Play for Today (1970–1984): Season 4, Episode 16 - Penda's Fen - full transcript
Through a series of real and imagined encounters with angels, demons, and England's pagan past, a pastor's son begins to question his religion and politics, and comes to terms with his sexuality.
(PEACEFUL PASSAGE FROM ELGAR'S
THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS PLAYS)
STEPHEN:
Oh, my country.
| say, over and over:
I am one of your sons. It is true.
| am.
| am!
Yet, how
shall | show
my love?
(MUSIC INTENSIFIES)
# ANGEL.: ...Praise to his name!
# O happy, suffering soul!
for it is safe,
# Consumed, yet quickened,
by the glance of God
# Hallelu...
# Hallelu...
(HIGH NOTE STICKING IN A REPEATED LOOP)
(NOTE DISTORTS AND INTENSIFIES)
(DISCORDANT TONES OVERLAY)
(NOTE SUSTAINS
AND INTENSIFIES FURTHER)
# ANGEL: ...ujah
# Praise to his name! #
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
(MUSIC SWELLS)
(MUSIC CRESCENDOES)
(MUSIC SUDDENLY STOPS)
MRS FRANKLIN:
I'm sorry, Stephen.
Your father does have
a sermon to prepare.
Well, we like you to like good music,
Stephen, but it was terribly loud.
Don't be silly, Stephen.
It's all right, Mother.
You've ruined it now.
STEPHEN: "I think the greatest
visionary work in English music
“is The Dream of Gerontius
“by Sir Edward Elgar.
“It poses the most important question:
"What is to happen to my soul?
"Gerontius - Greek 'Geron’, 'Gerontos’ -
an old man, has died.
“The music portrays his
experience after death.
"An angel meets his
soul beyond the grave.
"I think this angel is male,
"vet he sings in a woman's voice
which makes him unearthly.
“He takes the dead man's soul
across the grills of hell,
"where demons scream and mock them.
"Soon, they approach
the courts of light.
"We hear a distant singing.
"Tumultuous,
“like a mighty ocean.
“Elgar himself was a
pious Roman Catholic,
“but his message is true
for us Protestants, too.
“Perhaps even...
“Perhaps especially for those
not blessed with the Christian faith.
"And though it is about the judgement
on one dead man,
“it is, surely,
about that other judgement
"that faces us daily,
“in every moment of our lives.
"Over
"and over.
"We come to the crisis.
"Gerontius asks,
“shall he see God?
“The angel cries with joy.
“This soul is strong enough
to look on God
"and stand the terror and the shock."
# ANGEL: Hallelujah #
STEPHEN:
“And so they come
"before the throne of God.
(THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS
SWELLS AND RECEDES)
STEPHEN:
"A terrible silence.
"And then breaks out
a brief fearful dissonance.
"The moment of the glance of God.
"Surely the most shattering moment
in all of music.
(BIRDS CHIRP OUTSIDE)
“To hear in your head such sounds.
“To be a man.
"Have Heaven and hell between
your ears and write them down
“In notes.
"And walk those hills,
“and hear the angel and the demon.
“The judgement,
“on those hills.
"And hear the dissonance
“that is the piercing glance of God."
(BIRDS CONTINUE CHIRPING)
(MAN WHISTLING OUTSIDE)
(DOOR BELL RINGING)
JOEL:
Hello squire.
Is this the day you school kids
play at soldiers, then?
Some of us are learning
to defend our country.
| should get
your anklets straight, then.
England's last hope!
| wish Joel would like me.
He can be so cutting.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
| was wondering when he would notice.
Milk lad. Hardly original.
MRS FRANKLIN:
So unaware.
He'll grow through it.
We most of us do.
So totally unaware.
And so late.
What do they say here?
'A late spring never lies.’
# And did the countenance divine
# Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
# And was Jerusalem builded here
# Among those dark satanic mills?
# Bring me my bow
# of burning gold
# Bring me my arrows of desire #
BOY: (WHISPERING)
What do them letters say?
STEPHEN:
Those letters.
‘Sophrosyne’ - balance of mind.
HONEYBONE:
Trust Franklin, Franklin always knows.
His father's a priest.
STEPHEN:
Not a priest, a parson.
Don't you know the difference,
Honeybone?
"Thine everywhere' over the showers.
HONEYBONE:
"The car and soap flakes.'
STEPHEN: Honeybone!
‘Let there be light.’
‘A healthy mind in a healthy body.’
HONEYBONE:
Even over the bog, look!
STEPHEN:
'Gnothi seauton.'
That means, 'Discover thyself..
HONEYBONE:
'Uncover thy ass," more like!
STEPHEN:
Honeybone! That's dirty.
HONEYBONE: Cadet Frankilin,
your webbing's a disgrace!
STEPHEN:
Corporal Honeybone.
HONEYBONE: Your buckles are disgusting!
STEPHEN: Corporal Honeybone.
HONEYBONE: Male and female
must both be cleaned.
Catch something else.
STEPHEN:
Mr Chairman, sir.
Gentlemen.
Our country, England,
is the freest in the world.
We have liberty of movement,
liberty of choice,
Look at this man and woman.
See if you do not see them
as | see them.
A mother and a father above all parents.
A mother and a father of England,
who, in this modern wilderness
of amorality, stand up alone
to uphold our erring national family
on its Christian path.
free speech, a free press.
We do not have political censorship.
Our police are not armed.
We do not have a secret police.
(STUDENTS MURMURING)
STEPHEN: We know what we are
discussing here tonight.
Not the media in general,
but one programme in particular.
That one that is in
everybody's mind just now.
The so-called TV documentary,
Who was Jesus?
Who was Jesus?
It calls itself, | quote,
'Investigative theology'.
We know in our hearts it is
atheistic and subversive trash!
(STUDENTS PROTEST)
From this at least, the homes of England
have been saved by a timely injunction,
for which we have not the abstraction
of freedom itself to thank,
but those who exercise eternal
vigilance on its behalf.
Perhaps we should let the eighteenth
birthday pass and not tell him at all.
Never tell him.
It was agreed,
in the beginning.
Not to tell him
till he was eighteen
was agreed.
A mistake.
Yes.
We should've done
what we thought was right.
Not what we agreed.
Yes.
ARNE: With all respect
to the lady who asked this,
our postmistress,
| hope she doesn't take this out
on me by withholding my mail.
You talk about strikers holding
the country to ransom.
What are they supposed to do?
Play cricket?
(CROWD PROTESTS)
Besides, hold us to ransom,
isn't that what government itself does?
And by government | don't
mean those figureheads
who come pleading to us every five years
to have their licences renewed.
-(CROWD PROTESTS)
- mean the manipulators, the fixers,
the psychopaths who have
real power in the land.
Is it strikers who play Monopoly for
real with our countryside and cities?
Is it strikers who smash the fabric
of our communities for greed?
Is it strikers who throw up
in the air million after million,
your taxes and mine,
on bungles, deliriums and fantasies?
(CROWD PROTESTS)
Look, is it strikers
who pillage our Earth,
ransack it, drain it,
drive for quick gain
to hand on nothing but dust
to the children of tomorrow?
(CROWD PROTESTS)
Now, now, come off it, Mr Arne.
Now, now, come off it, Mr Arne.
People were dying
because of this strike.
(CROWD IN AGREEMENT)
Pensioners, old soldiers
dying of starvation and cold.
-(CROWD CLAPPING)
-Yes.
When that happens in a strike
it's cold they die of,
when it's inflation,
authorities' high hand
or callousness that kill them,
it's hypothermia they die of then.
Now, you have to get
this into perspective.
ARNE:
Perspective | give you.
What, for instance,
is the ultimate question
a government are left with when
pondering matters of defence?
How many million civilians can we afford
to let get slaughtered before
the remainder revolt and depose us?
(CROWD GROANS)
Mr Chairman, do we have
to endure this hysterical barrage?
Each must have his say, Sir Nicholas.
ARNE:
Look...
Not far from here
is an expanse of country.
You all know it well, Brummies drive out
of a Sunday to leave their litter there.
(CROWD MURMURING)
Poets have hymned
the spirit of this landscape.
Our greatest composer has enshrined it.
Farmland and pasture now,
an ancient fen.
ARNE: The earth beneath
your feet feels solid there.
It is not!
Somewhere there the land is hollow.
Somewhere beneath is being constructed
something we are not supposed to know.
A top secret.
We locals are not supposed
to know it's even there.
And you accept it?
What is it, then?
An air raid shelter
to shift the population of Birmingham to
in all of four minutes.
What is it, hidden beneath
this shell of lovely earth?
Some hideous angel
of technocratic death.
An alternative city,
for government from beneath.
Motorways there.
Offices, control suites, silent, empty,
waiting for the day.
Telephones, computers,
signal equipment.
Ministry pencils,
every grade of H and B, ready,
sharpened against the minute.
"Oh," you said, "it must be
something to protect us.”
Us?
When for all we know the likelihood is,
our entire civilian population is
marked down on some top-secret
memo somewhere
as Strategically expendable.
When you talk of holding
the country to ransom,
please think of possibilities like that.
The British working man will
never let a dictatorship happen.
(CROWD APPLAUDS)
He's far too bloody-minded.
(CROWD LAUGHS)
| damn well hope so.
Mr Arne is a writer.
For all I know,
he might be another Shakespeare.
(CROWD LAUGHS)
NICHOLAS:
But his imagination runs away with him.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
That path is a shocker!
-He's a terrible crank, father.
-He is a shocker.
He is a shocker.
You can tell he's not a nice man
from his television plays.
Well, can't you, Mother?
There's always somebody in them,
unnatural.
| think he's unnatural himself!
That's why he and his wife
haven't been blessed with children!
MRS FRANKLIN:
Stephen...
STEPHEN: It's probably a good thing.
MRS FRANKLIN: What?
That they haven't any children!
Bringing them up with values
like they have.
God gives to whom he chooses,
he does not make mistakes!
MRS FRANKLIN:
Stephen, you can be grotesque.
(PASSENGERS LAUGHING)
YOUNG MAN: Have one for me,
will you, my brother?
(GIRLS GIGGLING)
GIRL: Hey, hands off, Barry.
BARRY: What's the matter?
GIRL: Manners!
(YOUNG MAN COUGHING)
GIRL:
Oh, your brother!
(LAUGHING)
(LAUGHING)
GIRL:
He's a long while!
YOUNG MAN:
Brott!
Brott Gisbourne!
Brott!
(GIRLS SCREAMING)
(SCREAMING CONTINUES)
(SCREAMING INTENSIFIES)
The man...
...in the fire.
NURSE:
I'm sorry, Mrs Gisbourne,
it's not yet possible
for you to see your son!
Nobody can see him, Mrs Gisbourne,
only the doctors!
Brott?
(MACHINE BEEPING)
(HEAVY BREATHING)
Brott!
(MACHINE CONTINUES BEEPING)
| had a dream like that, sir.
Like the queen in the play, sir.
About a snake, Franklin?
No, sir.
| had a dream, sir.
Yes, Albus, I've no doubt you had.
Like a parable.
That there was a demon
on my dad's church tower, sir.
Black and shiny, like a jet statue,
looking down at me, sir.
Then | thought, still dreaming, sir,
I'll turn him to an angel.
So | used my willpower
in my dreams, Sir.
Pushed all my will up,
at the demon on the church,
and turned him into a shining angel.
Then | thought, in my dreams, sir,
if | can turn him one way,
| can turn him back.
So | pushed all my will
and up on the tower,
the angel turned to a demon again.
A Manichaean dream, Franklin.
Yes, sir.
Does that mean dirty, sir?
(ALL LAUGHING)
-TEACHER: Oliver.
-Sir?
STEPHEN:
It's a heresy, sir.
A heretical belief in the early church,
that the universe was a battlefield
between the forces of
lightness and dark, sir.
TEACHER: | only wish, Franklin,
you would, now and then,
transfer your Manichaean impulse
to the rugger field.
(ALL LAUGHING)
OLIVER:
(LAUGHING) Yes, sir.
Franklin doesn't do anything
for the house, sir.
He's a passenger.
OLIVER:
He ought to be boiled in oil.
(ALL LAUGHING)
OLIVER:
Skinned first.
And then boiled alive.
(BICYCLE CREAKING)
STEPHEN:
| say, excuse me.
You've spelt Pinvin wrong.
It's V not F.
Pinvin.
STEPHEN: The police had
this road blocked off this morning,
why can't we get through?
'Cause 'tis closed.
Why?
So others can't get through.
It's Pinvin!
ARNE:
Yes.
Pull the other one, Rector.
There's a peal of bells on.
You know, | was thinking the other day,
the lonely places our technocrats choose
for their obscene experiments.
Los Alamos, for instance.
Ah, yes, birthplace of the atomic bomb.
The ancient Indians have venerated
that for centuries as sacred ground.
Yeah, again and again.
Everywhere you'll find
these sick laboratories
built on, or beneath,
such haunted sites.
As though, thereby, to bottle
the primal genie of the Earth.
To pervert him.
Oh, who's the genie in our pen?
| wouldn't know.
Are you interested in the occult,
Mr Arne?
Not in the least.
I'm a writer.
Demons of my own.
Hello, Stephen.
STEPHEN:
Hello, Mrs Arne.
What's the leaf for?
Comfrey.
She has an abscess.
STEPHEN:
A herb cure?
Not a cure so much.
The only way to let an abscess heal
is to stop bitch-face worrying at it.
It's not for nothing that always around
churches ghosts and demons give
the greatest trouble, they do say.
Ah, because the church gives off most
powerfully the Manichaean challenge.
Oh, look, some would say that
the spire of a church acts an aerial,
attracting around it the old elemental
forces of light and darkness in combat,
some would say.
| am not sure which side the church
has always been on.
Can't the vet put a poultice on?
She'll tear it off.
They don't like foreign bodies,
but she'll leave a leaf.
MRS ARNE:
She doesn't even know it's on.
Put the cat down, dear,
she isn't a child.
STEPHEN:
Why is Manichaeanism a heresy, Dad?
The world is a battleground
between good and evil.
Why is it an error to believe so?
REVEREND FRANKLIN: Manichaeans
didn't believe exactly that.
They believed that
light was a vulnerable spark in man
under constant attack
from forces of darkness.
They hoped for some great son of light
himself to come,
to vanquish darkness and set light free.
STEPHEN: The son of light has come.
His name is Jesus.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
Not to the Manichaeans!
Jesus, to them,
was only one of many sons of light,
in an unending succession of them,
in an unending battle
to save man's spark of light.
STEPHEN: Father,
do you think dreams come true?
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
Don't come true. They are true.
STEPHEN:
What do you mean?
Your dream tells you
a truth about yourself.
A truth you hide from
while you're awake.
A truth you need to know
about yourself,
for your well-being.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
This buried truth
comes up in your head
while you're asleep.
Rising to act itself
out like a play for you.
That's the responsibility
of the dreamer, Stephen.
To acknowledge that
truth about yourself the dream reveals.
Then act upon that truth.
The DeVo would call such a dream
voice from God.
You're a believer. We're believers.
You believe in God.
| believe in truth.
(BIRD CHIRPING)
(ELGAR'S INTRODUCTION AND ALLEGRO
FOR STRINGS PLAYS)
(MUSIC SWELLS AND DISTORTS)
-(MUSIC STOPS)
(MOANING)
Unnatural.
(RINGING DOOR BELL)
(DOOR BELL RINGING)
(DOOR BELL RINGING)
(DOOR BEING OPENED)
MRS FRANKLIN: Sorry, Joel.
| thought Stephen would have come.
-Thank you.
-(MILK BOTTLES CLANKING)
(DOOR BEING SHUT)
(JOEL WHISTLING OUTSIDE)
MAN:
Parade, attention!
Both in order, march!
Dressing for the right; right, dress!
Eyes front.
STEPHEN.:
"Unworthy.'
CADET 1: Squad A,
missing Cadet Rifleman Ascoff, sir.
Absent from school, sir.
CADET 2: Squad B,
all present and correct, sir.
CADET 3: Squad C,
missing Corporal Franklin, sir.
Not absent from school, sir.
- OFFICER: Sergeant Honeybone.
- HONEYBONE: Sir.
- OFFICER: Find Franklin, will you?
- HONEYBONE: Sir.
(FOOTSTEPS COMING UP STAIRS)
(DOOR OPENS)
(CUBICLE DOOR SLAMS OPEN)
STEPHEN: 'Discover thyself.'
(BIRD CHIRPING)
(WHISTLING)
(BIRD CHIRPING)
What?
Spit it out, squire.
Put it in a letter, squire.
| haven't got all day!
Some of us has to work.
So,
now you'll renege
on your military apprenticeship also.
What are you, Franklin?
A non-cooperative, sir.
And whose noble company
do you now join?
The Sixth Form Revenant, sir.
What sort of person are you going to be?
| do not say, "what sort of man...?"
| begin to wonder, Franklin,
whether you want to be a man at all.
My opinions carry a deal of weight,
whatever you may think of them.
It's opinions such as mine
that you'll have to contend with,
all along the line.
Your decision to be a non-cooperative
is a decision you'll have to make
again and again and again.
Even more so
after you leave here, Franklin.
Every moment,
every day,
against the reality of the world.
No doubt you think me a very peculiar
sort of chap.
Not at all, sir.
| have always looked up to you as...
As an English norm, sir.
You're the only boy in my house
who | still cannot recommend
for the Sixth Form Club.
Doesn't that pain you?
If that's how you feel, Mr Cooke.
Sir.
(ELGAR'S INTRODUCTION AND ALLEGRO
FOR STRINGS PLAYS)
(MUSIC INTENSIFIES)
(PIERCING NOISE)
(GRAVEL CRUNCHING)
(BELL RINGS)
(LOW SINGING IN THE DISTANCE)
SIGN WRITER:
Ah!
(HEAVY BREATHING)
(DISTANT POUNDING SOUND)
(POUNDING GROWS LOUDER)
(POUNDING CONTINUES)
(POUNDING INTENSIFIES)
(SILENCE)
(POUNDING RESUMES)
(POUNDING RESUMES)
(SILENCE)
(POUNDING)
-(INAUDIBLE)
-(POUNDING)
You all right, squire?
You all right?
You all, you all right?
Come charging down that hill
right into me.
Hey!
Hey.
Sorry.
Just to help you up,
that's all.
That's all!
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
Joel?
Him all right, dove.
| ain't killed him.
STEPHEN:
I'm all right.
JOEL:
He'll get over it.
STEPHEN: "And reconstruct whatever
political doctrinal purpose
“the tamperers were bending the gospel
to serve.
"Unearth from this fabrication
“the troubling historical
and spiritual reality
"of Christ himself."?
(INAUDIBLE)
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
"To the reader who shouts 'blasphemy',
"l say, blasphemy worse
“that the name of this life-enhancing
revolutionary Jesus
"should now be dangled like a halo
above a sick culture
“centred on authority and death.”
STEPHEN:
Dad, the place name book.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
Oh, | lent that.
Tell your father, Stephen,
that | meant to bring it back.
Oh, well,
only if you've finished with it.
| got what | needed.
| should have one of my own.
Buying it's one of those simple jobs
that never get done.
How's your new play coming on?
Ah, it gets written.
Will it be outrageous?
Your plays often are.
| make 'em tamer now.
Ah, the public have lost
the imaginative strength they had.
Their sight and will to see
what's really going on
has been steadily weakened by
the entertainment barons for gain,
by the yes men for cravenness.
We're not people any more
with eyes to see.
We're blind, gapin' holes
at the end of a production line
we're stuffing with trash.
We're not even citizens,
we are doped serfs
on some mad Great Wall of China project.
Our task master's no Hitler,
Stalin or Mao,
but our own management class.
Their pink, fat faces even begin
to look alike.
My husband's what people call
a paranoid.
-STEPHEN: Persecution mania?
-That's right.
Trouble is his twisted notions
usually prove true.
There's one hope for man only.
When the great concrete mega-city
chokes the globe from pole to pole,
it shall already have bedded
in some hidden crack
the sacred seed
of its own disintegration and collapse.
Disobedience, chaos.
Out of those alone, can some
new experiment in human living be born.
Here am | subverting you.
Your father would be horrified.
Oh, | don't know.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
Dear...
Headmaster,
As you say,
our
Stephen
was
proud
in his
corporal's
uniform,
and
all
that it
stood
for.
| can
only assume
that he
IS now
finding some
other cause
in which
to invest
his national pride.
Well, | can only assume
it's because you hanker suddenly to join
what | term your generation's underside.
You've never wholeheartedly subscribed,
have you, Franklin,
to the traditions of the school?
Consider the photographs.
It's fashionable now
to mock such men as these.
But their service to England and man
is sterling and true.
When the roll of honour is called
of the sons of England
who should be on it?
You?
Or these?
(THUNDER RUMBLING IN THE DISTANCE)
MAN:
(AT A DISTANCE) Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
(STAMMERS) Sir Edward?
Come.
# Howling
# Strong
# What come to judge me?
# From the depths, | pray to thee #
Where did | pluck the sublimity of that?
From the angels? From the air?
From a dog.
His owner refused to give him a bone.
By Gerontius' transcendental
deathbed cry ll...
Music from the whine
of a dog for his bone.
# Sanctus forces #
(CHUCKLES)
For my seventieth birthday,
he gave me a dinner.
And, afterwards,
at my house, he made music for me.
I'd lived in that empty house
for so long, that they wanted to
give me company, music.
Be kind.
A young girl sang for me.
Oh, so nervous, SO nervous.
She had practised her song
all day long for me.
It was a song of mine, you see.
| stood up.
Quaking, I, I...
My hand was... fist was raised.
My brow was
thunder.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!
"You've ruined my birthday."
She burst into tears
and ran from the house,
never sang a note again.
Because, you see,
that song was written
for my wife.
(SOBBING)
(WHISPERS) For my wife.
So belonged...
One day, when | was very old,
the surgeons
cut half my rotten stomach out.
No anaesthetic.
Shock was
too much for the old heart.
They anaesthetised the stomach only.
There was a tiny curtain,
so that | couldn't see them
cutting me.
But there was a mirror in the ceiling.
(CHUCKLES) They'd forgotten about that!
| lay down
and watched in the mirror above me
everything the surgeon did.
His knife
butchering.
Embowelling me alive.
My vitals were
my sustaining blood.
Is all that Elgar?
Very interesting.
Oh, have they cracked the enigma yet?
My secret. The...
(STAMMERS) The famous tune
that fits with my enigma theme.
Has anyone identified it yet?
(STAMMERS) Oh, that, sir.
Well, they have tried
combining your theme
with all sorts of tunes.
Auld Lang Syne in the minor,
even God Save the King.
None of the combinations
is really convincing.
The tune that fits
is under all their noses.
But they won't spot it.
Because, you see,
they have no demon for counterpoint.
Shall | tell you what it is?
(WHISPERS) Yes, come here, come.
Oh, that, sir.
That!
Sing it.
Hear how my tune
combines with that.
-# Bam... #
-Now! You... Shh-shh-shh.
You're like one of the lunatics
from the asylum where | taught.
In your head, boy.
Do you want all the world to know?
Sing it in your head, nobly.
I'll add my theme.
Then listen, er, in your head,
how that they both combine.
# Dah-doh-dee, dor-pom...
# Dah-dee, do-da-dum
# Dee-dee, pum-pom
# Dee-dum, da-da-um #
# De da-da-dee, da-dee da-da...
(BOTH CHUCKLING)
So, tell no one.
Stephen, nobody.
It's a secret between
the hills, yourself and me.
Till the grave, sir.
Till the grave.
Till the grave.
Oh, yes.
If, er, on the hills you
ever hear the sound
of an old man's whistling in the air,
don't be afraid.
It'll only be me.
...come back to look at the world,
you see.
The lovely world.
Silver river.
Verdant valley.
Beautiful world.
Look, look, beautiful world.
(ELGAR'S IN THE SOUTH (ALASSIO) PLAYS)
MRS FRANKLIN: Doesn't matter how good
your marks have been,
you're in trouble with the school,
you'll get a bad reference.
If ever you get called up
into the army, you'll...
...end up peeling potatoes.
You'll never get into university.
You'll finish up on a conveyor belt.
Don't you sneer, Stephen.
A man cannot leave
the belt for one moment
without getting a stand-in
to take his place.
The belt moves on,
regardless of the needs of men.
It gets at a man's heart.
The whole rhythm of his life
is chained to the machine.
It's called productivity, Stephen.
I've seen it.
All day long the ambulances here
are never still.
(INSISTENT INDUSTRIAL NOISES)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING)
-(ALL CLAPPING)
-MAN: Happy birthday, mate!
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
You see,
you are like the English language,
Stephen.
You have foreign parents, too.
Even...
Even Elgar had
some Welsh blood.
Bloody garden.
Never get on top of this bloody garden.
Bloody sow-thistle.
Bloody speedwell.
Sod this bloody garden.
And the people before us
who let it run wild.
This sow-thistle.
Bloody speedwell.
I'm sorry what | hear, Mrs Arne.
-Me swearing?
-Oh, no, no.
That you can't have any children.
You live with that.
Can't you adopt some?
Oh, we've been accepted on the lists.
There just aren't the babies.
(STAMMERS)
Can a homosexual have children?
They make very good fathers, I'm told.
[, | want to have children.
Well, you know what to do.
| only hope you and your future wife
will make a better chemical compound
than us two.
Oh, we got one started, it fell out.
My womb rejects.
Chemical.
I'm adopted.
I'd never have guessed that, Stephen.
How does it feel to be adopted?
Sort of mixed.
Glad and sad.
Sad, | don't know where my real...
Where my real parents are.
But gladder than sad.
Like a molecule in a way.
Some of what goes to make me up, | know.
But now there are unknown
elements, possibilities.
And if children are placed with us,
and they grow to feel like that,
that will make us very happy.
But | hope they give you lots
of children. A whole tribe.
Oh, Stephen.
Because you're interesting people,
your children would have
interesting lives.
Come on, Stephen.
Don't stand around all day.
Your arms are one length.
Make yourself useful.
(SHOUTING)
(CHEERING)
(SILENCE)
(ALL CHEERING AND WHISTLING)
(SILENCE)
| am sorry, Mrs Kings.
| am sorry.
We pray for your reunion
on another shore.
Rector,
we neither of us lived in hope of that.
We have our days.
Now his is over.
Goodbye, my dear.
(DOOR CLOSING)
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
Father, when you heard the call of God,
was it a real voice?
Any voice you hear is real.
But outside your head.
Was God's voice to you
outside your head?
No burning bush,
if that's what you mean.
-Joan of Arc heard voices.
-Joan was a witch.
The English only burnt her for one
because she was a patriot of France.
Unofficial patriot and French saint now.
What was she?
There's some evidence that she
might even have not been Christian.
But that she practised the,
what is called,
the old religion.
The primitive religion
of the villages and fields.
She worshipped the devil?
Stephen,
when a church, any church
goes to war against an older god,
it has to call that older god
the devil.
In her last moment, we are told,
Joan screamed through the flames
to Jesu.
Jesu.
Whom did she see?
The plaster Christ of the cathedrals,
or her old, elemental village god?
The son of Adam, son of man.
The torn, flayed hero,
bleeding on the tree.
The old
man-god.
Unchanging,
ever changing.
Samson, Marduk, Jesus, Balder,
Heracles.
By whom this Earth is haunted since
the first beat of the heart of man.
The bishop wouldn't like to hear
you saying that.
| have displeased other bishops
in my time.
The pagans practised human sacrifice.
Do we not?
In their millions through to the fire
to Moloch, living and dead.
You know the old meaning of 'pagan'
as well as I do.
Belonging to the village.
The village is sneered at as
something petty.
Petty it can be.
Yet, it works.
The scale is human,
people can relate there.
Man may yet, in the nick of time,
revolt and save himself.
Revolt from the monolith,
come back to the village.
Jesus was a revolutionary
in the most elemental sense.
In him alone...
In him alone,
the legislator and the demon fuse.
He has been taken over,
just as Marx was taken over.
Perverted by the Pauls,
Augustines, Constantines,
the institution mongers,
the doctrine men.
We crucify him over and over.
Over and over in that church, I...
...crucify him.
Then, why do you stay frocked?
Because...
Because, like all of us in this world,
ll am two men.
A self
and a non-self.
Only by being non-selves
can we now survive
in our own mortal shrouds
we weave around us.
And what shall this survival profit us
in this day of the mask,
this day of corporation man?
What shall the self do then, poor thing,
but curl away in
from the poisoning wind and dream?
Dream of some second coming
man himself must bring about
man himself must bring about
through some last disobedience and new
resurrection.
REVEREND FRANKLIN: Yes,
there is need of a book to argue this.
Perhaps, you might give the world
just such a book.
Stephen,
where fathers fail
they look to their sons to achieve.
STEPHEN:
I'm not your chemical son, Dad.
| wouldn't inherit your understanding.
REVEREND FRANKLIN: No knowing,
son, what you might not inherit.
The world would've become
this present bedlam,
church or no.
Yet, | wonder,
romanticism of a sort, | know,
and yet, | wonder.
Just as | wonder whom Joan of Arc
in her last agony saw.
| wonder about another.
A man.
A thousand years even earlier than she.
A king of Midland, England.
This
last of his kind,
last pagan king in England
fighting his last battle
against the new machine.
That battle in which he is to fall.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
King Penda.
What mystery of this land
went down with him forever?
What wisdom?
When Penda fell,
what dark old sun of light went out?
Pinvin.
Pin-fin.
King Penda's fen.
Did Penda die here?
Who says that he is dead?
(ORGAN PLAYING)
(ORGAN PLAYING)
# ANGEL.: for it is safe,
# Consumed, yet quickened,
by the glance of God.
# Hallelu... #
(ORGAN PLAYING)
(DISCORDANT NOTES)
MAN: (WHISPERING) Stephen.
(ORGAN DRONING)
Stephen Franklin.
Unbury me.
Free me from this tree.
(ORGAN DRONE CONTINUES)
(ORGAN STOPS)
(BIRDS CHIRPING OUTSIDE)
Many of us proceed
to the ancient universities.
Others into family businesses.
Others into the forces of the Crown.
All onto the first rungs of that ladder,
destining us for positions of influence
and decision-making of the land.
Nor must we forget those, er,
somewhat more angular brethren
amongst us.
somewhat more angular brethren
amongst us.
(ALL CHUCKLING)
Whose eyes are turned, it would seem,
upon less concrete things.
So, what more fitting valedictory
er, than to sing together,
one last time,
what has traditionally become
our second school song
and every Englishman's
alternative national hymn.
"And did those feet in ancient time
"walk upon England's mountains green?
"And was the holy lamb of God
"on England's pleasant pastures seen?
"And did the countenance divine
"shine forth upon our clouded hills?"
Are you an English boy?
-Such a light in his eyes.
-True English boy?
It is he.
MAN:
It is he. He has the light.
WOMAN: We knew the child would come.
He's been promised us for so long.
But that we should find him
is too lovely to be true.
No, if we touch him, he'll vanish.
It's written.
MAN:
The child is innocent.
He does not know his inheritance.
Nor does he know
the courage he will need
to exercise his right
in this dark world.
Not that they put us
to the fire any more.
Oh, Stephen.
(WHISPERS) Stephen.
Think of that torment.
To be burned.
Shackled to the mockery of a tree
and burned.
Living.
Burned away.
What torment is that?
Through the flames we see our lord.
He reaches out his hand, to bring us
from the shadow of this world.
When we were burned, we cried in joy.
The Crosstians think we scream.
We cried in joy.
When we are burned,
why, we are turned to light.
Look.
Your inheritance.
The kings of the Earth, you can govern.
They walk in their sleep.
Yours is the right to inherit
the power.
To will their will.
Power, Stephen,
to turn the rock of the world
to wealth.
Power,
to fall and not to die.
Like Joan the Maid.
To fall
and not to die.
WOMAN:
You have to come with us.
You are our child of light.
You have to be born in us.
Then you become pure light.
No. No!
Oh!
-(CRIES)
- am nothing pure.
Nothing pure!
My race is mixed.
My sex is mixed. | am woman and man.
Light with darkness.
Mixed!
Mixed.
| am nothing special.
Nothing, nothing pure.
| am mud and flame!
If we can't have him, darkness must not.
(DISCORDANT ORGAN CHORDS)
(CAMERA CLICKS)
(INAUDIBLE)
Penda!
(SCREECHING NOISE)
There you have seen
your true dark enemies of England.
Sick father and mother,
who would have us children forever.
STEPHEN:
Kind Penda?
Stephen,
our land must live.
This land we love must live.
Her deep, dark flame must never die.
Night is falling.
Your land and mine goes down
into a darkness now.
And |, and all the other
guardians of her flame
are driven from our home,
up out into the wolf's jaw.
But the flame still flickers in the fen.
You are marked down to cherish that.
Cherish the flame
till we can safely wake again.
The flame is in your hands,
we trust it you.
Our sacred demon of ungovernableness.
Cherish the flame,
we shall rest easy.
Stephen, be secret.
Child, be strange.
Dark, true, impure and dissonant.
Cherish our flame.
Our dawn
shall come.
THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS PLAYS)
STEPHEN:
Oh, my country.
| say, over and over:
I am one of your sons. It is true.
| am.
| am!
Yet, how
shall | show
my love?
(MUSIC INTENSIFIES)
# ANGEL.: ...Praise to his name!
# O happy, suffering soul!
for it is safe,
# Consumed, yet quickened,
by the glance of God
# Hallelu...
# Hallelu...
(HIGH NOTE STICKING IN A REPEATED LOOP)
(NOTE DISTORTS AND INTENSIFIES)
(DISCORDANT TONES OVERLAY)
(NOTE SUSTAINS
AND INTENSIFIES FURTHER)
# ANGEL: ...ujah
# Praise to his name! #
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
(MUSIC SWELLS)
(MUSIC CRESCENDOES)
(MUSIC SUDDENLY STOPS)
MRS FRANKLIN:
I'm sorry, Stephen.
Your father does have
a sermon to prepare.
Well, we like you to like good music,
Stephen, but it was terribly loud.
Don't be silly, Stephen.
It's all right, Mother.
You've ruined it now.
STEPHEN: "I think the greatest
visionary work in English music
“is The Dream of Gerontius
“by Sir Edward Elgar.
“It poses the most important question:
"What is to happen to my soul?
"Gerontius - Greek 'Geron’, 'Gerontos’ -
an old man, has died.
“The music portrays his
experience after death.
"An angel meets his
soul beyond the grave.
"I think this angel is male,
"vet he sings in a woman's voice
which makes him unearthly.
“He takes the dead man's soul
across the grills of hell,
"where demons scream and mock them.
"Soon, they approach
the courts of light.
"We hear a distant singing.
"Tumultuous,
“like a mighty ocean.
“Elgar himself was a
pious Roman Catholic,
“but his message is true
for us Protestants, too.
“Perhaps even...
“Perhaps especially for those
not blessed with the Christian faith.
"And though it is about the judgement
on one dead man,
“it is, surely,
about that other judgement
"that faces us daily,
“in every moment of our lives.
"Over
"and over.
"We come to the crisis.
"Gerontius asks,
“shall he see God?
“The angel cries with joy.
“This soul is strong enough
to look on God
"and stand the terror and the shock."
# ANGEL: Hallelujah #
STEPHEN:
“And so they come
"before the throne of God.
(THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS
SWELLS AND RECEDES)
STEPHEN:
"A terrible silence.
"And then breaks out
a brief fearful dissonance.
"The moment of the glance of God.
"Surely the most shattering moment
in all of music.
(BIRDS CHIRP OUTSIDE)
“To hear in your head such sounds.
“To be a man.
"Have Heaven and hell between
your ears and write them down
“In notes.
"And walk those hills,
“and hear the angel and the demon.
“The judgement,
“on those hills.
"And hear the dissonance
“that is the piercing glance of God."
(BIRDS CONTINUE CHIRPING)
(MAN WHISTLING OUTSIDE)
(DOOR BELL RINGING)
JOEL:
Hello squire.
Is this the day you school kids
play at soldiers, then?
Some of us are learning
to defend our country.
| should get
your anklets straight, then.
England's last hope!
| wish Joel would like me.
He can be so cutting.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
| was wondering when he would notice.
Milk lad. Hardly original.
MRS FRANKLIN:
So unaware.
He'll grow through it.
We most of us do.
So totally unaware.
And so late.
What do they say here?
'A late spring never lies.’
# And did the countenance divine
# Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
# And was Jerusalem builded here
# Among those dark satanic mills?
# Bring me my bow
# of burning gold
# Bring me my arrows of desire #
BOY: (WHISPERING)
What do them letters say?
STEPHEN:
Those letters.
‘Sophrosyne’ - balance of mind.
HONEYBONE:
Trust Franklin, Franklin always knows.
His father's a priest.
STEPHEN:
Not a priest, a parson.
Don't you know the difference,
Honeybone?
"Thine everywhere' over the showers.
HONEYBONE:
"The car and soap flakes.'
STEPHEN: Honeybone!
‘Let there be light.’
‘A healthy mind in a healthy body.’
HONEYBONE:
Even over the bog, look!
STEPHEN:
'Gnothi seauton.'
That means, 'Discover thyself..
HONEYBONE:
'Uncover thy ass," more like!
STEPHEN:
Honeybone! That's dirty.
HONEYBONE: Cadet Frankilin,
your webbing's a disgrace!
STEPHEN:
Corporal Honeybone.
HONEYBONE: Your buckles are disgusting!
STEPHEN: Corporal Honeybone.
HONEYBONE: Male and female
must both be cleaned.
Catch something else.
STEPHEN:
Mr Chairman, sir.
Gentlemen.
Our country, England,
is the freest in the world.
We have liberty of movement,
liberty of choice,
Look at this man and woman.
See if you do not see them
as | see them.
A mother and a father above all parents.
A mother and a father of England,
who, in this modern wilderness
of amorality, stand up alone
to uphold our erring national family
on its Christian path.
free speech, a free press.
We do not have political censorship.
Our police are not armed.
We do not have a secret police.
(STUDENTS MURMURING)
STEPHEN: We know what we are
discussing here tonight.
Not the media in general,
but one programme in particular.
That one that is in
everybody's mind just now.
The so-called TV documentary,
Who was Jesus?
Who was Jesus?
It calls itself, | quote,
'Investigative theology'.
We know in our hearts it is
atheistic and subversive trash!
(STUDENTS PROTEST)
From this at least, the homes of England
have been saved by a timely injunction,
for which we have not the abstraction
of freedom itself to thank,
but those who exercise eternal
vigilance on its behalf.
Perhaps we should let the eighteenth
birthday pass and not tell him at all.
Never tell him.
It was agreed,
in the beginning.
Not to tell him
till he was eighteen
was agreed.
A mistake.
Yes.
We should've done
what we thought was right.
Not what we agreed.
Yes.
ARNE: With all respect
to the lady who asked this,
our postmistress,
| hope she doesn't take this out
on me by withholding my mail.
You talk about strikers holding
the country to ransom.
What are they supposed to do?
Play cricket?
(CROWD PROTESTS)
Besides, hold us to ransom,
isn't that what government itself does?
And by government | don't
mean those figureheads
who come pleading to us every five years
to have their licences renewed.
-(CROWD PROTESTS)
- mean the manipulators, the fixers,
the psychopaths who have
real power in the land.
Is it strikers who play Monopoly for
real with our countryside and cities?
Is it strikers who smash the fabric
of our communities for greed?
Is it strikers who throw up
in the air million after million,
your taxes and mine,
on bungles, deliriums and fantasies?
(CROWD PROTESTS)
Look, is it strikers
who pillage our Earth,
ransack it, drain it,
drive for quick gain
to hand on nothing but dust
to the children of tomorrow?
(CROWD PROTESTS)
Now, now, come off it, Mr Arne.
Now, now, come off it, Mr Arne.
People were dying
because of this strike.
(CROWD IN AGREEMENT)
Pensioners, old soldiers
dying of starvation and cold.
-(CROWD CLAPPING)
-Yes.
When that happens in a strike
it's cold they die of,
when it's inflation,
authorities' high hand
or callousness that kill them,
it's hypothermia they die of then.
Now, you have to get
this into perspective.
ARNE:
Perspective | give you.
What, for instance,
is the ultimate question
a government are left with when
pondering matters of defence?
How many million civilians can we afford
to let get slaughtered before
the remainder revolt and depose us?
(CROWD GROANS)
Mr Chairman, do we have
to endure this hysterical barrage?
Each must have his say, Sir Nicholas.
ARNE:
Look...
Not far from here
is an expanse of country.
You all know it well, Brummies drive out
of a Sunday to leave their litter there.
(CROWD MURMURING)
Poets have hymned
the spirit of this landscape.
Our greatest composer has enshrined it.
Farmland and pasture now,
an ancient fen.
ARNE: The earth beneath
your feet feels solid there.
It is not!
Somewhere there the land is hollow.
Somewhere beneath is being constructed
something we are not supposed to know.
A top secret.
We locals are not supposed
to know it's even there.
And you accept it?
What is it, then?
An air raid shelter
to shift the population of Birmingham to
in all of four minutes.
What is it, hidden beneath
this shell of lovely earth?
Some hideous angel
of technocratic death.
An alternative city,
for government from beneath.
Motorways there.
Offices, control suites, silent, empty,
waiting for the day.
Telephones, computers,
signal equipment.
Ministry pencils,
every grade of H and B, ready,
sharpened against the minute.
"Oh," you said, "it must be
something to protect us.”
Us?
When for all we know the likelihood is,
our entire civilian population is
marked down on some top-secret
memo somewhere
as Strategically expendable.
When you talk of holding
the country to ransom,
please think of possibilities like that.
The British working man will
never let a dictatorship happen.
(CROWD APPLAUDS)
He's far too bloody-minded.
(CROWD LAUGHS)
| damn well hope so.
Mr Arne is a writer.
For all I know,
he might be another Shakespeare.
(CROWD LAUGHS)
NICHOLAS:
But his imagination runs away with him.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
That path is a shocker!
-He's a terrible crank, father.
-He is a shocker.
He is a shocker.
You can tell he's not a nice man
from his television plays.
Well, can't you, Mother?
There's always somebody in them,
unnatural.
| think he's unnatural himself!
That's why he and his wife
haven't been blessed with children!
MRS FRANKLIN:
Stephen...
STEPHEN: It's probably a good thing.
MRS FRANKLIN: What?
That they haven't any children!
Bringing them up with values
like they have.
God gives to whom he chooses,
he does not make mistakes!
MRS FRANKLIN:
Stephen, you can be grotesque.
(PASSENGERS LAUGHING)
YOUNG MAN: Have one for me,
will you, my brother?
(GIRLS GIGGLING)
GIRL: Hey, hands off, Barry.
BARRY: What's the matter?
GIRL: Manners!
(YOUNG MAN COUGHING)
GIRL:
Oh, your brother!
(LAUGHING)
(LAUGHING)
GIRL:
He's a long while!
YOUNG MAN:
Brott!
Brott Gisbourne!
Brott!
(GIRLS SCREAMING)
(SCREAMING CONTINUES)
(SCREAMING INTENSIFIES)
The man...
...in the fire.
NURSE:
I'm sorry, Mrs Gisbourne,
it's not yet possible
for you to see your son!
Nobody can see him, Mrs Gisbourne,
only the doctors!
Brott?
(MACHINE BEEPING)
(HEAVY BREATHING)
Brott!
(MACHINE CONTINUES BEEPING)
| had a dream like that, sir.
Like the queen in the play, sir.
About a snake, Franklin?
No, sir.
| had a dream, sir.
Yes, Albus, I've no doubt you had.
Like a parable.
That there was a demon
on my dad's church tower, sir.
Black and shiny, like a jet statue,
looking down at me, sir.
Then | thought, still dreaming, sir,
I'll turn him to an angel.
So | used my willpower
in my dreams, Sir.
Pushed all my will up,
at the demon on the church,
and turned him into a shining angel.
Then | thought, in my dreams, sir,
if | can turn him one way,
| can turn him back.
So | pushed all my will
and up on the tower,
the angel turned to a demon again.
A Manichaean dream, Franklin.
Yes, sir.
Does that mean dirty, sir?
(ALL LAUGHING)
-TEACHER: Oliver.
-Sir?
STEPHEN:
It's a heresy, sir.
A heretical belief in the early church,
that the universe was a battlefield
between the forces of
lightness and dark, sir.
TEACHER: | only wish, Franklin,
you would, now and then,
transfer your Manichaean impulse
to the rugger field.
(ALL LAUGHING)
OLIVER:
(LAUGHING) Yes, sir.
Franklin doesn't do anything
for the house, sir.
He's a passenger.
OLIVER:
He ought to be boiled in oil.
(ALL LAUGHING)
OLIVER:
Skinned first.
And then boiled alive.
(BICYCLE CREAKING)
STEPHEN:
| say, excuse me.
You've spelt Pinvin wrong.
It's V not F.
Pinvin.
STEPHEN: The police had
this road blocked off this morning,
why can't we get through?
'Cause 'tis closed.
Why?
So others can't get through.
It's Pinvin!
ARNE:
Yes.
Pull the other one, Rector.
There's a peal of bells on.
You know, | was thinking the other day,
the lonely places our technocrats choose
for their obscene experiments.
Los Alamos, for instance.
Ah, yes, birthplace of the atomic bomb.
The ancient Indians have venerated
that for centuries as sacred ground.
Yeah, again and again.
Everywhere you'll find
these sick laboratories
built on, or beneath,
such haunted sites.
As though, thereby, to bottle
the primal genie of the Earth.
To pervert him.
Oh, who's the genie in our pen?
| wouldn't know.
Are you interested in the occult,
Mr Arne?
Not in the least.
I'm a writer.
Demons of my own.
Hello, Stephen.
STEPHEN:
Hello, Mrs Arne.
What's the leaf for?
Comfrey.
She has an abscess.
STEPHEN:
A herb cure?
Not a cure so much.
The only way to let an abscess heal
is to stop bitch-face worrying at it.
It's not for nothing that always around
churches ghosts and demons give
the greatest trouble, they do say.
Ah, because the church gives off most
powerfully the Manichaean challenge.
Oh, look, some would say that
the spire of a church acts an aerial,
attracting around it the old elemental
forces of light and darkness in combat,
some would say.
| am not sure which side the church
has always been on.
Can't the vet put a poultice on?
She'll tear it off.
They don't like foreign bodies,
but she'll leave a leaf.
MRS ARNE:
She doesn't even know it's on.
Put the cat down, dear,
she isn't a child.
STEPHEN:
Why is Manichaeanism a heresy, Dad?
The world is a battleground
between good and evil.
Why is it an error to believe so?
REVEREND FRANKLIN: Manichaeans
didn't believe exactly that.
They believed that
light was a vulnerable spark in man
under constant attack
from forces of darkness.
They hoped for some great son of light
himself to come,
to vanquish darkness and set light free.
STEPHEN: The son of light has come.
His name is Jesus.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
Not to the Manichaeans!
Jesus, to them,
was only one of many sons of light,
in an unending succession of them,
in an unending battle
to save man's spark of light.
STEPHEN: Father,
do you think dreams come true?
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
Don't come true. They are true.
STEPHEN:
What do you mean?
Your dream tells you
a truth about yourself.
A truth you hide from
while you're awake.
A truth you need to know
about yourself,
for your well-being.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
This buried truth
comes up in your head
while you're asleep.
Rising to act itself
out like a play for you.
That's the responsibility
of the dreamer, Stephen.
To acknowledge that
truth about yourself the dream reveals.
Then act upon that truth.
The DeVo would call such a dream
voice from God.
You're a believer. We're believers.
You believe in God.
| believe in truth.
(BIRD CHIRPING)
(ELGAR'S INTRODUCTION AND ALLEGRO
FOR STRINGS PLAYS)
(MUSIC SWELLS AND DISTORTS)
-(MUSIC STOPS)
(MOANING)
Unnatural.
(RINGING DOOR BELL)
(DOOR BELL RINGING)
(DOOR BELL RINGING)
(DOOR BEING OPENED)
MRS FRANKLIN: Sorry, Joel.
| thought Stephen would have come.
-Thank you.
-(MILK BOTTLES CLANKING)
(DOOR BEING SHUT)
(JOEL WHISTLING OUTSIDE)
MAN:
Parade, attention!
Both in order, march!
Dressing for the right; right, dress!
Eyes front.
STEPHEN.:
"Unworthy.'
CADET 1: Squad A,
missing Cadet Rifleman Ascoff, sir.
Absent from school, sir.
CADET 2: Squad B,
all present and correct, sir.
CADET 3: Squad C,
missing Corporal Franklin, sir.
Not absent from school, sir.
- OFFICER: Sergeant Honeybone.
- HONEYBONE: Sir.
- OFFICER: Find Franklin, will you?
- HONEYBONE: Sir.
(FOOTSTEPS COMING UP STAIRS)
(DOOR OPENS)
(CUBICLE DOOR SLAMS OPEN)
STEPHEN: 'Discover thyself.'
(BIRD CHIRPING)
(WHISTLING)
(BIRD CHIRPING)
What?
Spit it out, squire.
Put it in a letter, squire.
| haven't got all day!
Some of us has to work.
So,
now you'll renege
on your military apprenticeship also.
What are you, Franklin?
A non-cooperative, sir.
And whose noble company
do you now join?
The Sixth Form Revenant, sir.
What sort of person are you going to be?
| do not say, "what sort of man...?"
| begin to wonder, Franklin,
whether you want to be a man at all.
My opinions carry a deal of weight,
whatever you may think of them.
It's opinions such as mine
that you'll have to contend with,
all along the line.
Your decision to be a non-cooperative
is a decision you'll have to make
again and again and again.
Even more so
after you leave here, Franklin.
Every moment,
every day,
against the reality of the world.
No doubt you think me a very peculiar
sort of chap.
Not at all, sir.
| have always looked up to you as...
As an English norm, sir.
You're the only boy in my house
who | still cannot recommend
for the Sixth Form Club.
Doesn't that pain you?
If that's how you feel, Mr Cooke.
Sir.
(ELGAR'S INTRODUCTION AND ALLEGRO
FOR STRINGS PLAYS)
(MUSIC INTENSIFIES)
(PIERCING NOISE)
(GRAVEL CRUNCHING)
(BELL RINGS)
(LOW SINGING IN THE DISTANCE)
SIGN WRITER:
Ah!
(HEAVY BREATHING)
(DISTANT POUNDING SOUND)
(POUNDING GROWS LOUDER)
(POUNDING CONTINUES)
(POUNDING INTENSIFIES)
(SILENCE)
(POUNDING RESUMES)
(POUNDING RESUMES)
(SILENCE)
(POUNDING)
-(INAUDIBLE)
-(POUNDING)
You all right, squire?
You all right?
You all, you all right?
Come charging down that hill
right into me.
Hey!
Hey.
Sorry.
Just to help you up,
that's all.
That's all!
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
Joel?
Him all right, dove.
| ain't killed him.
STEPHEN:
I'm all right.
JOEL:
He'll get over it.
STEPHEN: "And reconstruct whatever
political doctrinal purpose
“the tamperers were bending the gospel
to serve.
"Unearth from this fabrication
“the troubling historical
and spiritual reality
"of Christ himself."?
(INAUDIBLE)
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
"To the reader who shouts 'blasphemy',
"l say, blasphemy worse
“that the name of this life-enhancing
revolutionary Jesus
"should now be dangled like a halo
above a sick culture
“centred on authority and death.”
STEPHEN:
Dad, the place name book.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
Oh, | lent that.
Tell your father, Stephen,
that | meant to bring it back.
Oh, well,
only if you've finished with it.
| got what | needed.
| should have one of my own.
Buying it's one of those simple jobs
that never get done.
How's your new play coming on?
Ah, it gets written.
Will it be outrageous?
Your plays often are.
| make 'em tamer now.
Ah, the public have lost
the imaginative strength they had.
Their sight and will to see
what's really going on
has been steadily weakened by
the entertainment barons for gain,
by the yes men for cravenness.
We're not people any more
with eyes to see.
We're blind, gapin' holes
at the end of a production line
we're stuffing with trash.
We're not even citizens,
we are doped serfs
on some mad Great Wall of China project.
Our task master's no Hitler,
Stalin or Mao,
but our own management class.
Their pink, fat faces even begin
to look alike.
My husband's what people call
a paranoid.
-STEPHEN: Persecution mania?
-That's right.
Trouble is his twisted notions
usually prove true.
There's one hope for man only.
When the great concrete mega-city
chokes the globe from pole to pole,
it shall already have bedded
in some hidden crack
the sacred seed
of its own disintegration and collapse.
Disobedience, chaos.
Out of those alone, can some
new experiment in human living be born.
Here am | subverting you.
Your father would be horrified.
Oh, | don't know.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
Dear...
Headmaster,
As you say,
our
Stephen
was
proud
in his
corporal's
uniform,
and
all
that it
stood
for.
| can
only assume
that he
IS now
finding some
other cause
in which
to invest
his national pride.
Well, | can only assume
it's because you hanker suddenly to join
what | term your generation's underside.
You've never wholeheartedly subscribed,
have you, Franklin,
to the traditions of the school?
Consider the photographs.
It's fashionable now
to mock such men as these.
But their service to England and man
is sterling and true.
When the roll of honour is called
of the sons of England
who should be on it?
You?
Or these?
(THUNDER RUMBLING IN THE DISTANCE)
MAN:
(AT A DISTANCE) Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
(STAMMERS) Sir Edward?
Come.
# Howling
# Strong
# What come to judge me?
# From the depths, | pray to thee #
Where did | pluck the sublimity of that?
From the angels? From the air?
From a dog.
His owner refused to give him a bone.
By Gerontius' transcendental
deathbed cry ll...
Music from the whine
of a dog for his bone.
# Sanctus forces #
(CHUCKLES)
For my seventieth birthday,
he gave me a dinner.
And, afterwards,
at my house, he made music for me.
I'd lived in that empty house
for so long, that they wanted to
give me company, music.
Be kind.
A young girl sang for me.
Oh, so nervous, SO nervous.
She had practised her song
all day long for me.
It was a song of mine, you see.
| stood up.
Quaking, I, I...
My hand was... fist was raised.
My brow was
thunder.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!
"You've ruined my birthday."
She burst into tears
and ran from the house,
never sang a note again.
Because, you see,
that song was written
for my wife.
(SOBBING)
(WHISPERS) For my wife.
So belonged...
One day, when | was very old,
the surgeons
cut half my rotten stomach out.
No anaesthetic.
Shock was
too much for the old heart.
They anaesthetised the stomach only.
There was a tiny curtain,
so that | couldn't see them
cutting me.
But there was a mirror in the ceiling.
(CHUCKLES) They'd forgotten about that!
| lay down
and watched in the mirror above me
everything the surgeon did.
His knife
butchering.
Embowelling me alive.
My vitals were
my sustaining blood.
Is all that Elgar?
Very interesting.
Oh, have they cracked the enigma yet?
My secret. The...
(STAMMERS) The famous tune
that fits with my enigma theme.
Has anyone identified it yet?
(STAMMERS) Oh, that, sir.
Well, they have tried
combining your theme
with all sorts of tunes.
Auld Lang Syne in the minor,
even God Save the King.
None of the combinations
is really convincing.
The tune that fits
is under all their noses.
But they won't spot it.
Because, you see,
they have no demon for counterpoint.
Shall | tell you what it is?
(WHISPERS) Yes, come here, come.
Oh, that, sir.
That!
Sing it.
Hear how my tune
combines with that.
-# Bam... #
-Now! You... Shh-shh-shh.
You're like one of the lunatics
from the asylum where | taught.
In your head, boy.
Do you want all the world to know?
Sing it in your head, nobly.
I'll add my theme.
Then listen, er, in your head,
how that they both combine.
# Dah-doh-dee, dor-pom...
# Dah-dee, do-da-dum
# Dee-dee, pum-pom
# Dee-dum, da-da-um #
# De da-da-dee, da-dee da-da...
(BOTH CHUCKLING)
So, tell no one.
Stephen, nobody.
It's a secret between
the hills, yourself and me.
Till the grave, sir.
Till the grave.
Till the grave.
Oh, yes.
If, er, on the hills you
ever hear the sound
of an old man's whistling in the air,
don't be afraid.
It'll only be me.
...come back to look at the world,
you see.
The lovely world.
Silver river.
Verdant valley.
Beautiful world.
Look, look, beautiful world.
(ELGAR'S IN THE SOUTH (ALASSIO) PLAYS)
MRS FRANKLIN: Doesn't matter how good
your marks have been,
you're in trouble with the school,
you'll get a bad reference.
If ever you get called up
into the army, you'll...
...end up peeling potatoes.
You'll never get into university.
You'll finish up on a conveyor belt.
Don't you sneer, Stephen.
A man cannot leave
the belt for one moment
without getting a stand-in
to take his place.
The belt moves on,
regardless of the needs of men.
It gets at a man's heart.
The whole rhythm of his life
is chained to the machine.
It's called productivity, Stephen.
I've seen it.
All day long the ambulances here
are never still.
(INSISTENT INDUSTRIAL NOISES)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING)
-(ALL CLAPPING)
-MAN: Happy birthday, mate!
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
You see,
you are like the English language,
Stephen.
You have foreign parents, too.
Even...
Even Elgar had
some Welsh blood.
Bloody garden.
Never get on top of this bloody garden.
Bloody sow-thistle.
Bloody speedwell.
Sod this bloody garden.
And the people before us
who let it run wild.
This sow-thistle.
Bloody speedwell.
I'm sorry what | hear, Mrs Arne.
-Me swearing?
-Oh, no, no.
That you can't have any children.
You live with that.
Can't you adopt some?
Oh, we've been accepted on the lists.
There just aren't the babies.
(STAMMERS)
Can a homosexual have children?
They make very good fathers, I'm told.
[, | want to have children.
Well, you know what to do.
| only hope you and your future wife
will make a better chemical compound
than us two.
Oh, we got one started, it fell out.
My womb rejects.
Chemical.
I'm adopted.
I'd never have guessed that, Stephen.
How does it feel to be adopted?
Sort of mixed.
Glad and sad.
Sad, | don't know where my real...
Where my real parents are.
But gladder than sad.
Like a molecule in a way.
Some of what goes to make me up, | know.
But now there are unknown
elements, possibilities.
And if children are placed with us,
and they grow to feel like that,
that will make us very happy.
But | hope they give you lots
of children. A whole tribe.
Oh, Stephen.
Because you're interesting people,
your children would have
interesting lives.
Come on, Stephen.
Don't stand around all day.
Your arms are one length.
Make yourself useful.
(SHOUTING)
(CHEERING)
(SILENCE)
(ALL CHEERING AND WHISTLING)
(SILENCE)
| am sorry, Mrs Kings.
| am sorry.
We pray for your reunion
on another shore.
Rector,
we neither of us lived in hope of that.
We have our days.
Now his is over.
Goodbye, my dear.
(DOOR CLOSING)
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
Father, when you heard the call of God,
was it a real voice?
Any voice you hear is real.
But outside your head.
Was God's voice to you
outside your head?
No burning bush,
if that's what you mean.
-Joan of Arc heard voices.
-Joan was a witch.
The English only burnt her for one
because she was a patriot of France.
Unofficial patriot and French saint now.
What was she?
There's some evidence that she
might even have not been Christian.
But that she practised the,
what is called,
the old religion.
The primitive religion
of the villages and fields.
She worshipped the devil?
Stephen,
when a church, any church
goes to war against an older god,
it has to call that older god
the devil.
In her last moment, we are told,
Joan screamed through the flames
to Jesu.
Jesu.
Whom did she see?
The plaster Christ of the cathedrals,
or her old, elemental village god?
The son of Adam, son of man.
The torn, flayed hero,
bleeding on the tree.
The old
man-god.
Unchanging,
ever changing.
Samson, Marduk, Jesus, Balder,
Heracles.
By whom this Earth is haunted since
the first beat of the heart of man.
The bishop wouldn't like to hear
you saying that.
| have displeased other bishops
in my time.
The pagans practised human sacrifice.
Do we not?
In their millions through to the fire
to Moloch, living and dead.
You know the old meaning of 'pagan'
as well as I do.
Belonging to the village.
The village is sneered at as
something petty.
Petty it can be.
Yet, it works.
The scale is human,
people can relate there.
Man may yet, in the nick of time,
revolt and save himself.
Revolt from the monolith,
come back to the village.
Jesus was a revolutionary
in the most elemental sense.
In him alone...
In him alone,
the legislator and the demon fuse.
He has been taken over,
just as Marx was taken over.
Perverted by the Pauls,
Augustines, Constantines,
the institution mongers,
the doctrine men.
We crucify him over and over.
Over and over in that church, I...
...crucify him.
Then, why do you stay frocked?
Because...
Because, like all of us in this world,
ll am two men.
A self
and a non-self.
Only by being non-selves
can we now survive
in our own mortal shrouds
we weave around us.
And what shall this survival profit us
in this day of the mask,
this day of corporation man?
What shall the self do then, poor thing,
but curl away in
from the poisoning wind and dream?
Dream of some second coming
man himself must bring about
man himself must bring about
through some last disobedience and new
resurrection.
REVEREND FRANKLIN: Yes,
there is need of a book to argue this.
Perhaps, you might give the world
just such a book.
Stephen,
where fathers fail
they look to their sons to achieve.
STEPHEN:
I'm not your chemical son, Dad.
| wouldn't inherit your understanding.
REVEREND FRANKLIN: No knowing,
son, what you might not inherit.
The world would've become
this present bedlam,
church or no.
Yet, | wonder,
romanticism of a sort, | know,
and yet, | wonder.
Just as | wonder whom Joan of Arc
in her last agony saw.
| wonder about another.
A man.
A thousand years even earlier than she.
A king of Midland, England.
This
last of his kind,
last pagan king in England
fighting his last battle
against the new machine.
That battle in which he is to fall.
REVEREND FRANKLIN:
King Penda.
What mystery of this land
went down with him forever?
What wisdom?
When Penda fell,
what dark old sun of light went out?
Pinvin.
Pin-fin.
King Penda's fen.
Did Penda die here?
Who says that he is dead?
(ORGAN PLAYING)
(ORGAN PLAYING)
# ANGEL.: for it is safe,
# Consumed, yet quickened,
by the glance of God.
# Hallelu... #
(ORGAN PLAYING)
(DISCORDANT NOTES)
MAN: (WHISPERING) Stephen.
(ORGAN DRONING)
Stephen Franklin.
Unbury me.
Free me from this tree.
(ORGAN DRONE CONTINUES)
(ORGAN STOPS)
(BIRDS CHIRPING OUTSIDE)
Many of us proceed
to the ancient universities.
Others into family businesses.
Others into the forces of the Crown.
All onto the first rungs of that ladder,
destining us for positions of influence
and decision-making of the land.
Nor must we forget those, er,
somewhat more angular brethren
amongst us.
somewhat more angular brethren
amongst us.
(ALL CHUCKLING)
Whose eyes are turned, it would seem,
upon less concrete things.
So, what more fitting valedictory
er, than to sing together,
one last time,
what has traditionally become
our second school song
and every Englishman's
alternative national hymn.
"And did those feet in ancient time
"walk upon England's mountains green?
"And was the holy lamb of God
"on England's pleasant pastures seen?
"And did the countenance divine
"shine forth upon our clouded hills?"
Are you an English boy?
-Such a light in his eyes.
-True English boy?
It is he.
MAN:
It is he. He has the light.
WOMAN: We knew the child would come.
He's been promised us for so long.
But that we should find him
is too lovely to be true.
No, if we touch him, he'll vanish.
It's written.
MAN:
The child is innocent.
He does not know his inheritance.
Nor does he know
the courage he will need
to exercise his right
in this dark world.
Not that they put us
to the fire any more.
Oh, Stephen.
(WHISPERS) Stephen.
Think of that torment.
To be burned.
Shackled to the mockery of a tree
and burned.
Living.
Burned away.
What torment is that?
Through the flames we see our lord.
He reaches out his hand, to bring us
from the shadow of this world.
When we were burned, we cried in joy.
The Crosstians think we scream.
We cried in joy.
When we are burned,
why, we are turned to light.
Look.
Your inheritance.
The kings of the Earth, you can govern.
They walk in their sleep.
Yours is the right to inherit
the power.
To will their will.
Power, Stephen,
to turn the rock of the world
to wealth.
Power,
to fall and not to die.
Like Joan the Maid.
To fall
and not to die.
WOMAN:
You have to come with us.
You are our child of light.
You have to be born in us.
Then you become pure light.
No. No!
Oh!
-(CRIES)
- am nothing pure.
Nothing pure!
My race is mixed.
My sex is mixed. | am woman and man.
Light with darkness.
Mixed!
Mixed.
| am nothing special.
Nothing, nothing pure.
| am mud and flame!
If we can't have him, darkness must not.
(DISCORDANT ORGAN CHORDS)
(CAMERA CLICKS)
(INAUDIBLE)
Penda!
(SCREECHING NOISE)
There you have seen
your true dark enemies of England.
Sick father and mother,
who would have us children forever.
STEPHEN:
Kind Penda?
Stephen,
our land must live.
This land we love must live.
Her deep, dark flame must never die.
Night is falling.
Your land and mine goes down
into a darkness now.
And |, and all the other
guardians of her flame
are driven from our home,
up out into the wolf's jaw.
But the flame still flickers in the fen.
You are marked down to cherish that.
Cherish the flame
till we can safely wake again.
The flame is in your hands,
we trust it you.
Our sacred demon of ungovernableness.
Cherish the flame,
we shall rest easy.
Stephen, be secret.
Child, be strange.
Dark, true, impure and dissonant.
Cherish our flame.
Our dawn
shall come.