ROD'S IS NUTTER SOURCE
by Gavin Powers.
THE Pitch
A BUSY-by-day, but drunken-by-night street in a small northern English town. A small pub with a back room, used as a 'nightclub'.
The 'club', 'Rod's' is a welcome income for 'Greasy Mick', who runs a chip shop directly opposite.
PEAS TO MEET YOU
The chippy, 'Peas to meet you', is, despite the recession, raking in cash. Proprietor Mick 'greasy' South is an 'intellectual' who failed his 'A' Levels, but reads the Times Educational Supplement, often salvaged from the pile of newspapers his wife Lesley has collected to wrap the takeaways. Despite the fact newsprint is no longer allowed as a method of wrapping fish and chips. Mick has recently moaned about her collecting papers, but gave up when he read an interesting article one day about the Large Hadron Collider. Mick is not at all 'greasy' in the sleazy sense. He has very bad pores and suffers from acne at times. He keeps all kinds of spot cream behind the counter.
Lesley is ten years Mick's junior. Mick is 48. He is born and bred in Gawingsthwaite. (A fictional South Yorkshire town, for the purposes of this tale).
Lesley has an eye for the 'malebait' that spews out from Rod's, across the road on pub nights.
She's almost perfect for her age. Curvy, youthful, but has a neck brace she wears because she swears she felt it crack in 1990 when she tripped on a piece of Lego at her sister's. She often tries to disguise it with collars and necklaces, just for the lads!
ROD'S
Rod's is the 'hub' of activity on a Friday and Saturday night in Gawingsthwaite. In a small town, there isn't much to do. Youngsters flood into this 'nite-spot'. It consists of nothing much more than a bar and a small dancefloor. It rarely features in the life of Mick and Lesley, other than their conversation with Rod, his family, and the custom he provides to their takeaway.
Rod, himself, is quite an enigmatic character. It's rumoured in the town that he appeared in a porn film, secretly shot to a backdrop of Sheffield's Tinsley Power Station towers being blown up.
It did actually happen. He read, while looking at a piece of chip/newspaper, that the towers were to be demolished, and, in a late-night, erotic frenzy, grabbed a 16-year-old girl from his dancefloor and said: “Now, this WILL BE the Full Monty!”
To meet Rod, you would never imagine that was possible. He's well spoken, amiable, has a prized monkey puzzle tree in his front garden, and likes, and often tries to emulate, the wit of Stephen Fry, usually failing as the red-blooded male-ness rears its head!
Part I 'Oil, Boyle, a boil, and trouble'.
By Gavin Powers
Mick has ordered a fresh batch of cooking oil. Susan Boyle is in the charts...
INT: Daytime (12pm): Peas to Meet You. Mick is pouring fat into the fryer. He sloshes it down the side of his leg and slips. This is first seen from an outside view of the shop, through the glass front. Mick grimaces. A customer enters the shop. An elderly man, with flat cap and walking stick.
ELDERLY MAN: “Alrate?... You see he's started putting that up?”.
MICK: (flustered and slipping about in oil, but trying to be friendly and serve) “What's that?”
ELDERLY MAN: “........bloody stupid it is. I used to work in there when it worra proper pub. I mean, it wo' alright when the little bastard served bitter, but all this business with that bloody FBI stuff.”
MICK: “IPA you mean?”
ELDERLY MAN: “nahh, that's Magnum. I mean that shit in his taps.”
MICK: (stunned glare, frown, and semi-smirk) “Yeah,... erm, yeah”.
ELDERLY MAN: “It's bloody 'orrible. I don't know why he has to cater for the kids. They're selling beer at 50p a tin in Tesco. When I was 16 I drank my dad's home-brew. You knew where you were when you drank that.”
MICK: “At home?”
ELDERLY MAN: “.......Well, it's alright I suppose, they're all OK, but my drainpipe's been leaking into the wall cavity and it's damaged the side of the....”
MICK: (interrupting) ….. “no, I mean, were you at home when you drank... Ah, dun't matter. What can I get you anyway?”
ELDERLY MAN: “Got any large cod in?”
MICK: “About five minutes?”.
ELDERLY MAN: “Dun't matter...... I'll have a pie........ I can't really 'ang about. Got a bit of an 'old-up”
MICK: (tongs in hand, leaning into pie cabinet) “Which one?”
ELDERLY MAN: (points out of window and across the road to Rod's) “That silly twat over there”
EXT: SHOT FROM INSIDE GLASS OF PEAS TO MEET YOU: (Looking across to Rod's, we see a stout, 'trying to be trendy 90's-style' man in his forties tidying a newly-painted nightspot sign outside the premises. This is Rod).
MICK: (still waiting to serve up the meal) “........a little Pukka?”
ELDERLY MAN: “Yeah, …...he is. Christ I wish I'd worn a johnny!”
INT: PEAS TO MEET YOU: (Lesley enters the frying area. She flirts with the elderly man. Cleavage on show. Red lipstick and neckbrace prominent.)
LESLEY: “What's that about Johnny? Did he get that tipex?”
MICK: “uhh?”
LESLEY: “He came earlier, wanted some tipex. Rod had made a mistake on the sign. I said I'd put it through his letterbox”.
MICK: “Who's Johnny?”
LESLEY: “You know Johnny..... Always comes on a Friday night...…... (sheepishly changes subject and looks at her feet.) Anyway (excitedly, and turning to elderly man) It's your Rod's big night tonight in't it?
ELDERLY MAN: “I'd 'ardly call it a big night. All he's bloody done is put a turn on and lit a few candles on the bar. I mean, I'd said to him that when he had it as a lounge bar in the back,.... like, it could cater for 50 or more. ”
LESLEY: (inquisitively) “So how many can it cater for now?”
MICK: (Rubbing hands with thought of customer potential) “Bloody hundreds. You know...., I read the other day that the way to beat the recession is what they call a 'USP'. I reckon Rod might have one there you know. Young lads need a place to go for a beer after the pubs shut.”
LESLEY: “Yeah, all that online stuff is where the money is. And when it's a USP it basically fits owt you plug it in to.”
MICK: (Bemused) “No, that's a fuckin' USB...... USP is a Unique Selling Point.”
ELDERLY MAN: “Yeah, I've heard that Theo Prosthesis on about that on that Dragon's Den thing.”
LESLEY: “I like him. (mocks a Scottish accent)'That's absolutely ludicrous,..... I'm out'”
(Mick, knowing this is a reference to Duncan Bannatyne, looks bemused, but just accepts the comment).
ELDERLY MAN: (Nods appreciatively) “Anyway, I'll see what laddo's up to over there. I'm out too, as they say. See-ya then!”
All chuckle and say goodbye. Rod's father (the 'elderly man') leaves the chip shop. Lesley walks to the back of the shop, preening herself.
Mick picks up a pie tin and glances at his spotty chin in the bottom of it. There's a massive spot below his lip.
MICK: (muttering and sighing) “Bloody 'ell. I need to grow out of all this. I'm 48 for Christ's sake.”
Mick picks up a squeezy container of spot cream and smudges a small blob onto his hand and then rubs it into his face. He places the container on the work surface behind the counter. It slips on the greasy surface and falls into the sink, already filled with warm water and empty condiment bottles.
NEW SCENE **********************************************************
INT: PEAS TO MEET YOU. 12:30am
(Susan Boyle's performance of 'I Dreamed a Dream' blurts from a tinny wireless radio behind the chip shop counter).
MICK: (humming and sort-of singing along) “Looks busy over there love.”
LESLEY: (preening herself, applying lipstick, in the back of a pie tin) “Yeah. I reckon Rod might have done alrate for 'imsen over there.”
MICK: “Let's 'ope WE do alrate off the back of it”.
(The first few begin to leave Rod's 'night spot'. Mostly teenage men. We see this through the window of Peas to Meet You, looking outwards).
LESLEY: “They're on their way out now.”
MICK: “That's earlier than I thought they'd be.
(Mick and Lesley hurriedly get to their positions behind the counter. Lesley fiddles with the dial on the radio).
MICK: “Leave that on love.”
LESLEY: “Piss off Mick, turn it off, it's that Susan Doyle. Kid's don't want that bloody shit on. They like modern stuff like Diversity and that JLC.”
MICK: (sarcastically) “Yep, alrate love. Greatest hits of Justin Lee Collins coming up!”
EXT: Revellers from Rod's begin to enter Peas to Meet You.
INT: (A teenage lad approaches the counter, with a queue of mates).
LESLEY: “Alrate Johnny?”
JOHNNY: “Nah then Les! I see you put that white stuff through my letterbox?” (mates all chuckle suggestively)
MICK: “What you want then lads?”
JOHNNY: “Fish fingers”
MICK: “We don't do them in here”.
ONE OF JOHNNY'S PALS: “.........Not what I've heard!”
MICK: (bemused) “No, seriously, what do you want lads?”
JOHNNY: “I'll have a spam fritter, chips, scraps and a can of Tango”.
MICK: “Rate then.”
(Lesley winks at the boys)
Mick dishes out a spam fritter, chips and scraps into a polystyrene tray. He reaches for a can of soft drink. He passes the meal to the customer, Johnny.
JOHNNY: “I know it's shit in here, and always has been, but do you have any mayonaise?”
LESLEY: (winks) “You know the sauce we have in here Johnny. We never have any mayo, nobody likes it round 'ere. They always want tomato or salad cream.”
Mick looks at the sink. We see his mind tick over with vengeful thought. There is a bottle with its label washed away. It is a similar shape to the salad cream bottle. This is, in fact, Mick's spot cream.
MICK: “We DO have some Mayo young lad!”
(Mick hands the bottle to Johnny as he swigs his can of pop)
JOHNNY: “Ahhh, that hits the spot.”
MICK: “It fucking doesn't usually, but it might tonight!”
***************************THE END OF THIS SHITE****************************
