The Physicist
The Lion and the Adder: The Physicist Transcript
SCENE 1
[Inside a theatre atrium during the interval. Cheerful jazz music plays in the background throughout the scene. The auditorium doors open and the crowd come out, chatting happily, bringing Puddle and Robin with them.]
PUDDLE: Gosh, what a cliffhanger!
ROBIN: They know how to get you back for the second half, don't they? Fancy a G&T?
PUDDLE: I thought I might get an ice cream, actually.
ROBIN: Alright then. Off you go.
[pause]
ROBIN: [laughing] Don't look at me like that! I can't queue for the bar and for ice-cream at the same time. You're a big boy – buy your own.
PUDDLE: It doesn't taste as nice when I buy it! Oh, fine. Fine. I'll have a sidecar.
ROBIN: Puddle! You can't get a cocktail during the interval, look at the queue! They'll skin you alive.
PUDDLE: You're getting a cocktail!
ROBIN: [scoffs] A gin and tonic is not a cocktail. It's a… mixed drink. Nobody has to shake anything.
PUDDLE: Fine! Fine! I'll have a gin and tonic. But I shan't enjoy it.
ROBIN: [pouting] Poor darling. You're very hard done by.
PUDDLE: I am, as it happens.
BARMAN: Evening, sir. What can I get you?
ROBIN: Gin and tonic and a sidecar, please.
BARMAN: [irritated] Of course, sir. Coming right up.
PUDDLE: [sing song] Thank you, Robin.
ROBIN: [sing song] You're welcome, Puddle. [beat] Did you know, in Kabuki theatre the intervals can last for up to an hour? People are so often late back, the playwrights actually put these little filler scenes in at the start of the second half, so nobody misses anything important.
PUDDLE: Oh, gosh. I don't think I know the Kabuki. Where's that?
ROBIN: It's, uh, new. Down by St Giles.
PUDDLE: [genuinely interested] Oh. Lovely.
[Pause.]
ROBIN: So. Who do you think did it? I know you're bursting with theories.
PUDDLE: Oh, it's got to be dowager! They're trying to act like it's the maid, but it's never the obvious person, is it?
ROBIN: It's quite often the obvious person, in my experience.
PUDDLE: Yes, thank you Mr Fancy-Pants Scotland Yard Consultant. I know in real life. But not in a story. In a story there's always someone you meet right at the start who you don't pay any attention to and then they show up at the last minute to twiddle their moustache and tell everyone how clever they are.
ROBIN: The dowager would definitely suit a moustache.
[glasses being placed on the bar]
BARMAN: Here you are, sir. 3s8d.
[The clink of money changing hands]
ROBIN: Keep the change.
[Robin and Puddle move away from the bar]
PUDDLE: What do you think? Of the play.
ROBIN: Oh! Oh, it's… alright.
PUDDLE: You're not enjoying it?
ROBIN: It's nothing. It's just...
PUDDLE: Oh, don't!
ROBIN: Don't what?
PUDDLE: You swore you wouldn't!
ROBIN: [laughing] I'm not!
PUDDLE: You've got that look on your face!
ROBIN: I don't have a look.
PUDDLE: You've got that look that means you're about to launch into some dreadful rant about how they got the magic all wrong.
ROBIN: Well so they did get it all wrong! There's no way anyone could have killed the old boy using that invocation.
PUDDLE: They're hardly going to put a real murder spell into a play, Robin!
ROBIN: They were using Ormberg's principle to calculate thaumaturgic displacement! That's not just wrong, it's nonsensical! I'm not looking for total accuracy, but a little verisimilitude isn't too much to ask. How would you feel, hm? If they wrote a play about, uh, Marie Antoinette or one of those other dreadful women you're obsessed with-
PUDDLE: They're not dreadful! They're fabulous and misunderstood.
ROBIN: There you are, then. What if I wrote a play about your horrible opera singers pulling each other's hair out and spitting at each other from the wings, and I failed even to mention their rotten husbands or tragic childhoods?
PUDDLE: I should take it as necessary artistic licence. [Robin scoffs] Everything can't be accurate. It's got to be a good story, and real life needs some… editing sometimes.
[Robin makes a sceptical noise. Then, as if he’s leaning in:]
ROBIN: What if I got their costumes wrong?
PUDDLE: I'd burn you at the stake. Obviously.
[Robin laughs]
ROBIN: I will say this for tonight's efforts; he might be talking absolute rot, but Robert does look fabulous.
PUDDLE: Doesn't he? He's so handsome.
ROBIN: He is. Knows it though.
PUDDLE: So would you know it, if you had a jaw like that.
ROBIN: [laughing] I do well enough, thank you!
PUDDLE: I know you do. So does Robert.
ROBIN: Hmm. [laughs] Did you ever...?
PUDDLE: With Robert? Once or twice.
ROBIN: You sly dog. You never told me.
PUDDLE: Not much worth telling, to be honest.
ROBIN: Oh dear. Yes, I was a bit underwhelmed too, actually. Much advertised, little delivered.
PUDDLE: The actual, you know, was alright. But then at the end he did this thing where he…
ROBIN: Oh, God, did he do that to you too?
PUDDLE: With the sort of [simultaneous] scooping action!
ROBIN: [simultaneous] The eye contact!
[Robin splutters with laughter]
PUDDLE: Shh! Shh! Stop it, we're in public.
ROBIN: I thought it was just me.
PUDDLE: No, I think he does it to everyone. He did it to Bunny too.
ROBIN: Oh, good grief. [beat] Girl Bunny or Boy Bunny?
PUDDLE: Girl Bunny.
ROBIN: Good grief. I suppose he thinks it's his signature move.
PUDDLE: If it were mine, I'd change my name.
[Robin bursts out laughing and Puddle joins in. A bell rings. The background music ends.]
USHER: [calling] Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's performance will restart in two minutes. Please make your way back to your seats. Thank you.
[The crowds, and Robin and Puddle, start moving to retake their seats. In the background, the Usher can be heard directing people.]
PUDDLE: Shall we go dancing after?
ROBIN: I don't think I can, sorry. I'm out with Nicholas first thing tomorrow.
PUDDLE: The Inspector? I thought he said you weren't to come along with him any more?
ROBIN: He never said that.
PUDDLE: You said he said having you along was the worst kind of babysitting. You said he said it was like having a big, noisy baby with him who wouldn't stop trying to wander off and get his head kicked off by a carthorse. You said he said-
ROBIN: [interrupting] He didn't mean it! He was joking! Anyway, it's all squared away. I asked DCS Charlton and he said he'd make sure Collie was on the right page before he heads out tomorrow.
PUDDLE: So he doesn't actually know yet that you'll be there?
ROBIN: Well... No.
PUDDLE: Lord, Robin. [Robin laughs] On your head be it. I shouldn't like to be in his bad books.
ROBIN: Oh, nonsense. He's a big puppy, really.
PUDDLE: Still. Not the sort of chap I'd want to meet in a dark alley on a night.
ROBIN: No? I'd have thought that was just your style.
PUDDLE: [thoughtfully] Mm. Depends on the alley, I suppose.
[The Lion and the Adder theme music plays.]
H.R. OWEN: The Lion and the Adder is a 1920s supernatural detective story launching this autumn. Visit monstrousproductions.org/fundraising to help bring the series to life.
The Physicist starred H.R. Owen as Robin Sylvester and Rhys Lawton as Puddle with additional voices from Matt McDyre and Colette Hart. Written by H.R. Owen and sound designed by Eira Major.
[Theme music ends.]
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