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    A Going Concern (NHB Modern Plays)
    A Going Concern (NHB Modern Plays)
    A Going Concern (NHB Modern Plays)
    Ebook145 pages1 hour

    A Going Concern (NHB Modern Plays)

    By Stephen Jeffreys

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    About this ebook

    A play about a washed-up family business, from the author of The Libertine.
    1966. The technological revolution has not yet reached Chapel & Sons, an ailing family business making billiard tables. In the dilapidated workshop, three generations conspire against each other for control of the firm.
    Stephen Jeffreys' play A Going Concern is at once a lament for the passing of an industrial age, a retelling of the classic mythical struggle between fathers and sons and a thoroughly entertaining story.
    It was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 1993.
    'Crackles with snappy tensions... A real find' - Daily Mail
    'Blisteringly tough and funny' - Sunday Times
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNick Hern Books
    Release dateAug 6, 2018
    ISBN9781788500852
    A Going Concern (NHB Modern Plays)
    Author

    Stephen Jeffreys

    Stephen Jeffreys’ plays include The Libertine and I Just Stopped By to See the Man (Royal Court); Valued Friends and A Going Concern (Hampstead); Bugles at the Gates of Jalalabad (part of the Tricycle Theatre’s Great Game season about Afghanistan); The Convict’s Opera (Out of Joint); Lost Land (starring John Malkovich, Steppenwolf, Chicago); The Art of War (Sydney Theatre Company) and A Jovial Crew (RSC). His adaptation of Dickens’ Hard Times has been performed all over the world. He wrote the films The Libertine (starring Johnny Depp) and Diana (starring Naomi Watts). He co-authored the Beatles musical Backbeat which opened at the Citizens Theatre and went on to seasons in London’s West End, Toronto and Los Angeles, and translated The Magic Flute for English National Opera in Simon McBurney’s production. For eleven years he was Literary Associate at the Royal Court Theatre where he is now a member of the Council. His celebrated playwriting workshops have influenced numerous writers.

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      Book preview

      A Going Concern (NHB Modern Plays) - Stephen Jeffreys

      ACT ONE

      Scene One

      Zoot Money and the Big Roll Band: ‘Big Time Operator’. Lights come up slowly on the main workshop of Chapel Bros. It’s around 9.30 a.m. The kettle is heating on the gas hob. DAVID is sweeping the floor. BARRY is at his bench, tacking a strip of cloth to a cushion. GORDON stands over him. Music fades.

      GORDON. The Sun in Splendour.

      BARRY. What about The Sun in Splendour?

      GORDON. On the telephone yesterday. Ring any bells?

      BARRY. Yesterday? The Sun in Splendour?

      GORDON. Yes.

      BARRY. It wasn’t The Sun in Splendour, it was The Bricklayer’s Arms.

      GORDON. It was The Sun in Splendour.

      BARRY. It wasn’t The Sun –

      GORDON. The Bricklayer’s Arms? You mean The Bricklayer’s Arms in the City?

      BARRY. The Bricklayer’s Arms, Dalston.

      GORDON. Dalston? There is no such pub.

      BARRY. It’s written down in the gone-wrong book.

      GORDON. Well if it’s written down in the gone-wrong book, we’ll all be able to read it, won’t we, a pub that doesn’t exist. I’m talking about The Sun in Splendour, Portobello Road.

      BARRY. It wasn’t –

      GORDON. The landlord’s just been on the phone. That’s how I know. We should have been over there yesterday. Some crafty bastard’s had the top up and tinkered with the clock. They’re getting an extra fifteen minutes’ worth for their sixpence, we’ve been losing money on the site for the last twenty-four hours.

      BARRY. Well they didn’t phone –

      GORDON. The landlord phoned yesterday –

      BARRY. They did not phone.

      GORDON. David will you please fetch me the gone-wrong book please.

      DAVID goes off right.

      BARRY. The –

      GORDON. Yes?

      BARRY. The Bricklayer’s Arms rang about something.

      GORDON. Not The Bricklayer’s Arms, Dalston, because there is no such public house as The Bricklayer’s Arms, Dalston.

      BARRY. The other one then –

      GORDON. The Bricklayer’s Arms in the City –

      BARRY. Wherever it is –

      GORDON. It’s in the City.

      DAVID is back with a large, hard-covered notebook.

      Thank you, David. Now then. Yesterday afternoon, Thursday the fourteenth of April. The Sun in Splendour, Portobello Road. Interference with clock. Playing time too long. This is your handwriting, yes?

      GORDON holds the book out. BARRY turns away.

      I could have done it last night, if someone had had the wit to tell me. I was in Shepherd’s Bush. Tonight I’m in Rotherhithe, very convenient, that’s my weekend knackered before it’s begun.

      He slams the book on a table top and steams out left. DAVID sweeps. BARRY hammers tacks into the cushion.

      BARRY. It definitely was.

      DAVID. Yes.

      BARRY. It was, I remember.

      DAVID. I remember you saying. Dalston.

      BARRY. David, don’t sweep like that.

      DAVID. Like what?

      BARRY. You’re raising too much dust. It all goes in my eyes. Throw some water down first.

      DAVID. I have.

      BARRY. You need more.

      DAVID goes to the sink, fills a mug with water and with a scooping motion, spreads it on the floor.

      The whole point of having a gone-wrong book is that people read it.

      DAVID. Yes.

      BARRY. We don’t have a gone-wrong conference period –

      DAVID. What record you getting today?

      BARRY. What?

      DAVID. It’s Friday, what record are you getting?

      BARRY. How do you know I’m getting a record?

      DAVID. This is my third Friday here. The first Friday you bought Sound of ’65 by the Graham Bond Organisation. Last week it was Sonny Boy Williamson. These are the only two things I’ve ever seen you buy. So I deduced that every Friday you spend all your week’s savings on a record.

      BARRY. I should have said that to him. ‘We have a gone wrong-book, not a gone-wrong conference period.’

      DAVID throws water on another part of the floor.

      DAVID. So what will it be?

      BARRY. Actually, David, I never see you spending money either.

      DAVID. Students don’t have money, Barry, they have grants.

      BARRY. I’d love to get out to The Sun in Splendour. He should think himself lucky. I’m stuck in this workshop. It strains your eyes and there’s dust. I do the slog. Everyone else gets out. You’ll get out this morning.

      DAVID. Well, we’ll swap over. You go out, I’ll stay here.

      BARRY. You can’t do what I can

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