THE
SCARLETT CAPSULE
GOON SHOW: TLO 76513
9TH
SERIES: No 14
RECORDED:
Script by Spike Milligan
GREENSLADE: This is the BBC Home Service.
SELLERS: Hold it up to the light, not a brain in sight.
SECOMBE: Ah, John Friar Sellers! Taste this script.
SELLERS: (chewing) Mmm
mynym mykm. What is it?
SECOMBE: A freshly-cooked version of…
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic chords.
GRAMS: Over music; sci-fi oscillations. [1]
SELLERS: (Over) Quatermess,
OBE.
ORCHESTRA: Further horror chords. Diminuendo to quiet,
foreboding background chords.
GRAMS: (Pre-recorded, over.) TIMOTHY: This is the terror-stricken service of
the BBC. Today at approximately this
afternoon, a discovery was made on the site of the Notting Hill Gate site of
the government’s new dig-up-the-roads-plan-for-congesting-traffic scheme.[2] Workmen in the absence of a strike settled for work
as an alternative. It was during this brief lull in high-powered inertia that
Morris Onions, a scaffolder’s knee-wrencher, stumbled across something he’d
found. Ting-tong-billy-bong! (I would like it known that though I read this
stuff, I don’t write it.) F’tang!
FX: Shovel digging gravel.
THROAT: (Complaining) Cor
blimey… &c
WILLIUM: (Calls out) Here!
Here Julian!
MILLIGAN: (Distant) What’s
happening?
WILLIUM: Here. Over here mate, ‘ere!
MILLIGAN: Coming, Basil.
WILLIUM: Get your trousers on – hurry, Julian. Look at this!
ORCHESTRA: Horror chord.
GRAMS: Sci-fi oscillations. Swell
to forte then fade behind.
MILLIGAN: Oh, dear! Saints preserve us!
SECOMBE: (Approaching)
Hey, what’s all this about? (Shocked) HEY!
Eurgh! That’s a human skull.
WILLIUM: Is it?
SECOMBE: Aye. Must be a woman – the mouth’s open. (Laughs) Ha ha ha!
MILLIGAN: Here, we’d better call an Irish doctor.
SECOMBE: Too late for that, it’s a goner man.
MILLIGAN: Oh, dear!
WILLIUM: Call the Chinese police. Here, hold this whistle and
play that note.
FX: Police whistle.
GRAMS: Boots running. Swell into foreground then
slow down and stop.
MILLIGAN: (Over)
Listen! He’s coming. He’s almost here. (As
footsteps slow down) He’s arrived.
GREENSLADE: (Panting and heavily
out of breath) You were playing my song. I’m sorry I’m late, but the flin
of the flong succumbed the nib of the ploong.
WELSHMAN: A likely story.
SECOMBE: Now have a look at this, boyo.
GREENSLADE: Gad, the head of a skull! I’d better take its
fingerprints. (Narrates) Ladies and
gentlemen, in my dual role of constable and announcer, I now assume the mantle
of the latter, but only for a brief announcement. Next morning after my report
as a constable, a man and a woman from the Ministry of Certain Things were
flown in from Battersea by road, with a rug over their knees that travelled
with them pwung!
FX: Digging continues under.
CRUN: Mnk… knick …
BANNISTER: Knickka knack.
CRUN: Knickka, knack… (&c – extended)
FX: Digging becomes rhythmic.
BANNISTER: Knick knack…
(Setting up a jive rhythm.) Knick knack paddy
whack,
Give the dog a bone.
Give the dog a bone,
Mtta p’pow a’pwa – oww
Mtta p’pow a’pwa – (extended)
CRUN: What are you doing, Min? The dog’s had four bones already, you know.
Three of them are mine, I tell you. Now look – another one. Oh, look!
BANNISTER: Ohhh! Lord Crun… this skull is five million years
old!
CRUN & BANNISTER: (sings) Happy birthday to you,
happy birthday to you.
CRUN: (sings) Happy birthday, dear
Minnie,
happy birthday to you.
BANNISTER: Thank you, thank you Hen. It’s nice of you to
remember my skull.
FX: Shovel resumes digging gravel.
Faster tempo.
BANNISTER: Now, dig on! Dig on to power.
CRUN: Aha.
BANNISTER: Ohhhh.
CRUN: Min!
FX: Shovelling stops.
CRUN: Stop wallpapering my trousers while I’m straining with the trowel.
BANNISTER: You must get a new pair, then. The paint’s coming
off the knees, you know.
CRUN: You had a return of the royal strains. I can’t understand it, you know.
These knees were hand-painted by Anna Goonie.
WORKMAN: (Approaching) Sir,
will you be long in your the restorations? Only the workmen are waiting to start
work on their tea break, d’you see?
CRUN: Oooh, not yet. No. This is the vital brown archaeological site, sir. It
could be that on this very spot the first men existed. Can you see this we’ve
dug up just now? Do you recognise it?
GREENSLADE: It appears to be a piece of mud.
BANNISTER: And there’s MORE where that came from.
GREENSLADE: Now look, I may be ignorant…
BANNISTER: (interrupts)
I’m sure you are.
GREENSLADE: Look, I will turn a deaf eye to all that nonsense.
BANNISTER: You’ll get a punch up the conk!
GREENSLADE: I was saying I don’t see the archaeological
importance of mud.
CRUN: Ah no, no!
BANNISTER: Morning, morning.
CRUN: Morning! Here comes Professor Ned Quatermess.
BANNISTER: WHOOPEE!
ORCHESTRA: Big, bright “I Want to Be Happy” music-hall type intro.
QUATERMESS: Hello folks. It’s me, Ned Quatermess – son of a
scientist and daughter of darkness. Two for the price of one! HUP! HEY!
GRAMS: Massed cheering.
QUATERMESS: Stop!
GRAMS: Cheering stops.
QUATERMAS: Thank you. (Gloats) Ha ha ha ha! Now, what’s all this about, eh? What-what-what?
CRUN: Look at that. Something’s under the ground.
FX: Pick tapping rock.
QUATERMESS: So it is. It’s hard. Here, hold my coconut tree
while I have a look. This is a job for those sons of fun – the army!
ORCHESTRA: Bright brass fanfare.
QUATERMESS: (Big public
announcement) Ladies and gentlemen, his excellency Rifleman Dene of the
Third Collapsing Fusiliers.[3]
OMNES: Cheers and applause.
QUATERMESS: His Grovelling Excellence, sergeant Sir Tom Flair of
the Second Royal Army Games.[4]
OMNES: Pantomime murmurs.
QUATERMESS: And now… (give over…) and now Miss Stomach Trouble of
1958, Major Denis Bloodnok, OBE and bar.
ORCHESTRA: Majestic brass fanfare, segueing into
Bloodnok theme double quick.
GRAMS: Explosion.
BLOODNOK: Ooeuggh! Will I never be free of them? Now then
what’s the trouble?
QUATERMESS: An unexploded German bomb.
BLOODNOK: What? Aaaaagggh!
GRAMS: Single whoosh.
BLOODNOK: (Distant.)
Don’t be frightened lads. They’ll soon have it safe. Sergeant Spinewaite, dig
it up with dig.
CAST: (Variously) Oh, I don’t know
what’s going on here…
FX: Shovels digging gravel.
QUATERMESS: Thus, with ten men holding one million shovels, they
dug away in the direction of – THE THING!
SPRIGGS: Thinnngg!
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic musical link.
GRAMS: Bring in electronic oscillations – continue
under next dialogue.
QUATERMESS: As they dug the thing took shape – twenty foot long,
red, as large as an engine boiler, with an entrance on the side and a sealed
compartment in the front.
BANNISTER: Oh, dear! Dear, dear, dear.
GRAMS: Oscillations stop.
CRUN: I don’t like the look of it.
QUATERMESS: Well, we can’t change it now – it’s the only one
we’ve got.
CRUN: Yes, there is something in what you say.
QUATERMESS: Yes, it can happen to the best of us.
CRUN: Indeed it can.
QUATERMESS: Yes. Well… (nervous
laughter) ha ha! That seems to have explored that argument in full, doesn’t
it? Ha ha ha!
CRUN: But what is this thing…?
BANNISTER: (Bursts into
song) …called love,
this funny thing…[5]
CRUN & BANNISTER:
(Extended improvisation, including mouth
pops, and whistling.)
CRUN: Min! Cease that power-singing and stop flashing your insteps, Min.
QUATERMESS: Well, we can’t stand around here doing nothing.
People will think we’re workmen.
BLOODNOK: (Approaching)
Neddie, how’s the work going on that silly, harmless old bomb, eh? Oh, you were
all frightened of nothing, you know.
QUATERMESS: This line the Major spoke from inside a suit of creosoted
armour, inside a Cromwell tank.
BLOODNOK: You like it? I wear it all the time during
explosions, you know.
QUATERMESS: It must be hell in there.
GREENSLADE: In my capacity as announcer, I will say this: during the night, those concerned
continued their digging. F’TUNG!
MILLIGAN: (Rapid burst
of cod-Chinese.)
FX: Sporadic knocking on series of
differently pitched woodblocks.
BANNISTER: Ohh! Oh, listen! Listen! Oh!
FX: Woodblocks develop into a jive rhythm.
BANNISTER: (Rhythmic) P’ta
p’tappa tippi (&c in time to the
woodblocks – extended.)
CRUN: There’s no doubt about these rhythm-skulls, Min. They are fifty million
years old.
BANNISTER: Nonsense. According to my quillibbakanibynspoons, in
my opinion these skulls were dropped by the Germans in 1943.
QUATERMESS: Unexploded German skulls? I hadn’t thought of that.
BLOODNOK: Elephant soup with squodged spuds.
QUATERMESS: I hadn’t thought of that, either.
BLOODNOK: Sabrina in the bath. [6]
QUATERMESS: Ha ha ha ha ha! I do have some spare time.
FX: Door opens.
BANNISTER: I don’t think she has. Gentlemen, look! From the
bones we’ve discovered I have reconstructed an Irish stew.
QUATERMESS: Then this is what prehistoric Irish stews look like?
BANNISTER: Yes!
BLOODNOK: I knew it, I knew it! We are all descended from
Irish Jews. Oiy, vey!
GRAMS: Electronic oscillations. Voice over
(pre-recorded) WILLUM: OOOHI OOOOHIE! Wind the speed up and down.
QUATERMESS: Listen! Listen! Someone screaming in agony.
Fortunately I speak it fluently.
WILLIUM: Oh tut! Oh, my krills are plurned!
QUATERMESS: Sergeant Fertannng, what’s up? Your boots have gone
grey with worry.
WILLIUM: I was inside the thing picking up prehistoric
fag-ends, when I spots a creature crawling up the wall. It was a weasel, and
suddenly it went…
GRAMS: Electronic ‘pop’. Give it lots of reverb.
QUATERMESS: What a strange and horrible death.
WILLIUM: Then I hears an hissing sound, and a voice says,
“minardor.”
QUATERMESS: Minardor? We must keep our ears, nose and throats
open for anything that goes ‘minardor.’
BANNISTER: Yes.
CRUN: Be forewarned sir, the minardor is an ancient word that can be read in
the West of Minster’s library, you know.
QUATERMESS: Well, it so happens that I have a Westminster
Library on me and GAD – look! There I am inside, examining an occult
dictionary.
FX: Flipping
through pages of a book.
QUATERMESS: Minardor… minardor… hmm, hmm, hmm… min min min min
min…
BANNISTER: Yes yes yes yes yes?
QUATERMESS: I feel an attack of conks coming on. QUICK, THE
BRANDY!!!!
MAX
GELDRAY – “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” [7]
GREENSLADE: Meantime, Professor Quatermess is endeavouring to
open the front compartment.
QUATERMESS: Now workman, I want you to drill through this place
here, do you see?
ECCLES: Yup yup yup.
QUATERMESS: Now, you’re sure you know all about using micro
radium-tipped drills for non-porous surfaces?
ECCLES: (Rubbish) Ya,
ya, much. I’ve gotta willug.
QUATERMESS: Right.
ECCLES: OK, then. OK men, switch on!
GRAMS: Electric current on. Massive electrical
short circuit. Hold under.
ECCLES: (Agonised
screams of electrocution.)
QUATERMESS: Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
ECCLES: Yeah, but I’m willing to take a second opinion.
QUATERMESS: Look! There’s a hole appearing.
ECCLES: Oh. Let me look through – I specialise in appearing
holes. Let me have a look. Ooooooahh!
QUATERMESS: What can you see?
ECCLES: A glass eye.
QUATERMESS: What’s the matter – doesn’t he trust you? Ha ha ha! I say! Can you smell something?
ECCLES: (sniffs)
Yeah, yeah.
QUATERMESS: (Calls)
Major Bloodnok!
ECCLES: No, no. This smells like Irish stew.
QUATERMESS: Gad! My brain raced in various directions – the
frontal lobes to Charing Cross and Isle of Rhyl to the
ECCLES: Leave that to me.
FX: Furious pounding on wood. Various
types of hammers. Frantic sawing of wood. Keep it going for a while.[8]
ECCLES: (Effort
&c; finish off with exhausted panting.) I know when I’m beaten.
QUATERMESS: Hold this coconut tree. Let me try.
FX: Doorknob turned; hinge creaks
QUATERMESS: It was open all the time.
ECCLES: Ohhh! [9]
QUATERMESS: Dear listeners, inside the sealed compartment were
the complete skeletons of three serge suits along with the bones of a bowler
hat.
CRUN: Min, go and preserve these specimens in brown fumed spirit and quilled
leather Ong.
MORIARTY: (Muffled –
distant.) I say! I say! Hello freed? Are they freed down there? Grytpype, who’s
that down there?
GRYTPYPE: It’s daylight, Count.
MORIARTY: Oh, lovely, lovely. Have you any food? (Approaching) Have you some food down
there? Any nice food? Any small chips and things?
QUATERMESS: Who is that hovering on the stairs?
GRYTPYPE: That is the great International Leaper and
Balloonist Extraordinary, Le Comte Viscomte de Comte Jim ‘Winds’…
GRAMS: Descending electronic glissando.
GRYTPYPE: …Moriarty, known as the Mantovani of Piccadilly.
There he goes.
QUATERMESS: Gad! Time for Ray Ellington and the old BRAAAANDY
THERE!
ELLINGTON: The introductions he gives me!
RAY
ELLINGTON QUARTET – “After
You’ve Gone”
ELLINGTON: (Sings) I sing melodies divine,
Melodies from old
QUATERMESS: There he goes – the Webster Booth of
GREENSLADE: We are now approaching the climax of this thrilling
serial in one part. Around the great scarlet capsule the entire cast are
assembled. That’s me in the wig.
QUATERMESS: My friends, you’ve just one hour to find out the
origin of this giant scrimson-scramson-scroo, yakabakaka-koo! After that,
they’re letting the press in.
BLUEBOTTLE: Yes, hurry up man. I’m waiting for a headline.
QUATERMESS: Gad, it’s a trilby hat on legs!
BLUEBOTTLE: Steady on, my man. I am Ace Bluebottle, known in
Fleet Street as Scoop Bluebottle, wonder boy reporter.
QUATERMESS: What paper do you represent?
BLUEBOTTLE: Brown paper. What is the weekly organ of the
Finchley Beat Generation, editors Bluebottle and Bluebottle. Headline: “Boy Reporter Bluebottle Scoops.”
FX: Typewriter behind.
BLUEBOTTLE: (over)
Headline: From under the nose of
Lord Beavinbrook, FLASHEE! Giant
German bomb a hoax. "I did it in my spare time," says Sydenham night
watchman. Quotee. Sitting in his watchman’s hut, grey-headed, sixty-seven-year-old
Tom Onions of Puker’s Lodge Mon. said, "It all comes so easy in the dark hours."
ECCLES: You’re making it up!
BLUEBOTTLE: Silence, man! Bend down.
FX: Cloth ripping.
ECCLES: Oww! Oww!
BLUEBOTTLE: It’s Professor Eccles, the brains behind…
ECCLES: What?? What’s that?
BLUEBOTTLE: … the brains behind the Windscale Disaster. Scoop! Prof
Eccles gives the Brown Paper Daily exclusive statement.
ECCLES: What what what?
BLUEBOTTLE: Can I quote you on that, please?
ECCLES: No. My “what what what’s” are private.
BLUEBOTTLE: Well, give us an exclusive statement then, prof.
ECCLES: OK, then. Mnummnummnum… I like chips in brown gravy.
FX: Telephone receiver lifts. Number
being dialled.
BLUEBOTTLE: Ah – this will be good.... FLASHO! Hello? Give me
the city desk.
GRAMS: (Pre-recorded, play at double the speed.)
VOICE: (On telephone) “Hello. City desk here.”
BLUEBOTTLE: Listen Ed, “Scoop Bottle” here. Clear the front page!
GRAMS: (As before) VOICE: (On telephone) “What for,
my lad?”
BLUEBOTTLE: Professor Eccles denies paternity case. “I like chips
in brown gravy,” he tells the judge.
GRAMS: (As before.) VOICE: (On telephone) “Great
work, kid. Keep it up!” BLUEBOTTLE: Thanks Ed. Now for the exclusive
picture. Scene: Professor Quartermass pretends to sing, and all the others put
your fingers in your ears. Ready? Points super junior candle flash-gun with cardboard
built-in trigger... Say cheese.
GRAMS: Electrical short-circuit. Enormous
explosion.
BLUEBOTTLE: (Over)
Oiee! Ooo, my spons! Who’s been meddling with my thin equipment?
GRYTPYPE: Gentlemen, the Count and I have the solution to the
red capsule thing.
QUATERMESS: How do you know?
GRYTPYPE: We have just watched the last instalment on the
television.
ECCLES: That reminds me – I must pay my last instalment on
my television. (Laughs) Ha ha ha ha haoo! Ha ha
ha ha haooou!
QUATERMESS: Fell rather flat, didn’t it? Try singing it.
ECCLES: Anything to save it. (Coughs) Ahem.
(Sings) That reminds me,
I must pay the last instalment
on my television set.
Aha ha ha
ha, ha ha ha!
(Slight pause.
Spoken.) No.
QUATERMESS: No. Well, try it with full orchestral accompaniment.
ORCHESTRA: Melodramatic ballad accompanies next line
ECCLES: Ahem. (sings)
That reminds me,
I must pay the last instalment on my
(Strained high note) television set…
GRAMS: Electronic jelly splosh. (Pre-recorded,
played over the top at double speed.) MORIARTY: Ohie ohie ohie!
BLOODNOK: Who threw that stuff at the Count?
QUATERMESS: Gad! Look what it is!
BLOODNOK: The phantom strikes again. It must be hell in there,
and there’s obviously more where that came from.
QUATERMESS: Now it’s coming clearer.
BLOODNOK: Is it?
QUATERMESS: Yes. Poltergeists throw stuff about.
ECCLES: They must be in a bad way.
QUATERMESS: This proves my theory! This scarlet capsule is the
seat of spirit beings.
WILLIUM: Sir, the gentlemen of the press is here. I tried to
hold ‘em back, but they burst through by putting money in me hands.
QUATERMESS: Spoken like a true commissionaire.
GRAMS: Jelly splosh.
QUATERMESS: Gads! He’s been struck by a neolithic Irish stew. It’s
the spirits at work again.
LALKAKA: (Going) Let’s
get out of here my good fellow.
QUATERMESS: There’s only one answer. Eccles, prepare a series of
TNT charges to destroy the THING!
ECCLES: Leave it to me. Leave it to…
GRAMS: Electronic jelly splosh.
ECCLES: (Strangled
exclamations)
QUATERMESS: Another one!
ORCHESTRA: Dramatic chords. Hold under.
GRAMS: Electronic oscillations. Swell and fade.
Big
Ben chiming the hour.
FX: One strike on a rusty triangle.
GREENSLADE: All night, preparations to explode the thing
continued. For miles around, people had to be evacuated.
FX: Knock on door; Door opens.
BREATHY KENSINGTON DEAR: Yes, what is it?
QUATERMESS: (Nervous) Oh, I…er, I’m terribly sorry to knock you up so
late. Ha ha.
BREATHY KENSINGTON DEAR: They all say that.
QUATERMESS: I’m afraid you’ll have to be evacuated.
BREATHY KENSINGTON DEAR: (Surprised) Oh!
Come in. I’ll just pack a few things.
QUATERMESS: Well, I… I…er…
GREENSLADE: At this point the script was heavily censored. But
we leave the ensuing silence for the listeners to imagine what followed.
(Short pause)
BLOODNOK: (Off) You
filthy swines! Back to your own beds, now!
ECCLES: Major, the dynamite’s all ready in the Thing.
BLOODNOK: Oh? Well, tell everybody to take cover.
ECCLES: (Shouts) Take
cover, Major!
BLOODNOK: Thank you for telling me, lad. Get hold of this
plunger, lad.
QUATERMESS: Stop! There’s a man called Moriarty tied up inside
the thing.
GRYTPYPE: (Approaching) Yes,
yes, yes, I know. It’s all right, Ned.
QUATERMESS: All right!? He’ll be blown to bits.
GRYTPYPE: Don’t worry. I have the Count heavily insured
against such things.
QUATERMESS: No no no, I… I… I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do such a thing.
GRYTPYPE: Fifty pounds be enough?
QUATERMESS: Right. Ahem. (yells) Stand by plunger! Ten, nine,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three… erm…
MILLIGAN: (Whispered)…two…
QUATERMESS: … two, one, FIRE!
(Short pause.)
ECCLES: Ha ha ha. I forgot to connect it up.
QUATERMESS: Well, get over and fix it then. And nobody touch
that plunger!
FX: Telephone lifted from cradle.
Dialling.
GRYTPYPE: (Hums over.) Hello?
Imprudential Insurance? Can I take out another one of those… erm, policy
things? Eccles, yes. Mad Dan Eccles, that’s right.
FX: Phone down into cradle.
GRYTPYPE: Another fifty be enough, Ned?
QUATERMESS: Ah-ha.
GRAMS: Explosion and speeded-up Eccles cries of
anguish
(Rre-recorded) ANDREW TIMOTHY: This is the
flibby-dabby-dee service of the BBC. The giant capsule was today exploded, and
went – BANG! London transport experts have, however, discovered what the thing
was. Apparently the remains of the three blue serge suits found inside inside,
were in fact those of three sit-down tube strikers, and the capsule was a tube
train that had been shunted into a siding and forgotten. The mystic word
‘minardor’ was in fact the word ‘mind the doors.’ Not a very good ending, but
tidy, don’t you think? Goodnight.
GRAMS: Jelly splosh.
TIMOTHY: Ohh!
BLOODNOK: And there’s more where that came from, Tim!
ORCHESTRA: Closing theme: ‘I Want to Be Happy’
ORCHESTRA: Playout “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead”
YTI
