by Rik Mayall
[Chow?]
D-DAY THE MUSICAL
I’ve never been short of arrows in my showbusiness quiver, right, but one that I have never taken out and thought hmmm, might just stick this in the old bow and see how far I can fire it, is that of showbusiness impresario. Acter, yes, of course; comedian, get real; challenging, controversial voice-over artiste, absolutely; but impresario, never. Until now that is.
Often I wander through London’s West End and look at all the theatres and it depresses me. It’s all just tired American musicals and clever comedies that aren’t clever or funny. What we need is something that means something to us, the Brits, in our sceptred isle, our noble Albion and all that kind of stuff. We need a musical in the heart of the West End that will be like a banner that we can rally around and reconnect us to our noble heritage. So whilst Mister Chirac and Mister Schroeder are trying to take us over, I want to do this for my people. I want to do this in honour of all my ancestors who died at Waterloo, and at Crecy and Agincourt, the Crimean War and the Boer War*, not to mention the first and second world wars – I lost a lot then. And I will stage my musical in honour of the fallen. It will be like Remembrance Sunday every evening of the week, except Sundays, ironically. And the tourists can come and see a proper British musical that will make us feel proud to be British again.
People forget the legacy that Britain has left to the world with its great military victories, and that’s because of all these mealy-mouthed politicians – eurocrats – europhiles or whatever they’re called, who are in the process of selling this country down the river. Every couple of years I always do an enormous Bottom tour for my people. I like to get my Bottom out, which is one of my great jokes I often say. It’s quite clever really because Bottom is such a dirty word and it is also the name of my great show. But this year, this musical, this vast production, this jewel in the crown of my glittering career which we will call D-Day – The Musical, will be my new live extravaganza and statement to my people. That’s what it means to be known as THE British light entertainer (I can be quite a heavy entertainer* as well). I have devised it, written it, and will produce it and star in it. Not only will I take it to the West End but also on tour around the world. It will put Britain back on the map. And yes, I know it’s a huge undertaking but hey this is nothing for the man who sorted out the whole African famine problem with my number one charity hit single Living Doll (I got five large houses out of it and a couple of cars as well). That proved that I could do music as well as everything else that I do that’s great. That’s because I’ve got the music in me. I’ve got the music in me. I’ve got the music, in me. They call me, Mr The Rik “Mr Music” Mayall.
I have a long tradition of making enormous amounts of money out of audiences. This is a good thing, it’s kept a lot of non-entities in jobs. But more importantly, it shows that I am the right man to pull this off (ooer obviously – comedy). To make this happen. So that is why I am including a small taster of the show in my great book. This will be an opportunity for you, viewer, to become involved in my great showbusiness venture and earn yourself lots of money. It’s simple. All you do is you get your cheque book, make a cheque out to Rik Mayall Enterprises in association with Heimi Mad Dog Fingelstein for Top Bollocks Management Holdings Ltd, and post it to P.O. Box number 7358, Bermondsey, London SE16. Whatever you send in – and it really needs to be at least four figures to make it worthwhile – will be logged by Big Joan in a large notebook and all the money will go towards staging this great show. So it will all be completely above board and you’ll have nothing to worry about. And then as soon as we’ve broken even then we’ll start paying you back with interest. How’s that for a totally cock-ripping idea? I bet no one else has ever thought of that. So get involved now, ordinaries, while your chance is still white hot.
So, right, now here is an edited, highly polished and really rather special early draft of the show. And, in case you’re wondering, I’ve got it all copywritten and patiented and all that too so don’t think you can screw me (meaning rip me off – not the other). This script is what’s known in the business as “hot” so read it close to your chest. You never know who might come scuttling up behind you.
D-DAY – THE MUSICAL
by
The Rik Mayall
and
starring
The Rik Mayall
as
Wolf Lair
INT. A THEATRE – NIGHT (ABOUT QUARTER TO EIGHT)
People. A stage. Lights. Suddenly…all the lights are switched off! This is not an electrical fault – this is supposed to happen. And there are curtains across the front of the stage. You probably already know this – I’m sure you’ve been. The curtains open to furious applause from the audience.
ACT 1 SCENE 1: THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER (KENT)
Some Germans shout “Achtung Spitfire” and – fire a big antiaircraft gun. A spitfire crashes on stage. DOUGLAS BADER walks out of the wreckage (with difficulty) and approaches the front of the stage with his dog, Nigger. This isn’t racist. That’s the dog’s name.
DOUGLAS BADER: It’s not what you think, this show’s got legs. Keep watching.
Black out. This isn’t racist either.
ACT 1 SCENE 2: THE ENGLISH CHANNEL (BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE)
The lights are on in this bit.
A German submarine fires a torpedo at a British destroyer which sinks.
Huge applause.
ACT 1 SCENE 3: CABINET WAR ROOMS (LONDON)
WINSTON CHURCHILL sits behind his desk. Next to him stands AN AMERICAN in military uniform.
WINSTON CHURCHILL:
I’ve got it, listen to this…D-DAY!
AN AMERICAN: Good idea.
Black out. Applause.
ACT 1 SCENE 4: OMAHA BEACH (FRANCE)
The Atlantic Ocean crashes on the beach. Sand everywhere, a bagette (remember where we are), lashing waves, cliffs, barbed wire, German gun emplacements, thousands of German troops. Luftwaffe fly past low, loudly machine gunning the sand. Nineteen landing craft approach the beach. Eight of them are sunk with mines and strafed with Stookers. Finally, the rest hit the front of the beach and open their flaps (ooer obviously) .
Out come four hundred British Tommies led by WOLF LAIR, 33, (me).
Sudden standing ovation. Audience in shock. Screams of “Rik, Rik, take me.” Everyone throws their pants. (Men optional.)
Wolf bows and signs autographs, collects knickers, and takes telephone numbers of birds in the front three rows.
Wolf broods.
Applause. More autographs.
Pause.
The troops (all of them slightly shorter than Wolf – it’s not a big thing but it’s very important) watch Wolf, inspired and bursting with respect.
Suddenly, like a Krakatoa from nowhere, Wolf begins to hum the opening bars to his first song.
AUDIENCE: My God! He’s going to do a number.
[It’s always important to kick the audience in the face with the opening number in a musical – so this has to be a biggie. This is where you come in, viewer. We need some top quality show tunes. So if you know any leading musicians, maybe you can put them in touch with me. Don’t worry, I want this to be a joint venture so I’ll make sure that you get a good cut – and I don’t mean that in a mafia-style horse’s-head-in-your-bed-way – I mean I’ll make sure you get money. On top of the money that you will already have invested. I’ll sort out the lyrics (words) – I’ve already got a few good ideas like rhyming bosh with cosh or gosh perhaps and maybe Khaki could go quite nicely with malarkey. Whatever.]
Musical number finishes. Wild applause. Knickers. [It’s screaming money already, isn’t it?]
Suddenly, some GERMANS run on stage.
SOME GERMANS: Achtung! Schnell! Schnell! Voss is das? English Schweinehunde! Handy-hock! Handy-hock! [This is scary German talk for “hands up”].
AN ENGLISH TOMMY:
Cor blimey guv, lawks-a-lumme! Rub-a-duck! Etc, etc. [Normal BB
C cockney drivel – except a lot better because this is my great new show].
ANOTHER ENGLISH TOMMY:
You’re not wrong there me old cockney mate!
WOLF LAIR: Fucking hell great mates – I mean honest tommies – let’s fight on for Queen and country even though the Queen isn’t on the throne yet.
There is a fire fight: bullets, bombs, bodies and blood – everywhere. All the tommies are killed except for Wolf who fights on.
WOLF LAIR: You’ll never take me alive!
Wolf’s gun runs out of bullets and he is captured by the Germans and led away.
WOLF LAIR: Oh shit, I’ve been captured.
The Germans laugh haughtily and spit at him. But only acting spitting. Not real spitting. It could be a health risk. You know how low cheap acters’ morals can get.
Right, that’s the end of Act One, although we could have another song here, maybe a sad one sung by Wolf about how fucked off he is that he’s been captured. Then again, all that singing is a bit dull isn’t it. Nobody likes music these days especially in West End musicals, and we don’t want to overdo it. Besides, by now, we’ll have the audience eating out of our hands because it’s got it all – patriotism, heroism, great songs and extreme violence. What it doesn’t have is romance – that will come later on when Wolf gets it together with some fabulous French bird at the prisoner of war camp. But though he is in love, he decides to tunnel out of the prison (I was thinking we might have him appearing through a hole at the back of the auditorium – no one’s done that before) and he returns to the D-Day landing which is still going on and helps lead all the Tommies to victory before liberating the prisoner of war camp and being reunited with his top bird.
Pause.
Snogging, wild applause.
THE END.
Loads of curtain calls, etc.
Lights go back on.
People go home.
Looks to me like everyone’s laughing and you know what I’m thinking, don’t you? Course you do, us big guys know the score. It’s going to be like standing in a wind tunnel of cash and it’s all going to be blowing our way. Are you getting the metaphor here?
BANG!
What the fuck was that? That was a great wad of Euros hitting me in the face from all the tourists who will come flooding across the channel and the Atlantic as well to come and see it. We’ll be so rich that we can buy expensive houses in Provence, have swimming pools installed, fill them up with pound notes and swim about in them. I mean, fivers, because it’s coins now isn’t it. Coins’d hurt. Especially with the breast stroke. Or if it was hot. And some bastard might stuff a load down his trunks and run away pretending he’s well hung. So, hey, it’s a crap idea, forget about the whole thing. Tell you what though, we could have a German version in which the Krauts win. That way, we can keep them happy too. You’ve got to think of everything in this game. You just can’t afford not to. Anyway, get your cheque books out and before you know it we’ll be in bed together. Business-wise, of course. I’ll leave you to it. Don’t forget the stamp.
MAXIMUM ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE
They’re pouring out of me, viewer, the words that is. I haven’t even got time to break the flow of my prose to tell you that and I’m not the kind of guy who does that kind of thing anyway. I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t do stuff like that and when I say I don’t do it, I don’t do it because that’s what being Rik Mayall is all about. It’s like the typewriter is an extension of my body and memories hurl themselves at me like hail stones in a psychic maelstrom of writing lots of things.
It was spring. Spring 2003. The blossom was on the trees and my thoughts turned to Noel Coward and his play, Present Laughter. So I took it out on tour, indescribably successfully, of course. You see, the thing is, Noel wrote it specially for me. When I say he wrote it for me, I don’t mean that literally of course. Noel Coward didn’t wake up one morning and think, “Right, today I think I’ll crack one off for Rik Mayall.” Although, you never know, he might have done. But really what I was doing with you there, viewer, was using an allegorical allusion – no, me neither, looks good though doesn’t it? Anyway, enough of this literary politesse, let’s get our trousers down, legs wide apart and well lubed up for some serious flying-superfortress-style provincial theatre touring anecdotes.
The part of Garry Essendine in Present Laughter was played by some decent acters before me. There was Albert Finney, there was Peter O’Toole, the late great Peter Wingarde (who played Jason King – respect), George C. Scott in America and even old Noely himself. But quite a few serious hardcore Noel Coward fans (whose names I shan’t divulge) who have seen all the different productions starring all six of us towering titans of modern theatre said that my portrayal was by far the best. This is true. And what is more, it is a cold stone fact.
So there I was coming on stage in the incomparable Ambassadors Theatre, Woking. I’d already been on for twenty minutes. That’s why I always wear good thick trousers when I’m acting. It was all going well. Everyone knew their lines and was saying them in the right order and at the right time and it all made sense. But there was something wrong, I could feel it. Something was whispering at my sensitivity. What was it? What could it be?
Something that is worth knowing about me, viewer, is that I am known in showbusiness circles as The Audience Barometer. This is because I can sense the atmospheric mood of an audience so well whilst I’m on stage. Like a barometer, obviously. It’s like I’m a bit telepathic. Not even a bit really. I’m quite a lot telepathic. And I could tell that something was badly wrong. There came a shout from the top of the dress circle*, “where’s Eddie?” I ignored it of course. I’m a professional in all things, especially my stage work. I continued with my challenging portrayal of Garry Essendine’s next line, but inside, it felt as though a runaway combine harvester had chewed me up in its horrific spiky rotating things at the front and passed me through its insides and disgorged me in a bail of feeling really rather frightened. For over twenty-eight years I had managed to keep all my different fan-bases and factions and groups and splinter groups and divisions and sub-divisions apart. But here on a Wednesday afternoon matinee in Woking things were turning ugly. And I don’t do ugly. I ad-libbed* for a moment, so I could walk to the front of the stage so I could take a look at my audiense. You’re in trouble here Rik Mayall, I thought to myself. And I was. So I was right. I always am. I could tell just by looking, which was pretty good really because it was dark, that they were out there, confused and frightened but ready for battle nonetheless. It felt like I was standing butchly astride a huge unexploded bomb like in that series with the bloke with the shaky hands. Except he was sitting on his one. So I was better than that.
The first flare up took place at the back of the stalls when a chapter of Glaswegian Young Ones fans threw a Christopher Ryan look-a-like at some Liverpudlian Four Men in a Plane fans but missed and hit some Noel Coward obsessives who retaliated with sherry schooners full of piss. Up in the dress circle, vicious scuffles broke out between some Horse Opera fans and a renegade band of Jellikins enthusiasts. An usherette was thrown from a box by some Canadian Kevin of the North fans, and landed on a really hard father and son Krindlekrax tag team in Row H. Things were definitely turning ugly by now. Even though I still didn’t do ugly. Although I was beginning to think that perhaps now was the time to consider doing it. I knew I was really in trouble when a suited, heavily armed gang of New Statesman admirers abseiled down from the upper circle throwing flares into the dress circle to light their way before engaging in vicious hand-to-hand combat with a gang of Lord Flashheart die-hards.
