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    Victoria's Knickers (NHB Modern Plays)
    Victoria's Knickers (NHB Modern Plays)
    Victoria's Knickers (NHB Modern Plays)
    Ebook96 pages51 minutes

    Victoria's Knickers (NHB Modern Plays)

    By Josh Azouz

    ()

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    About this ebook

    On the eve of her coronation, Victoria is having a bath. Out of her chimney falls Edward 'The Boy' Jones. Again. Adored by the tabloids and hated by the establishment, his repeated break-ins to the palace remain a mystery to all. Except Victoria.
    An epic romcom, Victoria's Knickers tells the story of an unlikely romance between the Queen of England and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Will the teenage lovers survive a power-crazed Lord Conroy, the Chartists and Prince Albert?
    Set against the backdrop of an uncertain England and with original songs from Chris Cookson, Josh Azouz's play Victoria's Knickers is an irreverent tale of passion and violence told with an anarchic heart and a razor-sharp wit.
    The play premiered at Soho Theatre, London, in October 2018, performed by the National Youth Theatre and directed by Ned Bennett.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNick Hern Books
    Release dateNov 12, 2018
    ISBN9781788501262
    Victoria's Knickers (NHB Modern Plays)
    Author

    Josh Azouz

    Josh Azouz is an award-winning playwright. His plays include Once Upon A Time In Nazi Occupied Tunisia (Almeida Theatre), Buggy Baby and The Mikvah Project (both for the Yard Theatre).

    Read more from Josh Azouz

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      Book preview

      Victoria's Knickers (NHB Modern Plays) - Josh Azouz

      1.1

      1838. London.

      ED JONES is up a tree. He’s looking at Buckingham Palace.

      At the bottom of his tree sit LAURIE and ISABEL.

      LAURIE (to audience). One evening outside Buckingham Palace. (To ISABEL.) Forget it, it’s too risky.

      ISABEL. What’s the risk?

      LAURIE. Trigger-happy guards bored out of their minds.

      ISABEL. The guards aren’t interested in a couple of kids, they just wanna keep their heads down, chat, do the crossword.

      LAURIE. So we hop the wall via Ed’s tree?

      ISABEL. Then stroll across the lawn.

      LAURIE. How do we get out?

      ISABEL. The same way we got in.

      LAURIE. They have dogs, you gonna be able to scale the wall with bloodhounds biting at your heels?

      ISABEL. We’ll be back over the wall before the dogs have left their kennels.

      LAURIE. I say we just tag this wall and send a clear message to everyone / who

      ISABEL. Forget some basic tag for tourists, we need to get inside, tag the manifesto and make the bitch read.

      LAURIE. She needs to read one of my pamphlets.

      ISABEL. I don’t even read your pamphlets.

      LAURIE. Yeah but you like colouring books.

      ISABEL. Nobody reads them, they use them for roaches. So we’re in the Palace –

      LAURIE. Running away from armed guards and rabid dogs and what room do we even tag?

      ISABEL. We head straight for her bedroom.

      LAURIE. Girl’s got two hundred and forty bedrooms.

      ISABEL. Yeah but she’ll have one main room she sleeps in.

      LAURIE. Who knows she might literally sleep in a different bed every night.

      ISABEL. Hang on, hang on.

      LAURIE. We’ll have to chat up a chambermaid, ask if the girl’s got a favourite room?

      ISABEL. Very good.

      LAURIE. Pretend we work in the Palace otherwise the chambermaid will go apeshit.

      ISABEL. What, disguise ourselves?

      LAURIE. We’ll have to.

      ISABEL. Go to the laundry room first, pick out a costume, nice.

      LAURIE. ‘I’m a seamstress, it’s my first day on the job, where’s Her Majesty’s chambers?’

      ISABEL. Joker.

      LAURIE. Okay let’s do this I’m buzzing.

      ISABEL takes out two cans of spray paint.

      ISABEL. They’d run out of green.

      LAURIE. Pink isn’t our colour.

      ISABEL. Who cares about the colour, it’s the words that count!?

      LAURIE. This is the biggest moment of our lives and for you to come out and say the colours don’t count well I’m starting to lose all faith in you. Our manifestos have always been green, I’m not gonna risk martyring myself for pink.

      ISABEL. ‘Martyring’ what are you Joan of Arc?

      LAURIE. Ed, do you feel comfortable tagging in pink?

      ED. Not gonna lie your chat is so dead I zoned out.

      ISABEL. Dickhead.

      ED. To be fair it’s been a long day.

      ISABEL. Is it tiring work smoking opium?

      ED. I didn’t smoke. I was wrestling with a poem about the moon.

      LAURIE. Let’s hear it.

      ED. It’s bollocks, I couldn’t figure out the form. Spent all afternoon walking up and down Waterloo Bridge.

      ISABEL. Did you wank over the view for inspiration?

      LAURIE. Why you gotta say something like that?

      ISABEL. Just saying it how it is. Our brother is a / wanker –

      LAURIE. Wanker.

      LAURIE and ISABEL snort.

      Through a window, ED sees VICTORIA.

      A moment.

      ED lowers himself down on the Palace side of the wall, and disappears. His sisters are unaware.

      Seeing as we’re at loggerheads with the colour choice, I say we abandon the tagging idea. Let’s just try and actually find her. Talk her through the manifesto. She’s our age, she’ll probably be receptive.

      ISABEL. What if she’s not?

      LAURIE. I brought this.

      LAURIE takes out a gun.

      Ed, what’s the guard situation looking like?

      Ed?

      ISABEL. Typical. Old Flakey McFlakerson.

      LAURIE. Unless he already went in?

      ISABEL. Shit, do you think?

      They climb the tree.

      LAURIE. They shot Chartists in Newport.

      ISABEL. Yeah but Welsh policeman are crazy.

      LAURIE. I can’t take another funeral.

      ISABEL. Laurie, he’ll be fine.

      They disappear over the wall.

      Inside Buckingham Palace.

      The DUCHESS enters and sits opposite VICTORIA.

      VICTORIA. I’m not hungry.

      DUCHESS. Can I have an approximate time when you might be?

      VICTORIA. We just ate.

      DUCHESS. I saw you run to the bathroom after.

      VICTORIA. I needed a shit.

      DUCHESS. Good, the bowels are finally working. So

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