'Up your Pavement'
The sketch:
A high street. Musical theme played on a banjo � la `Steptoe and Son'
opening. Cut to a tracking shot of two tramps walking jauntily along. They are
very arch, over-the-top jolly fellows. They nod at the occasional passer-by and
do mock bows to a city gent.
CAPTION: Up Your Pavement
CAPTION: By the Rev. and Mrs A. G. Phipps
CAPTION: From an idea by Lord Carrington
They come to a litter bin, root in it, and one of them produces a
newspaper. He hands it to the other, looks in again and brings out a pork pie.
He looks in again, his eyes light up, and he produces a bottle of champagne. He
passes it to his mate. He looks in again and finds two highly polished glasses.
Meanwhile over all this and as they set off down the road together we
hear:
- Voice Over (Michael)
- Taking life as it comes, sharing the good things and the bad things,
finding laughter and fun wherever they go -- it is with these two
happy-go-lucky rogues that our story begins. (by this time the tramps have
walked out of shot; cut to a shot of a sports car up on the pavement with the
legs of the two tramps sticking out from underneath; the music turns more
urgent and transatlantic) For it is they who were run over by Alex Diamond
... (appropriate music; a James Bond character climbs out of the car and
looks down at the dead tramps) international crime fighter ... (shot of
him rushing into a film premi�re past photographers with flashing bulbs)
and playboy ... (cut to him on yacht) fast-moving ... tough-talking ...
(still of him with Henry Kissenger; cut to him striding down a street)
and just one of the many hundreds of famous people who suffer from lumbago, the
epidemic disease about which no one knows more than this man ... (we see him
go into a doorway; cut to a low angle close up of Dr Koning donning gloves
prior to the operation; the music changes to the Kildare theme) Dr Emile
Koning ... doctor ... surgeon ... proctologist ... and selfless fighter against
human suffering, whose doorbell (cut to a doorbell and pan down) was the
one above the hero of our story tonight ... (pan down to find the doorbell
and name) Rear-Admiral Humphrey De Vere! (the door opens and the
rear-admiral comes striding out; naval music; he walks up the road) Yes!
This is the story of Rear-Admiral Humphrey De Vere ... or rather, the story of
his daughter ... (cut to a still of a young inspired and devoted nurse; the
music instantly changes to the heroic) For it was her courage, foresight
and understanding that enabled us to probe beneath the sophisticated veneer of
... (mix to impressive college grounds) the Royal Arsenal Women's
College, Bagshot ... (zoom in across lawns towards the college building)
and learn the true story of this man ... (the camera suddenly veers off away
from college and homes in on a solitary bush from which appears a seedy fellow
in a terrible lightweight suit of several years ago that has got all stained
and creased around the crutch) Len Hanky! Chiropodist, voyeur, hen-teaser.
The man of whom the chairman of Fiat once said...
- Chairman (Eric)
- Che cosa � lo succiacatori do polli?
CAPTION: What is a hen-teaser?
The phone rings. He answers it dynamically and we zoom in on his tense,
alert, executive face.
- Voice Over
- Yes! Tonight we examine the career of Gino Agnelli! The man who started
from nothing to build up one of the greatest firms in Europe. (mix through
to stock film of a big car-producing plant) And whose telescope was bought
from the shop part-owned by a man who, at the age of eight, stole a penknife
from the son of this man's brother's housekeeper's dental hygienist's uncle.
(as each of these things is mentioned we see a momentary flash of a still of
each) The Reverend Charlie `Drooper' Hyper-Squawk Smith (at this point
the freeze frame starts moving as the chaplain lifts himself out of the cockpit
and jumps down beside his Spitfire) the cleft-palated RAF chaplain, who
single-handed shot down over five hundred German chaplains. (smiling
cheerfully he crosses off another emblem of a vicar in a German helmet on the
side of the plane. Beside this is written ``Here we come Kraut'' Luke 17, verse
3) This is the story of the men who flew with him ... it really is!
Continue on to the next sketch...
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Series 4 Scripts