Free Gasping - the Play by Ben Elton Page A

snap, personally I’m a
bender.
     
    KIRSTEN: He had a good dream.
     
    SANDY (looking out of window): Well it’s certainly going to come true for these African fellahs, I
reckon they’ll strike a hard bargain. They’ve got a phenomenal natural resource
just waiting to be sucked, I mean it’ll be worth billions to their economy. The
Chiefs told me to bid top dollar. Incoming Third World air could totally
undercut European stockpiles. (phone rings) Sorry darling, it’s the new
Foton Satellite System, quite superb ... (takes out portable) ... Yo
Chief! ! Well this is a pleasure Sir (adjusting tie) ... Marvellous Sir ...
What? Uhm cod mornay and strawberry cream dessert ... Yes it is clever how they
do that isn’t it ... sorry? With all due respect Sir ... (to KIRSTEN) Pen,
pen, pen ... (into phone) Fire away Sir ... (he takes down something) Right you are Sir ... What? Sadly no Sir, Kirsten says the taps get in the
way ... Goodbye then Sir ... Kind regards to Lady Chiffley ... (phones of]) Sod
it.
     
    KIRSTEN: So what was that about?
     
    SANDY: Said he thought I might need Philip’s
advice on the African suck up ... gave me the bloke’s bloody number on the
Costa Del Lager Lout ... Well that’s what I think of that! (Screws it up ... about to throw away, then slips in pocket.)
     
    KIRSTEN: Bloody cheek ... (film flicker) Oh
God the bloody awful movie ...
     
    SANDY: Crocodile Dundee Four, this is the one where he becomes President of the Soviet Union ...
It’s great ...
     
    (Plane off)

 
     
     
     
     
    SCENE SIX (A)
     
     
    Lights up on PHILIP to side of stage in shorts and a sombrero, he takes a sip of wine
and clicks a TV remote ... There is a very low bluish flicker, as if he is watching TV ...

 
     
     
     
     
    SCENE SEVEN
     
     
    We hear a terrible buzzing of flies, people wailing, oxen snorting.
BBC reporter with microphone wanders across front of stage. She has a backpack
which feeds a tube to a big plastic bubble on her head.
     
     
    REPORTER: These people are quite literally
suffocating. The air is so thin that they find it difficult to find the energy
to move ... (she appears to pick her way over something) Of course there
was a time when this region possessed oxygen in abundance. It still would have,
were it not for the fact that the rulers of this tortured, divided country,
both on the left and right, have systematically sold its resources for arms.
Western developers, with the connivance of a corrupt administration, have
sucked far beyond agreed international quotas. Now this region is all but
uninhabitable. (stops wandering about) While this tiny child gulps
painfully at the near empty and useless air, the oxygen that should be her
rightful birthright lies unbreathed, far far away, stockpiled in order to
protect the international gulp price. That she should be in such desperate
straits whilst the means for her survival lies silent, invisible, useless,
compacted down into the huge Western Suck and Blowers, is vivid testimony of
man’s inhumanity to man. (she stops again) This goat did not die
naturally, it was slaughtered by the very people whose survival depends on its
milk and meat. The need for air supersedes even the need for food and as the
air thins animals are slaughtered in order to stop them breathing and consuming
what little oxygen remains. (motioning around her) This relief camp,
jointly run by Oxfam and War on Want, is currently supplying breathing space
for about four and a half thousand refugees. They have struggled here, gasping
for breath from their homes in the outlying hills where the air is now too thin
for survival. The scene is biblical in its horror. The relief workers are
operating three dilapidated Mark One Lockheart Blowers at the centre of the
camp and people scramble desperately trying to find a place near one of the
outlets for themselves and their children. The further away one is, of course,
the less chance there is of a really good lungful. Added to this is