Dramatics Personally

Mr Connolly. Yer Man
The Irascible Editor of the Creative People's Website. The Big Toss Man
Donal O'Doggerel. Who do you want him to be ?
The Corner Coves. Th' Bhoys from th' end o' th' Bar
The Flighty Stuff. The Fastest Pieces o' Goods in all The Green.

Scene: The queue for the Lavatory at RTE Studios, Donnybrook.


The Irascible Editor. Do our own reviews? A dandy wheeze. Remind me to recommend you for further demotion. I have been concerned for some time that the fair and generous Christian folk of the Creative People's Website need to get shut of the do lally notion that reviewing has to do with balance, constructive dispassion and reason. God's Butt, man!! We are in the world of literature here. They need to know tools of our trade are character assination, shameless plagerism and rampant pernicious self interest.What we must have is someone to introduce them to this unpleasant fact of life. What we need is a gormless half literate cretin with all the sensitivity of an incontinent elephant.........Connolly!? ....Why am I thinking of you?

Connolly That's not very nice.

The Irascible Editor. That's because I am not a very nice man. That's why I'm the Editor and you, Connolly, are the kind of pondlife that only floats to the surface when some bastard pisses in the pond.  Now I've four minutes max between Hetty the Talking Yeti, and an interview with some flesh mountain that keeps turning into the Jolly Green Giant. Words, Lovely Boy. Words! On my desk in the time it takes me to whistle through my arse! Got it? I shall soon be back from discharging my bodily functions. After that, if I am not satisfied, I shall be discharging you!!

Connolly. I'm drivin' on mainbeam, Toss Man. I'm goin' to spell out Thomas Sterns Eliot's Six Principles of Literary Criticism an' give it to th' ligs both barrells!!

The Irascible Editor.Grand! Foot hard down, Lovely Boy! And let us hear those tyres squealing the like of midnight's laiden lorry leaving the Banknote Depot.

Connolly. Here's the pitch, Toss Man. I'm hiring my Alter Ego, Professor Sir Donal O'Doggerel, Timmy Mallet Professor of Medieval Poetry at the Bash Street Young Offenders Unit. He's goin' to review my contribution to The Oxford Book of English Verse, ' Barrymore's Buddy Takes An Unscheduled Dip '. It's a tone poem after the style of Morte D'Arthur and in the manner of Morte Sayle. I ought to point out that I've not actually written it yet. Had I done so, under present libel laws I would be addressing you from Wormwood Scrubs. This does, however, serve wonderfully to illustrate The First Principle of Literary Criticism, frequently referred to as the Peter Sutcliffe Rule: ALWAYS GET YOUR RETALIATION IN FIRST!

Prof. Donal O'Doggerel. Forgive me introducing crude matters into literary discourse, but before putting pen to paper, so to speak, .......My fee?.... Notes if you please. Used.....

Connolly. This illustrates The Second Principle of Literary Criticism : ALWAYS TRY TO GET PAID IN ADVANCE. That way you can trouser the loot and go sick. Thereby fulfilling the great aim of every literary genius. Namely to do feck all and get paid for it!.......Mind you it doesn't always work........ Like for example,...Shut your useless face and get on with it O'Doggerel, or I'll stick you in the shitfly's lunchbox!

Prof. Donal O'Doggerel. Thank you. I shall commence by observing that there can be little doubt that even from his earliest work, Connolly has displayed the kind of raw talent that make him our most important author since the Four Evangelists. Indeed it is a measure of his breathtaking literary skill and superb searching intellectual rigour, that his output sustains so high a level of achievement so as to put it beyong the range of mere mortals. Indeed I confidently predict that there is no justice in this world if Connolly does not go on to earn in a single day more than Joanne Rowling can dream of in a lifetime. I wll go further......

Connolly.No need. Fine. We got the guts of this one. It sets out The Third Principle of Literary Criticism : ALWAYS MAKE SURE ITS YOURSELF THAT'S PULLING THE STRINGS.That way you can go rocket fuelled over the top jerkin' yourself senseless and the pitiful shags reading it won't know dicky shite its a scam and instead they'll come away thinkin' yous is Jesus C Shakespeare. 

Prof. Donal O'Doggerel. If I may be allowed to continue.......Connolly's work is supassed only by one measureless indinidual; to whit, Myself! I am, as all of you are aware a man of diverse talents...  Poet, Scholar, Novelist. A cadre that is now acknowledeged to include the complete works once thought to be by the vile fraudster calling himself Charles Dickens, now correctly attributed to me. It  includes also much of Tennyson who, I might add, stole from me without care or contrition. And, incidently, my latest: 'The Blaggers Book of Complete Bollocks', my masterpiece, which can be purchased for a meagre sum by contacting me directly through my agent, Mr Fred West, or his executors.......

Connolly. OK! OK...The stoat's in the sack. This marks out The Fourth Principle of Literary Criticism. Sic,.....When you are commissioned to review some poor twerp's thaveless effort, ALWAYS SPEND ALL THE TIME TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF. That way at least you 'll be on a subject actually know something about and no one will suss what an ignorant mule you really are. And you get a truck load of free publicity.

Prof. Donal O'Doggerel. Which brings me to the subject on which I am most eloquent. That poncey gobshyte going about calling himself William Butler Yeats.The Brother knew him when he was still going around scribbling dirty lewd lines on the whitewashed walls of the Public Pookies, before he went on to make a fortune from singing Christmas Cards. Blarney Billy ,the Bard o' the Bogs, we used to call him. The Brother said if that jumped up English spalpeen could get into print, any clod head farm boy's donkey can top the bestseller lists. Have you heard this one from the Tulips on Tool Street?

At the Easter Fair out at Clanfooty,
I meets up w' a terrible beauty;
Her name was Kathleen, She was only Sixteen,
But she'd me stiff as a sentry on duty!

Would you believe he got the Nobel Prize for this kind of moon eyed drivel.....Has the world gone mad!?

Connolly. Here we have The Fifth Principle of Literary Criticism : ALWAYS TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO DROP A CARTLOAD OF WHOLESOME FRESH STEAMING  SHITE ON ANYBODY WHO IS BETTER THAN YOU.

The Irascible Editor. Tread lest you tread upon my toes. I am well acquainted with the fine lines of Mr Yeats and as we like to say at RTE : ' Keep it decent. The Pope's Listenin'!' If I have to warn you once more about takin' liberties with our national poet I'll.......

The Corner Coves. Hang powerful slow here, Capt' Hasty. Or maybe yous is goin' t' go smartin' from one in the jellies!

The Irascible Editor. Who let these shytehawks in?

The Flighty Stuff. If its any o' yer business we let ourselves in, mister.On accout of it says its free an' there's a frost outside o' there as would founder a buck's belltower. No tricks t' turn today so we was wonderin' if the' nosebag yous was mentionin' on yer Welcone Notice includes a complimentary toddie?

The Corner Coves. Too right. We're here t' support Mr Connolly, The Tall Talkin' Man. He' as grand a Christian critter as ever walked The Green...... An' we heard yous has bin givin' him a lengh o' lippy slosh.....

The Irascible Editor. Well ..... er um.. I was only jossin'. We're all friends here. No need to go leakin' gas.....

Connolly This brings home the final and most important Principle of Literary Criticism. IF SOME GOBBY GARSUN YOU CAN'T STAND STARTS BADMOUTHING YOU, PUT OUT A CONTRACT ON THE BASTARD! I thik it was Eliot himself who said that in his ' Poetry and the Uses of Criticism '. And if he didn't, he should have.

Prof. Donal O Doggerel. Well Connolly, I think we handled that most admirably.In the manner of the Brother, himself a lauded literary gob.

Connolly. I heard he was a bankrobber?

Porf. Donal O'Doggerel. Tish,tish....A rumour, you understand. There was never any proof. And he never used firearms. No, no. That relates to when he was a leading actor.He did play a substantial role in the drama of relieving the Bank of Ulster of Twenty Four Million smackers. Yes, the Brother was always the canny one of our family. Hold ups? They are for lowlifes. Burrowed under the place and boned it! Then the saucey creature left them a note complaining about the opening hours!

Connoly. Jeeeeze, but that's grand style! My compliments to him! Where is he now, might I ask?

Prof. Donal O'Doggerel. Banged up, alas. Lifted him the same day. Insisted on putting his name and address on the letter.

Connolly. Oh.... You literary people.......