Ben E. King! What IS the matter with you? I'll stand by Frodo. At least he doesn't keep referencing Motown[1] lyrics.
Countess: Shite.
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Clarence: ... and he thinks he's safe because he has sons. Princes. In the tower. And we're setting this up as some sort of Agatha Christie-style whodunnit where we all have a motive.
Isabelle: George? Are you talking to the baby or the viewers?
Clarence: What viewers?
Isabelle: Fair point.
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Edward: Get the lads out!
Extras: OO-ARH!
Edward: We will invade thingy. Franshe.
Extras: OOOO-*AAAAAAAAAAARH!*
[Edward falls over, Anthony Woodville strops off shaking his head, being the only one who's read up about the 1475 campaign on Wikipedia]
Elizabeth: What ARE you doing?
Edward: You know. Ladsh night out. 'Ave a few bevvies, start a war.
Elizabeth: And consider the geopolitical realities of making George regent of France.
Edward: What'sh that noishe? [hic]
Elizabeth: Margaret Beaufort's ears flapping.
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French lookout: English ships sir! Added by CGI!
[King of France shakes head sadly and wanders off]
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Margaret [typing e-mail]: Dear Jasper and Henry (TUDOR, THAT IS), having a rotten time, hope the invasion fails, weather continues fine, hate this baby. May murder him one day. Love and kisses, Mum.
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Anne: How's *your* son of York?
Isabelle: Still Mr Grumpyboots. Still, when I have a son everything's gonna be alright.
Anne: Ah well, I suppose Bob Marley is am improvement on Motown...
Elizabeth: What are you two talking about? Any news from France?
Isabelle: George writes that he hopes I'll bear a son. Then Anne and I will have one each.
Elizabeth: My mother had 14 so NA-NA-NEE-NA-NA!
Anne and Isabelle, in unison: Shite.
Elizabeth: Margaret, you're the one with the flappy ears and the VOD remote control, what did they say?
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Isabelle: She cursed me! She's a witch! That storm was her fault! If I have another girl it will be her fault!
Anne: So what you're saying is that witchcraft is the only rational explanation for storms around the British Isles and girls being born? Duh!
Isabelle: Look, if your husband can rule the North from 100 miles away in Warwick, ANYTHING's possible!
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George: Let's get stuck in!
Edward: Louis is prepared to make us an offer. Let's talk.
George: We came here to make me regent!
Edward: Oh no we didn't!
George: Oh yes we did!
Frodo: Please, not this again...
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Frodo [typing e-mail]: Dear Anne, It appears Edward is only in France for the Duty Free. George is furious. It is all, as your family would put it, shite. Love and slightly lopsided hugs, Frodo.
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Anne: Look what Edward's sent!
Frodo: Gold. He tries to buy me off. And it's not even made into a ring. From now on it's every man for himself.
Anne: And his wife?
[Frodo stalks off grimly without replying] 
Anne: Shite.
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Countess: Richard is going to divorce you.
Anne: But he luuuuuuuuuuurves me.
Countess: Look, when a man loves a woman...
Anne: Percy Sledge, yeah [1]. What's your point?
Countess: Leave him. It'll be you and me and all our fortune.
Anne: But I lurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrve him.
Countess: Shite.
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Stanley: My Lords, Ladies and Gentleman - please raise your glasses, even though they haven't been introduced yet, to the King and Queen. And make sure your mobile phones are switched to silent. In the unlikely event of a sudden loss of castle pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the roof...
[Clarence knocks glass over and stormed out]
Elizabeth: ED-WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD! DO SOMETHING!
Edward: I'll get mother to talk to him.
Elizabeth: You might as well send him more money for wine.
Edward: So it's mumsy or malmsey? See what I did there?
[Elizabeth storms out in a huff]
Edward: Shite.
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Clarence: Look. That witch has poisoned my 18-year old arthritic dog.
Frodo: Obviously. What other possible cause could there be? Duh.
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Isabelle [typing e-mail]: Yo Anne - The Queen is trying to poison us. George has hired someone he got through www.welldodgysorcerers.com to protect us. What could possibly go wrong? Apart from all of us dying? Love and portentous coughing, Izzy.
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Anne: How is she?
Clarence: Dead.
Anne: As Margaret of Clouseau once put it "Eau beur heur heur..."
Clarence: I did quite fancy her, you know.
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Countess: Is it true?
Anne: Yes. How can you be so calm?
Countess: Take a good look at my face. You'll see my smile looks out of place; if you were closer it's easy to trace the tracks of my tears.
Anne: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, yeah.[2]
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Clarence: Damn and blast you, Edward. With a special side order of more damn. And a flagon of blast. And an assortment for damn-and-blast flavoured chocolates for your witchy wife. [storms out]
Elizabeth: ED-WAAAAAAAAARD! Your brother is accusing me of being a witch.If you don't do something, I will.
Edward: Such as?
Elizabeth: I'll put a curse on him.
Edward: And how will that help to allay suspicion of witchcraft?
Elizabeth: Oh.
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Elizabeth: Oi! Nevill! Over here.
Anne: Your grace?
Elizabeth: Did George say I murdered Izzy?
Anne: Erm, well...
Margaret: So that's a yes.
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Stanley: All going splendidly, eh old girl?
Margaret: A young woman has died. I'm so pious I can't show any pleasure.
Stanley: So who did kill her?
Margaret: Probably that bloke from welldodgysorcerers.com. Apparently he gave her a protecting potion made of a mixture of lead, arsenic, hemlock and bacardi breezer.
Stanley: Most probably the bacardi that did her in then.
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Edward: Stanley - you have clearance to arrest Clarence.
Stanley: Righty-ho!
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Stanley: Bugger. Missed him. Still, got the well dodgy sorcerer. Guards - hand him over to the Trade Description Hangman!
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Masked actor: Come ye and praise him, our glorious King/He's done it through witchcraft and Frodo's gold ring/A drunk and a shagger, what man wanteth more?/He still at the top and he's bonking Jane Shore!
Elizabeth: ED-WAAAAAAAAAAAARD! Where did you hire these guys?
Edward: I thought you hired them.
Elizabeth: Let's have a look at the programme - "The Duke of Clarence's Theatre Company". Oh.
Anne (in gazelle mask): Richard?
Clarence (in bull mask): Actually it's me.
Anne: You shouldn't be here.
Clarence: Well, neither should barrel dude.
Man in lion mask: Eve-nen!
George: THE QUEEN IS A WITCH! THE KING IS A MURDERER! AND HE ONLY WEARS ONE SPAULDER!
Edward: He's gone mad. Frodo- get him.
Frodo: He's right about the spaulder bit though.
Elizabeth: FROH-DOH!
Frodo: Going after him now. Look, this is me running...
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Clarence (behind bars): ED-WAAAAAAARD!?
Elizabeth: You *have* to get rid of him.
Edward: OK, I'll prosecute him for treason.
Duchess: Oh my poor Georgy-Porgy.
Anne: FROH-DOH? This is the Queen's doing.
Frodo: We are the three sons of York. How can one woman get between us?
Anne: Well if you form an equilateral triangle, and the woman stands in the middle, then...
Duchess: Hush, fool.
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Elizabeth: Margaret, have you ever known loss?
Margaret: Are you kidding? I've buried two husbands. One of them wasn't even dead.Or at least it was hard to tell the difference....
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Elizabeth: How about if George says he's really, *really* sorry and promises not to do it again, will you let him off?
Edward: Can't.
Duchess: Must.
Edward: Shan't.
Duchess: Shite.
Edward: Look - as a special concession he can choose how to die.
Duchess: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! But he's my ickle-wickle poosie-kins.
Edward: Tough.
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Anthony: He's going to be drowned in a barrel of malmsey.
Elizabeth: He's doing it to punish us. That was Edward's duty-free.
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Stanley: Good news - Edward's going to let Henry Tudor be Earl of Richmond again.
Margaret: Whoopy-doo! Do they fear he will be a rival?
Stanley: Well if he is someone will have to get rid of the King, the two princes, Frodo and *his* son.
Margaret: [Scribbles in notebook] .... and Edward of Middleham, so called because they live at Warwick castle. Cheers!
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[1] The Armed Man is fully aware that neither Ben E. King nor Gloria Gaynor nor Percy Sledge were Motown artists. But compared to c15th people having c19th glassware and drainpipes, c18th trousers, c20th zips and c14th pointy helmets this is considered a minor liberty.
[2] Now they *were* hard-core Motown.

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