(Cut to an ordinary suburban living room. Mr and Mrs Jalin are
sitting on a sofa. The previous item in the show is visible on their TV set.
Mrs Jalin is stuffing a chicken. Mr Jalin is reading the telephone
directory. The picture changes and we hear voice from TV.)
Voice: The 'Nine O'Clock News' which was to follow has been
cancelled tonight so we can bring you the quarter final of the All
Essex Badminton Championship. Your commentator as usual is
Edna O'Brien.
Commentator: (Irish accent) Hullo fans. Begorra an' to be sure
there's some fine badminton down there in Essex this afternoon. We really...
(Mr Jalin picks up a jousting ball and chain and smashes the TV set.
There is a ring from the doorbell. Mr Jalin sits, Mrs Jalin goes to the
door, exits and comes back.)
Mrs Jalin: George.
Mr Jalin: Yes, Gladys.
Mrs Jalin: There's a man st the door with a moustache.
Mr Jalin: Tell him I've already got one. (Mrs Jalin hits him hard with a
newspaper) All right, all right. What's he want then?
Mrs Jalin: He says do we want a documentary on molluscs.
Mr Jalin: Molluscs!
Mrs Jalin: Yes.
Mr Jalin: What's he mean, molluscs?
Mrs Jalin: MOLLUSCS!! GASTROPODS! LAMELLIBRANCHS!
CEPHALOPODS!
Mr Jalin: Oh molluses, I thought you said bacon. (she hits him again) All
right, all right. What's he charge then?
Mrs Jalin: It's free.
Mr Jalin: Ooh! Where does he want us to sit?
Mrs Jalin: (calling through the door) He says yes.
(Mr Zorba enters carrying plywood flat with portion cut out to represent
TV. He stands behind flat and starts.)
Zorba: Good evening. Tonight molluscs. The mollusc is a
soft-bodied, unsegmented invertebrate animal usually protected by
a large shell. One of the most numerous groups of invertebrates, it
is exceeded in number of species only by the arthropods ... viz.
(he holds up a lobster)
Mrs Jalin: Not very interesting is it?
Zorba: What?
Mrs Jalin: I was talking to him.
Zorba: Oh. Anyway, the typical molluse, viz, a snail (holds one up)
consists of a prominent muscular portion... the head-foot...
a visceral mass and a shell which is secreted by the free edge of
the mantle.
Mrs Jalin: Dreadful isn't it?
Zorba: What?
Mrs Jalin: I was talking to him.
Zorba: Oh. Well anyway... in some molluses, however, viz, slugs, (holds
one up) the shell is absent or rudimentary...
Mr Jalin: Switch him off.
(Mrs Jalin gets up and looks for the switch unsuccessfully)
Zorba: Whereas in others, viz, cephalopods the head-foot is greatly
modified and forms tentacles, viz, the squid. (looking out) What are
you doing?
Mrs Jalin: Switching you off.
Zorba: Why, don't you like it?
Mrs Jalin: Oh it's dreadful.
Mr Jalin: Embarrassing.
Zorba: Is it?
Mrs Jalin: Yes, it's perfectly awful.
Mr Jalin: Disgraceful! I don't know how they've got the nerve to put it on.
Mrs Jalin: It's so boring.
Zorba: Well ... it's not much of a subject is it ... be fair.
Mrs Jalin: What do you think, George?
Mr Jalin: Give him another twenty seconds.
Zorba: Anyway the majority of the molluscs are included in three
large groups, the gastropods, the lamellibranchs and the
cephalopods...
MrsJalin: We knew that (she gets up and goes to the set)
Zorba: However, what is more interesting, er ... is the molluscs's er ... sex life.
Mrs Jalin: (stopping dead) Oh!
Zorba: Yes, the mollusc is a randy little fellow whose primitive brain
scarcely strays from the subject of the you know what.
Mrs Jalin: (going back to sofa) Disgusting!
Mr Jalin: Ought not to be allowed.
Zorba: The randiest of the gastropods is the limpet. This hot-blooded
little beast with its tent-like shell is always on the job. Its
extra-marital activities are something startling. Frankly I don't
know how the female limpet finds the time to adhere to the
rock-face. How am I doing?
Mrs Jalin: Disgusting.
Mr Jalin: But more interesting.
Mrs Jalin: Oh yes, tch, tch, tch.
Zorba: Another loose-living gastropod is the periwinkle. This shameless
little libertine with its characteristic ventral locomotion ... is not
the marrying kind: Anywhere anytime is its motto. Up with the
shell and they're at it.
Mrs Jalin: How about the lamellibranchs?
Zorba: I'm coming to them ... the great scallop (holds one up) ... this
tatty, scrofulous old rapist, is second in depravity only to the
common clam. (holds up a clam) This latter is a fight whore, a
harlot, a trollop, a cynical bed-hopping firm-breasted Rabelaisian
bit of sea food that makes Fanny Hill look like a dead Pope...
and finally among the lamellibranch bivalves, that most depraved of
the whole sub-species - the whelk. The whelk is nothing but a
homosexual of the worst kind. This gay boy of the gastropods, this
queer crustacean, this mincing mollusc, this screaming, prancing,
limp-wristed queen of the deep makes me sick.
Mrs Jalin: Have you got one?
Zorba: Here! (holds one up)
Mrs Julin: Let's kill it. Disgusting.
(Zorba throws it on the floor and Mr and Mrs Jalin stamp on it.)
Mr Jalin: That'll teach it. Well thank you for a very interesting
programme.
Zorba: Oh, not at all. Thank you.
Mrs Jalin: Yes, that was very nice.
Zorba: Thank you. (he shakes hands with her)
Mrs Jalin: Oh, thank you.
(Cut to a studio presenter at a desk.)
Series 3 Scripts