Strangers in the Night

 

 

(Cut to bedroom of a middle-aged, middle-class wealthy couple. It is dark. They are both lying fast asleep on their backs. The husband is a colonel type with a moustache. The wife has her hair in curlers and face cream on. Someone climbs in through the window and pads across to the wife. He is a dapper little Frenchman in a beret and carrying a fench loaf. He kisses her on the forehead. She wakes.)

 

Maurice: Vera ... Vera ... darling! Wake up my little lemon. Come to my arms.

 

Vera: Maurice! What are you doing here?

 

Maurice: I could not keep away from you. I must have you all the time.

 

Vera: Oh this is most inconvenient.

 

Maurice: Don't talk to me about convenience, love consumes my naughty mind, I'm delirious with desire.

 

(He kisses her hand repeatedly. The husband wakes up with a start, sits bolt upright and looks straight ahead.)

 

Husband: What's that, Vera?

 

Vera: Oh nothing, dear. Just a trick of the light.

 

Husband: Righto (he goes straight to sleep again)

 

Vera: Phew! That was close.

 

Maurice: Now then my little banana, my little fruit salad, I can wait for you no longer. You must be mine utterly.

 

Vera: Oh, Maurice!

 

(Suddenly beside them appears a young public-school man in a check suit with a pipe.)

 

Roger: Vera! How dare you!

 

Vera: Roger!

 

Roger: What's the meaning of this?

 

Vera: Oh I can explain everything, my darling!

 

Roger: Who is this?

 

Vera: This is Maurice Zatapathique ... Roger Thompson ... Roger Thompsnn ... Maurice Zatapathique.

 

Maurice: How do you do.

 

Roger: How do you do ... (kneeling) How could you do this to me, Vera ... after all we've been through? Dammit, I love you.

 

Maurice: Vera! Don't you understand, it's me that loves you.

 

(The husband wakes up again.)

 

Husband: What's happening, Vera?

 

Vera: Oh, nothing dear. Just a twig brushing against the window.

 

Husband: Righto. (he goes back to sleep)

 

Roger: Come to me Vera!

 

Vera: Oh ... not now, Roger.

 

Maurice: Vera, my little hedgehog! Don't turn me away!

 

Vera: Oh it cannot be, Maurice.

 

(Enter Biggles. He wears flying boots, jacket and helmet as for First World War. He has a notice round his neck: 'Biggles'.)

 

Biggles: Hands off, you filthy bally froggie! (kneels by the bed)

 

Vera: Oh Ken, Ken Biggles!

 

Biggles: Yes, Algy's here as well.

 

Vera: Algy Braithwaite?

 

(Into the light comes Algy. Team streaming down his face. He wears a notice round his neck which reads: Algy's here as well.)

 

Algy: That's right... Vera ... (he chokes back the tears) Oh God you know we both still bally love you.

 

Vera: Oh Biggles! Algy. Oh, but how wonderful!

 

(She starts to cry. Husband wakes up again.)

 

Husband: What's happening, Vera?

 

Vera: Oh, er, nothing dear. It's just the toilet filling up.

 

Husband: Righto. (he goes fast asleep again)

 

(By this stage all the men have pulled up chairs in a circle around Vera's side of the bed. They are all chatting amongst themselves. Biggles is holding her hand. Maurice has produced a bottle of vin ordinaire. At this moment four Mexican musicans appear on the husband's side of the bed. The leader of the band nudges the husband, who wakes.)

 

Mexican: (reading from a scruffy bit of paper) Scusey... you tell me where is ... Mrs Vera Jackson ... please.

 

Husband: Yes ... right and right again.

 

Mexican: Muchas gracias...

 

Husband: Righto.

 

(He immediately goes back to sleep again. The Mexicans all troop round the bed and enter the group. The leader conducts them and they start up a little conga . . . once they've started he turns and comes over to Vera with a naughty glint in his eye. They play a guitar, a trumpet and maracas.)

 

Mexican: Oh Vera ... you remember Acapulco in the Springtime ...

 

Vera: Oh. The Herman Rodrigues Four!

 

(Suddenly the husband wakes up.)

 

Husband: Vera! (there is immediate silence) I distinctly heard a Mexican rhythm combo.

 

Vera: Oh no, dear... it was just the electric blanket switching off.

 

Husband: Hm. Well I'm going for a tinkle.

 

(He gets out of bed and disappears into the gloom.)

 

Vera: Oh no you can't do that. Here, we haven't finished the sketch yet!

 

Algy: Dash it all, there's only another bally page.

 

Roger: I say. There's no one to react to.

 

Maurice: Don't talk to the camera.

 

Roger: Oh sorry.

 

(Enter a huge man dressed as an Aztec god. He stretches arms open wide and is about to speak when owing to lack of money he is cut short by Vera.)

 

Vera: Here it's no good you coming in ... He's gone and left the sketch.

 

Biggles: Yes, he went for a tinkle.

 

(Cut to close-up of husband and a dolly bird with a lavatory chain hanging between them. She is about to pull the chain when he stops her.)

 

Husband: Sh! I think my wife is beginning to suspect something...

 

(Cut to animation of various strange and wonderful creatures saying to the effect:)

 

Hartebeeste: I thought that ending was a bit predictable.

 

Crocodile: (eating it) Yes indeed there was a certain lack of originality.

 

Ostrich: (eating the crocodile) However it's not necessarily a good thing just to be different.

 

A Lady: (emerging from hatch in ostrich) No, quite, there is equal humour in the conventional.

 

Pig: (eating ostrich) But on the other hand, is it what the public wants? I mean with the new permissiveness, not to mention the balance of payments. It's an undeniable fact that...

 

Coelocanth: (eating the pig) I agree with that completely.

 

Rodent: That's it... let's get out of this show before it's too late...