Collected Columns

by Michael Frayn

  NONE!

  It’s as simple as that! Everyone just goes on talking as if nothing had happened. Perhaps they have a brief, desultory discussion as to whether the corpse is still breathing or not. Otherwise –

  NOTHING!

  The audience will gasp!

  Another example. Someone starts making love to a woman whose husband is present. How does the husband react? Does he hit the intruder, become embarrassed, storm out of the room? All these reactions are tired and obvious. We want something brand-new, the £EARN-TO-RITE Special –

  NO REACTION!

  Let’s take it further. The wife (mother of three; husband a university professor) is invited by her father-in-law and two brothers-in-law to set up as their joint mistress, and to keep them all by becoming a prostitute. Gasp, gasp – titter, titter. But wait! How does she respond? With horror? Embarrassment? Prurient curiosity? Not if she’s done the £EARN-TO-RITE Black Comedy Course! She responds with NOTHING, apart from insisting that as a prostitute she’ll need a flat with at least three rooms!

  Fantastic, you say? Fantastically simple! This is nothing less than BUILT-IN ORIGINALITY! Now work through these exercises on your own:

  Fred, a foreman welder, stumbles and drops his father’s coffin on top of his bedridden mother. Does he (a) make desperate attempts to free her, or (b) begin to apply rust-remover to the lavatory cistern?

  René, a middle-aged pessimist, comes downstairs to fill her hot-water battle and finds her slow-witted sister Lou helping herself to one of the family’s Rich Tea biscuits. Does she (a) go on into the kitchen, muttering, or (b) beat Lou’s epicene husband to death with the hot-water bottle?

  (1965)

  Bodbury: the nation waits

  Any moment now (said Brian Bright, the well-known television personality), any moment now the candidates and the returning officer will be appearing on that small balcony there on the front of the Town Hall, and we shall hear the result, we shall hear the result of the Bodbury byelection. There’s been a series of delays – the announcement was expected much earlier than this – but I think, we think, we’ve had word that the result of the Bodbury byelection, the result, here, in Bodbury, of the byelection, the Bodbury byelection, should be coming through very shortly.

  When it does, the returning officer will come through that door, at the back of the balcony. With him will be the three candidates. All three of them, with the returning officer, will come on to the balcony, through the door at the back. And it’ll be on that balcony, the one you can see there, on the front of the Town Hall, that he, that the returning officer, will announce the result, the result of the Bodbury byelection.

  I think there must be another delay. There’s no sign of them. We heard, we learnt a few minutes ago that the returning officer would be coming out very shortly, but there’s still no sign of him, so I think we must conclude – because we did hear he was on his way and he hasn’t come – I think we must conclude that there’s some delay.

  I’ll take the opportunity to remind you that we’re in front of the Town Hall at Bodbury, waiting for the result of the byelection, the Bodbury byelection. There’s great speculation here about the result among the very large and cheerful crowd in the square – or there was, until they all went home to bed. It could be a Conservative victory, if the Liberal and Labour candidates haven’t done as well as they might. It could be a win for Labour, with the Conservatives at the bottom of the poll – depending on how well the Liberals have done. Or, of course, the Liberal swing could have put the Liberal in, if it was strong enough, if it was strong enough to put the Liberal in.

  Well, here we are, then, still waiting for the result, for the result of the Bodbury byelection. If the swing to Labour is more marked than the trend to Liberal, or vice versa, then there’s a chance, I think there’s a fair chance, that he, whichever one it is, may profit from it – that’s to say, from the swing. Or the trend, of course. If not, then, of course, not. And if the inevitable midterm dissatisfaction with the Government means, as it may, that the Conservative gets fewer votes than other candidates, then I think there’s a pretty strong possibility he won’t get in.

  We spoke to a Conservative voter earlier in the evening, here in the main square, and asked him which way he had voted, and he said Conservative. I think that may be a pointer, it may be some sort of indication. I think it may go to show that if the trend shown at Bodbury is followed throughout the rest of the country, then the result here may be a guide to the way the trend is going. But if the result here is not going to be repeated in other constituencies, then it’s no use, no use at all, taking it as any sort of guide.

  We shall know, of course, when the results are brought out, in the traditional way, through that door at the back of the balcony, by the returning officer, who will open the door at the back of the balcony, and come out with the candidates, through the door, to read the results, from the balcony.

  Still no sign. If the absence of swing, either to the left or to the right, shown by the door at the back of the balcony, is any pointer at all, it points, it points to a natural midterm dissatisfaction among returning officers with bringing the result through the door at the back of the balcony, and indicates a growing trend, a fast-growing trend, to the sort of situation where all three of the candidates are left to swing from the front of the balcony, there, on the Town Hall, and we can all go home and have breakfast, have breakfast in a beautiful totalitarian silence …

  (1962)

  Bodbury speaks out!

  BODBURY BYELECTION RESULT

  F. Muncher (Lab.) 14,931

  J. P. R. Cramshaw-Bollington (C) 8,101

  S. W. Dearfellow (L) 7,123

  Labour majority 6,830

  (General election:

  Lab. 23,987; C 16,021; L 9,980. Lab. maj. – 7,966)

  F. Muncher: It’s a wonderful result. Not only have we held the seat, but we have increased our share of the poll – a real smack in the eye for the Government. The voters of Bodbury have told Mr Macmillan and his friends in no uncertain terms what they think of the Government’s record on such things as the Common Market (or will have done, as soon as we have actually decided which policy on this question it was that our supporters were voting for). And if you take our vote in conjunction with the Liberal vote, it’s evident that there is a definite anti-Tory majority in Bodbury.

  J. P. R. Cramshaw-Bollington:I’m absolutely delighted with the result. At a time when the pendulum traditionally swings against the party in office, we’ve slashed the Labour majority in this Labour stronghold. I take this as a most encouraging vote of confidence in the Government – a message from the people of Bodbury to Mr Macmillan, urging him to carry on with the good work, whatever it may be. And taking the increased Liberal vote into account, its evident that there is a definite anti-Socialist majority in Bodbury.

  S. W. Dearfellow: The result couldn’t be better. Our share of the vote is up sharply, while the numbers of votes polled by both the Labour and Conservative candidates have slumped heavily. This is Bodbury’s way of saying ‘A plague on both your houses – we want to have it both ways with the Liberals.’ And if you take the Liberal vote in conjunction with either the Labour or the Conservative vote, you can see that either way we’ve got a clear anti-extremist majority.

  Sprout: Thank you, gentlemen. Now, what do the commentators think about the national significance of the Bodbury result? Haddock?

  Haddock: Well, it should give real encouragement to the Liberals. But then again, it might be said that though they have gained, they have gained much less than might have been expected. And since anyway the gain will almost certainly disappear again at a general election, I feel they should temper their encouragement with a feeling of disappointment.

  Trouncer: I interpret the quite noticeable fall in the Labour majority as a clear endorsement of the Government’s position on manganese quotas. However, this fall was accompanied by an increase in Labour’s share of the vote, which suggests to m
e a movement of Conservative supporters who have become disillusioned by the Government’s record on departmental procedure reform.

  Pinn: Though since the actual size of the Labour vote fell, this movement may have been accompanied by the abstention of Labour voters disillusioned with the Opposition’s record on the same question. Or perhaps with Harold Wilson’s personality. Or George Brown’s face.

  Sprout: To me, I must say, the real meaning of Bodbury lies in the reduction of the Conservative vote, which spells out in words of one syllable comprehensible to even the dullest back-bencher that there is no support in the country for the Government’s lukewarm attitude to Chile.

  Haddock: Possibly. The permutations are endless. And when one considers the local factors …

  Trouncer: … the possibility that Fred Muncher’s local reputation as deputy chairman of the Bodbury Amateur Weight-Lifters’ Association was cancelled out by xenophobic suspicion of his living a quarter of a mile outside the constituency boundary …

  Pinn: … and whether the Liberal gain from middle-class resentment against credit restrictions stopping the building of a new cricket pavilion was balanced by the propaganda effect of the Cramshaw-Bollington Dogs’ Home founded by the Conservative candidate’s father …

  Haddock: … and whether the rain in the morning hindered the Tories more than the fog in the evening deterred the Socialists …

  Sprout: … one realises that there is plenty of scope yet for imaginative conjecture about what the voters thought they were voting for, provided no unspeakable blackleg actually goes and finds out by asking them,

  (1962)

  Brought to book

  The literary life, which I have largely managed, to avoid for my forty years as a professional writer, finally caught up on me with a, rush last Tuesday afternoon. At about two o’clock my publishers rang to tell me that my novel Headlong was on the Booker shortlist. At about three o’clock someone announcing himself as the Arts Correspondent of the Guardian rang to tell me that I had been accused of plagiarism.

  I was shaken, I have to admit. But not entirely displeased. This is what happens to writers in serious departments of the literary world, such as the Booker shortlist. They get accused of things. They hurl the accusations back in their accusers’ teeth. There are rows and fights, and people don’t speak to each other. No one had ever bothered to accuse me of plagiarism before. I had got somewhere in life at last.

  And it was all happening with such breathtaking speed. I had been elevated to the literary peerage at two, and disgraced at three. This really was life in the fast lane.

  Even more astonishing was that the accusation apparently came from one of the Booker judges themselves. The Arts Correspondent of the Guardian said he had been talking to John Sutherland, who had told him that my novel bore suspicious similarities to a story by Roald Dahl.

  ‘In your novel‚’ he said, ‘there is a picture being used as a soot-guard in a fireplace. Yes?’ I couldn’t deny it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘in this story by Dahl there is apparently a piece of Chippendale up a chimney.’

  Soot-guard in a fireplace – Chippendale up a chimney. It looked black, I had to admit – and not just the picture or the Chippendale, but the whole case against me. I did indeed recall a story by Dahl which featured a furniture-dealer buying some valuable piece of furniture, possibly by Chippendale, off an ignorant yokel, though I couldn’t recall the item in question being up a chimney at any point.

  ‘But the soot?’ I queried keenly. ‘Was the Chippendale stopping the soot coming down the chimney?’ Because if I could show that this crucial element in my version was original, it occurred to me – if it turned out that Dahl’s Chippendale was stopping, say, Father Christmas rather than soot from coming down the chimney – then I had a complete answer to the charge.

  The Arts Correspondent of the Guardian said he would find out and call me back. When he did he reported that he had misunderstood what John Sutherland had told him. There was no Chippendale up a chimney. The Chippendale-up-the-chimney charge had been totally withdrawn by the prosecution. What was now alleged was some general similarity between my plot and Dahl’s.

  This was even more baffling than the Chippendale up the chimney. I could remember the outlines of Dahl’s plot, even if not the exact location of the furniture. Dealer cunningly persuades yokel that the Chippendale is valueless except as firewood – yokel obligingly chops it up while the dealer fetches his van. In my novel dealer and yokel are replaced by art historian and landowner. Art historian keeps his identification of landowner’s picture as a missing Bruegel to himself; same story so far, I have to confess. Landowner, however, far from chopping it up, either literally or figuratively, becomes interested in it, in spite of art historian’s dissembling, and tries to work out its correct identification for himself.

  I explained this to the Arts Correspondent of the Guardian. ‘This is the Booker,’ he said apologetically. ‘You have to expect this kind of thing.’ He went off to take further instruction. Half-an-hour later he was back on the line. ‘Martin!’ he greeted me, in what sounded like some excitement. Martin? We seemed to be getting into very deep water indeed. Martin is the art historian in my novel. The Arts Correspondent of the Guardian was trying to phone my character to ask him whether he had been plagiarised! But this is exactly the kind of thing that happens in the higher reaches of the literary life! Fact and fiction turn out to be in some profound sense inextricably intertwined!

  And I thought, ‘This Arts Correspondent is no fool. He knows that Martin is the narrator of the story. He has information suggesting that it was Martin with his fingers in the till!’

  I explained that he had got the wrong number, and that I was not Martin but Michael – Martin’s author, certainly, but not responsible for his torts, surely, since Martin was of age and of sound mind. I urged him to ring Martin direct.

  But when I open the Guardian next morning, there are our pictures. Not Dahl’s and Martin’s, but Dahl’s and mine. Our names, as they say, have now been linked in the press. You can see from the reflective expression on Dahl’s face that he is busy thinking up an original plot. You can see from the sly expression on mine that I am busy stealing it.

  The pictures are illustrating John Sutherland’s column. In the text Sutherland retails the accusation as an example of the kind of ridiculous nonsense that is probably going to be confected about the Booker finalists. ‘Perhaps,’ he says, as if he might actually believe it himself, ‘the story lodged forgotten, like some old Bruegel, in the attic of the novelist’s mind.’ Though it’s just as likely, he agrees, that the resemblance is ‘purely accidental’.

  So there the case rests. It may be plagiarism; on the other hand it may not be. What John Sutherland is too modest to mention is my much clearer and even more blatant plagiarism of him. There are glaring similarities between my book and his own excellent biography of Mrs Humphry Ward. Mrs Ward lives in a large house; so does the landowner in my story. Mrs Ward’s house is in the country; so is my landowner’s! Mrs Ward had difficult relations with her son; so does my landowner! In fact he has difficult relations with two sons, which by my calculation makes him twice as plagiarised as if he’d only had one.

  Martin has obviously been up to his tricks again.

  As the headline on John Sutherland’s column says, You Couldn’t Make It Up.

  (1999)

  Business worries

  Children and animals are always reckoned to be the great scene-stealers against whom actors are reluctant to compete. But to my mind the greatest scene-stealer of all in films is a corpse.

  Whatever the other attractions on the screen, if there’s a corpse about I gaze at it fixedly. I have a nagging ambition to catch the actor who plays the corpse breathing when he thinks everyone’s forgotten about him. A small ambition for a grown man, I dare say, but it gives me a hobby.

  No luck so far, though I may have blinked just at the crucial moment. I suppose those bodies are actors holding the
ir breath? It’s not all faked up somehow with corpses rented out from the mortuary and just made up to look like actors holding their breath? I must write in and ask the fan magazines.

  Anyway, it shows you how relaxed and secure one can be in the cinema, knowing nothing can really go wrong except the projector or the air-conditioning. It’s a very different matter in the theatre. One wouldn’t dare so much as glance at a corpse on the stage. After that great sword-fight all the way up the set and back one knows the poor man’s bosom must be heaving up and down like a piledriver. One wouldn’t dream of embarrassing him by looking. Anyway, he might feel one’s eye on him and start to cough. No doubt, for that matter, he’s fallen with one leg agonisingly doubled up – on his keys – with his ruff tickling his nose. His whole situation doesn’t really bear thinking about too much.

  All the time in the theatre one is waiting aghast for some embarrassing disaster to occur. Whenever there’s a pause, one starts praying they’re not going to forget their lines, or be taken ill on the stage. It’s like walking through a minefield. Every day in the papers one reads about actors having heart attacks in the middle of their performance, breaking their legs, getting their heads split open in the fights, knocking themselves out against the scenery, and generally making a spectacle of themselves. At any moment, one feels there might be some sort of scene.

  Audience anxiety reaches a peak, as all sado-masochistic directors know, whenever the cast indulge in one of those little bits of business which depend on physical dexterity, or the workings of some notoriously fallible machine. My heart leaps into my mouth every time somebody offers to light somebodys else’s cigarette with a lighter. Flick – it fails to light! Flick – and again it doesn’t light! Flick – look intently at ceiling, think about something else.