Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > Scripts > A Wing and a Prayer
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 1087 guests online and 4 members online |
Drama Scripts
| print friendly version | |
| A Wing and a Prayer | |
| By Bottleblondesurfer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 02 November 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
It’s taken so long to get this to look right on the site. It’s obviously a work in progress, just a few introductory scenes. I can put up more if this passes muster; be a s critical as you like even if its just a reaction. This is mostly introduction and setting up characters and circumstances but I’ve tried to make it entertaining and visual. If it helps: this is the story of a group of women who try to go into business for themselves when their factory shuts, they have to get others involved and learn new skills. It’s inspired by a real even in my village when a factory making lingerie shut, leaving the women out of work. [the factory was Asian owned and called Beevah Garments-you couldn't make it up] INT FACTORY FLOOR- DAY. A group of about ten women are standing and chatting and drinking wine in plastic cups.. Their sewing machines are idle. Their work areas are covered in plates of snacks and bottles of cheap wine SUSAN WALLACE is the centre of attention She is years younger that the others. The others are teasing her and wishing her well. She is leaving her job as a machinist . FAITH PHIPPS breaks away from her two friends KATHY and DIANE, she signals for quiet. She stands on a chair, thinks better of it and sits on the table. She is early forties. She raises a beaker of wine to SUSAN FAITH. Hey, give me a minute. Quieten down. Right, has everyone got a drink? (she looks around) Ok, silly question, now while I'm still sober enough to lie convincingly I'd like to say a few kind words about our Susan, here. [Cries of ooh err from the others .That's fighting talk, that is. Susan waves a fist.] FAITH. I know she's only been here 8 months, but that's no reason not to give her a send off. We're all really fond of her aren’t we?... and anyway any excuse for piss up on the firm’s time FAT WORKER. So why don’t you shut up and let us Get on with it before Kersey gets back. KATH Where’d this wine come from, then? DIANE Off licence on the corner. KATH. Doesn’t travel well does it. (Laughter from the others.) FAITH. You should know you’ve drunk most of it. Now just behave! I’m senior while Kersey is out. FAT WORKER. Senior, my arse. Where’s snotty Sarah? KATH. She’s out too. DIANE What a strange coincidence, eh? FAT WORKER I don’t know why they need to go away. You can hear them at it in the office. KATH. That’s a mental image I’ll take to my grave. DIANE . It’s just her speedy shorthand he likes. You should see, her fingers are a blur. FAITH. Can I get on?... Now lets be honest. When Sue came here we weren't too sure, I mean young, pretty, clever. What had she got in common with us. (Some dissention in the ranks. Cries of ‘Speak for yourself’) But she made a genuine effort to fit in here And after nine months with us I can honestly say. And, to be serious for a moment, no mean it (there’s a sudden hush) Look, I know we’ve taken the piss a lot but I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we've all found Susan, here, to be (She looks over at Susan.) .....far too young and pretty to introduce to any of our husbands. (More hoots of laughter, and noises of agreement from the others.) SUSAN. That explains a lot. All this time I thought I was working with a bunch of repressed lesbians. (The others love this. It's a sign you belong if you have the banter. It’s why she was accepted by the others, what they have in common) FAT WORKER. Mine wouldn't know what to do with her. KATHY. Yours doesn't even know what to do with you. (SUSAN snorts with laughter at this.) FAITH. And despite being young, pretty and clever we took her to our hearts and under my expert training .. (They can't let that one pass.) She became a dab hand at knocking out the underpants. And we all came to admire her firm handling of a crutch. And I for one will be sad to see her walk out that door. And even sadder that I can't do the bloody same. You lucky cow, Sue! But, I think we all knew she was destined for greater things especially with her qualifications. KATHY. Yeah,. both of them. DIANE. I’m thinking of having qualification implants. (SUSAN does a sexy pose. She’s used to being teased about her boobs.) SUSAN. Hey, if you got ‘me flaunt ‘em. FAITH Well, she’s managed to tear herself away from men’s underpants, and is off to better things. Anyway I think we've exhausted just about every underwear joke, now. (FAITH signals to KATHY by the door who quickly disappears.) FAITH. While we're on the subject of knickers. Sue, You've spent the last 9 months stitching up knickers and pants of all shapes and sizes. So in memory of the time you’ve spent stiffening up men’s Y fronts.. [The others groan. That has to be the last one] I'd like to present you with this 'little' memento. Something to remember us by when you're selling all those posh houses to rich yuppies. O.K. Kathy. (The door opens and in walks KATHY carrying a pole followed by DIANE on the other end of the pole. As they walk in we see that strung across the pole is the biggest pair of white Y fronts ever made. 6 ft wide and 5 ft high. All the others turn to see SUSANS face. She screams and buries her head in her arms to block out the awful sight. Someone produces a camera and SUSAN is pushed next to the pants for a picture) SUSAN. Oh, my god, if you think I’m taking that home.. (She tentatively feels the monster garment.) SUSAN. Is it one of Kersey's? It must be there's nothing inside it. The stitching’s crap it must be one of Kath’s It's just two sheets tarted up. FAITH. Think of it as wrapping. stick your hand right inside. (SUSAN pulls a face, but puts her hand inside a pulls out a small brown package. She holds it up to cheers. It’s about 6inches long and narrow) SUSAN. Well I wonder what this could be. If it's what I think it is. I swear I'll kill the lot of you. KATHY. Your old man will be pleased you got it. FAITH. Open it, then, Come on girls. Gather round. (The women are clustered round SUSAN. We can see their faces peering down at the present. We see the impatience on their faces as SUSAN opens it. Some know, some don't. We can see their various expressions as they look down at the present.) FAITH. I thought of you as soon as I saw this. I know you’ve got one but it’s time you upgraded. It’s fully charged. And I’m sure you’ll appreciate this (she fiddles with it, we hear a buzzing sound) Just feel that. [MAGGIE, the fat worker is fascinated. She leans over and touches it. She pulls her hand back and screams) FAT WORKER. I didn’t know they could do that. KATHY. They all can you pranet (Fat worker puts her hand back.] It’s quite nice actually. [They all turn to look at her.] INT FAITH’S KITCHEN DAY. Faith’s husband, GORDON, is trying to wrestle a magazine from the dog. He offers it his daughters teen mag. It runs off with that. GEMMA the daughter walks in. She rifles through the post on the table. GEMMA. Where’s my Smash Hits, dad. GORDON. The dog ran off with it. GEMMA. Not again. What is it with that dog and newspapers. GORDON. He’s just naturally playful GEMMA. Get him a bloody toy. Nothing is safe with him around. How come It’s always my stuff that gets covered in dog slobber. (She chases off after him.) GORDON. You’re too old to read those silly Magazines. You’ve had that one since You were eleven. You should be reading Something more grown up. (We hear sounds of growling and scuffling and GEMMA shouting. She comes back in with a wet and tatty magazine.) GEMMA. Just look at it, Dad. It’s horrible. It’s not natural, other dogs don’t eat newspapers. I could never put any of the pin-ups on my wall. It’s just not Right. GORDON. He does it to all the papers. He hold up his to show a torn edge. GEMMA. You got a cheek criticising me. Toys for overgrown boys. I’ve been intellectually starved here. It’s amazing I’m not still on Jack and Jill, (She stops and sniffs.) GEMMA. What’s that weird smell? GORDON. I’m defrosting some prawns. GEMMA. Oh, god . You’re not cooking the tea are you? GORDON. Yes, prawns en croute, special treat. GEMMA. Does mum know that. GORDON. No. I like to make it a surprise. CEMMA. Dad, you have to make it a surprise or she’s stay out. Anyway I’m off to see Jason (GORDON waves his mag at her.) GORDON. Youv’e only just come home. GEMMA. Yeah, so? I’m not a guinea pig for your experiments. GORDON. [Waves his rolled magazine at her.] I’ll have a bit of respect from you. I’m Still your father. (The dog comes in and they both instinctively hide their mags.) EXT. FACTORY, DAY. The women are coming out of the factory. Susan gets into her husbands car. KATHY, It’s all right for some. Mr and Mrs coming-up-in-the world over there. You won’t hear from her again. FAITH. Good luck to her I say. Why should she hang around in this dump. I meant what I said. I wish I was going with her. KATHY. We’ll all be going ‘with her’ soon if sales Don’t pick up, I heard Kersey talking to That crook he calls an accountant. He’d make more money just selling the land. Prime whats-a-name they called it. FAITH. I know Sue’s husband is involved. There are some big developments planned for round here.There’s a few would love to get hold of that site. (Diane catches up with them.) DIANE. You two look grim. Hey, how do you lose 160 pounds useless fat quickly? (They just turn and look at her.) Get a divorce..Get it? [She laughs they don’t] DIANE Oh, please yourselves. Blimey, did you see the car Sue’s old man drives? I lost my virginity in a B.M.W. KATHY. You didn’t lose it. You raffled it. You’ve never been in a B.M.W. DIANE. Give her a barbed wire sandwich. Why are you so prickly? KATHY. Well just look at us. There’s Sue rushing off to her new job in her flash car. She was just biding time till something better came along. We’re left here, too busy working to make any money. FAITH. You can’t compare,she always going to move on. Face it, she was better than us. KATHY. She was more like us than she would like to admit. No, she was no better. God Faith don’t be such a doormat. I could just shake you sometimes. I know I’m here but at least I get angry . I mean, what’s a mortgage broker anyway? Like lawyers and estate agents; they’re just crooks in suits. They feed off the likes of us. And she wants to join them. DIANE You always get like this when you’re tipsy, Kath. What you need to do is get really drunk. You’re quite sociable then. You coming Faith? FAITH. No, I’d better get home. Gordon promised To cook something. DIANE. Well, that’s nice. FAITH. No, I want to get back before he starts. I just hope he finds work before he poisons the lot of us. DIANE. Come on, it can't be that bad! FAITH. Ours is the only dustbin the foxes haven’t raided. KATHY. I agree, Faith. I don’t hold with this cooking craze. I blame that Alan Titchmarsh. Always swearing his head off. FAITH. No, you fool. He does gardening. You mean Gordon Ramsey. KATH. Anyway, It’s not British. I prefer a proper, traditional take-away. You can’t beat a good curry. DIANE, Curries aren’t British, you pranet. they’re Indian! KATHY. I know curries are Indian. I know that, But having a take-away is British. I mean, they don’t have take-aways in India, do they? It’s a British tradition. FAITH. Well to be honest I wouldn't mind a takeaway, at least while one of us is still working not that.... DIANE. I can't see Kersey selling up. He needs this place as much as we do. Snotty Sarah's said nothing and she should know FAITH. I hope your'e right or Susan's first job might be to forclose on my mortgage KATHY. Hell, look. It’s Kersey. He’s back early. FAITH. We’ll just brazen it out. We can’t go back, now. (A large but very old Mercedes draws up to them. Inside is GRAHAM KERSEY, thin middle-aged with an and attitiude instead of a personality) KERSEY. You know that’s odd, You look the spitting image of some people who work for me. But of course you can’t be because they’re still in there working. FAITH. The heating’s packed up again, You know what health and safety says about working temperature. KERSEY. I had that checked last quarter. It’s been fine KATHY. Well it’s not working now KERSEY. Is that Bristol order finished? FAITH. Oh, yes. All done and dusted. Ready to Go out. Just needs Sarah to O.K it. She wasn’t in today. Could you mention it (very pointedly) IF you see her… KERSEY. Never mind Sarah. We’ve got few enough orders Without you lot… FAITH. Look, I’ll get my Gordon in early to look at the heating. O.K? Well, see you tomorrow. Mr Kersey. (They rush off before he can argue further.) DIANE. You’ll go to hell, you know that. FAITH. I thought we’d just come from there. INT. SUE & JAMES HOUSE. DAY. Sue and James are jointly preparing a meal in the kitchen JAMES. Did you pick up that suit from Principles? It’ll Be nice to see you dressing up for work. Women in suits look so sexy. Even the plain ones. [He kisses her neck but she pulls away.) So, I mean, you’ll have the advantage because you’ll be beautiful and sexy. SUE. You just about saved yourself, there. So you’re saying it wouldn’t matter if I was ugly just as long as I was in a suit? JAMES. Did I say ugly? I never said ugly. But you must admit those overalls were a bit of a turn off. Oh, I’m just glad you’ve left that place. I hated you working in there. (She waves her final wage statement] Yeah, I know it tided us over. But those awful squawking harridans you were with and their fag ash mentality. It was starting to change you. I could see it. It’’ll be nice to have you back. SUE Hey, I’ll show you what they bought me. You’ll be surprised. JAME Let me guess; something naff like a diamantee toilet roll holder.Or a set of matching fridge magnets. SUE. God, you can be such a snob. They’re just people. And they’ve been really generous. Anyway I like them. And I liked working there. JAMES. Yes but you’ll count for something now. That lot They’re just factory fodder, they’ll never amount to anything. You can do great things at Mortgage Alliance. It’s where you belong. We are going places, believe me. SUE. That’s unfair James. They’re bright and funny. They make me laugh. At least they’ve got more to talk about than investments and property prices. JAMES. Those things are important, and don’t pretend They’re not. SUE Of course they’re important. I know they’re important. But, I mean you are allowed to talk about other things as well. Have a laugh now and again. JAMES. “Have a laugh” that’s their attitude,not yours. Anyway I talk about lots of things. SUE. Not with Julian and Yolanda you don’t. I was chewing the sofa with boredom the other night. JAMES. O.k, O.k Hey, you were going to surprise me. What did the noble savages give you for a present, then? (She is unhappy about that comment but lets it pass. She reaches over, picks up her bag. Hands the unseen gift to him. We can see he is shocked and impressed with it.) JAMES. Well! I wouldn’t have thought them capable. That’s so sleek and sexy. But you’ve got one already (She takes it off him. We, now, can see it is a mobile phone,) SUE. I know but it’s the thought. And I thought I could Keep this one just for you and keep it on vibrate so (She operates it for him._ SUE. So when you ring me..... JAMES. Yessss. SUE. I’ll feel your vibrations. JAMES. Really, how sexy. (Lust takes the better of them. He takes it off her and leaves it vibrating on the table. They start to kiss and embrace passionately. It vibrates along the worktop and falls off.) INT. FAITH’S KITCHEN DAY. (In contrast Faith and Gordon are eating a Chinese Takeaway in the kitchen.) GORDON, Shame about the prawns. FAITH. It’ll clean up all right. Try some sweet and sour. GORDON. It was my own Recipe, too. I didn’t expect them to explode out of the pastry cases, like that, FAITH. No, prawns don’t usually explode. I don’t think you can microwave, Pastry. You really don’t have to do all this. Something will turn up. It will.... GORDON. See, I should know that. I mean all the cooking programmes I watch. I should be an expert. I sit and watch all those cooks do clever things. FAITH. It’s really all right, Gord. I don’t expect…. GORDON. I watch them all. There’s fat cooks, thin cooks, naked cooks drunken cooks. Cooks that can’t cook, cooks that won’t cook, cooks that shouldn’t cooks who swear, cooks with motorbikes, cooks..…. FAITH. Please, Gordon. I know you’re trying. I know it’s not your fault. But this just isn't the way. We need to...... GORDON. Oh, and there’s eccentric cooks, obsessive cooks. Veggie cooks, God help us. And of course Delia Smith, with all the charisma of a fridge magnet; showing you how to unwrap a stock cube. I bet her prawns don’t explode. (Faith’s sympathy is turning to anger.) FAITH. Look. Gordon, I’m sorry you’re out of work. I know it’s awful. I know it’s tough. But this cooking thing has got to stop. I see you've chased off Gemma again. (She realises she shouldn’t have said that. Gordon looks crestfallen. But straightens himself up.) GORDON. They make it all look so simple on the Telly. But it never seems to work out in Practice.Gemma's eating at Jason's. (His rant has turned to self pity.) I just can’t get the hang of it. FAITH. You should have just stuck to recipes. GORDON. I did but they never work out right either. It’s weird. It starts off as normal food and ends up…. FAITH. Exploding. GORDON. I just feel so damn useless, now. Gemma treats me with contempt. I used to be the man of the house. Now I’m just someone you spill coffee on FAITH. She didn’t mean that .She didn’t see you. GORDON. Exactly. I’m invisible, now. The dog walks in with a magasine in it’s mouth. He calls to it but it ignores him. FAITH calls to it and it comes over.She takes the mag from its mouth. GORDON. See even the dog ignores me. She puts it on the table and continues eating. INT. FACTORY. MORNING. FAITH is in the factory early tidying up what’s left of the celebrations. In walks SARAH, the secretary, a bit tarty, self important. SARAH. Where is the Bristol order then. I thought you said it was finished. FAITH. I never told you that. SARAH. But I thought... [She realised that she has walked into a trap and doesn’t want to give any more away. She goes through her clipboard.] SARAH. Anyway what are you doing here so early. It’s not like you. FAITH. No but it is like you. I’m surprised you don’t just put up a bed in the office..a double one of course. I mean you never know.. SARAH. Your’e never in before me. I always open up. FAITH I do have a key. Gordon came in early to have a look at the heating. He’s just gone and I’m having a tidy up. [SARAH stares pointedly at the empty wine bottles in Faith’s arms. Every thing else is fairly normal.] SARAH. I see, a big drinker is he, then? That’s probably why he can’t hold a job down, ( Sarah is smug and Faith is fuming but she is not in a position to retort. She walks out with the bottles Sarah calls after her.) SARAH. So what’s happening with this Bristol order? [Faith just storms out with the bottles] SARAH. Drama queen!
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Previous item
|
Next item
|
|---|