Why the King's Speech Won

My son and me in some famous place :) I look pregnant. Maybe Zeus did it.. Oh well, All that GREAT Greek Food.

Hmm. I've been writing a lot about the Oscars because it is topical and I am experimenting with the blog format...trying to see what gets hits and when the busy period is...

I am also sick with a bug I caught in Vegas.

Anyway, I was listening to BBC Radio Four, their Today Program, and,of course, they covered the King's Speech's success at the Oscars, mentioning that Paul Bettany was first up for Colin Firth's Oscar winning role... but he turned it down to spend more time with his wife, actress Jennifer Connolly, and family.

Well, on this trip to Greece last August, I messed up my reservation by taking a ferry from Lesvos to Athens on a whim and had to go to Athens airport to fix up the problem or risk having to buy an entire new ticket to get home.

I got to the airport really early, exhausted from not having slept in 3 days. I was first in line at the Air France booth, with one family group in front of me. My 25 year old son,who had met me in Greece and was only leaving the next day, came with me to provide moral support.

He elbowed me and said, "Look there's Jennifer Connolly and her family right in front of us."

"Oh yea, I said."

"And her husband's as famous as she is," my son said. (But he was too tired to remember the name.)

I suddenly felt bad because I had been staring at them all. Not because they are famous. I hadn't recognized them.. Only because they were right in front of me for a long time, working out a big travel problem too.

But also because the Bettany/Connolly's have two younger boys and I have two boys, both big and grown, and it makes me nostalgic to watch families like that, families travelling with boys. Memories, you know.

In Plomari, there were many Australian families visiting as tourists and I found the family dynamic interesting to watch, in that it was the men who were in charge of the kids, it seemed to me. The woman, often very pretty, often just sat back. I wondered if this is how they did it at home, or if the women were 'on a break'.

And, just like with these Autralian families, Bettany was the one dealing with the boys, and Jennifer Connolly was standing shy and delicate in the background (she is tiny of course) so I assumed he was Australian.(British accent.)

Anway, when my son told me who they were, I reflexively said something really stupid to my son.... I said, "I wish he were Colin Firth." It's a running joke in my family that I like Colin Firth. I play upon, in my role as silly old mom who likes Period Pieces.

And then my husband puts me in my place by imitating Fat Bastard from Austen Powers every once in a while, you know, the nipple thing. The Anti-Darcy.

(I'm actually glad Bettany wasn't Colin Firth, because I was tired, filthy, FAT, wearing a HUGE dress I had bought for 2 dollars at a thrift shop and my ankles were really swollen from 2 weeks of 100 degree heat and I had an ear infection - in both ears.


I ended up taking the plane with them, of course. And the shuttle bus to the airport from the plane. Ordinary people. I don't think anyone recognized them.

Kind of ironic.

Whatever, thank God the Academy Awards are over. I'm up to here with The King's Speech "mythology" and incessant Oscar Promotion. Last Night, Tom Hooper (who seems boyish) thanked his own classy-looking mom, who was in the audience. Nice moment. He said she was the one who attended a reading of a play and came to him saying "I think I have found your next movie."

But just a few weeks ago on CBS's Sunday Morning, it was said that Geoffrey Rush was presented with the copy of the play and it was he who said "This would make a better movie."

That's what happens when you have so much time on your hands, and you are a PR person by trade...

Anyway, I think that the King's Speech wins as Best Picture and Best Director, even screenplay, would not have happened were it not for Colin Firth's performance. Colin Firth thanked Tom Ford, and I think he's right. I'm not sure he would have won Best Actor, or even been nominated, had he not been nominated last year.

And remember, the King's Speech bandwagon got rolling at the Toronto Film Festival, where Firth is a favourite (in large part because he has Canadian connections.)

(Oh, Sixty Minutes last week claimed that the King's Speech critical and box office success was out of the blue: Nonsense again. )

But Firth deserves his award for 30 years of good and great performances.

We don't want him to be another Peter O'Toole.

This is the LAST THING I write on the topic.

Need a new topic..

MY MOST POPULAR ESSAY EVER

Colin Firth as George Falconer has a bit of a tease with a GQ model style guy. Funny, I found an old article about Colin Firth online, from before he was famous, where the author suggested he was a GQ kind of looker. But you know, he can play a very unattractive man, as in the English Patient. All he has to do is gain 10 pounds or something. Male actors have to diet too. They criticized Hugh Grant latey for looking 'fat' in a movie, when, I'm guessing, he gained 5 pounds or so. But we are used to his lean look.

It's hard being a leading man.

Anyway, I'm posting another old article "the Appalling Truth" on this blog. It was written over 10 years ago, but has the same theme as The Winter of Our Disconnect, a book just recently published, about a mom who banned all media in her home, for a time, anyway.

This essay was often published in certain ESL texts, but then it got too 'old.' I mean, we had one tv in those days. But many students still look this article up on the web. Don't know why.

Now they talk about people stealing copyright, (I wonder if taking a picture of your TV is breaking copyright? Ridiculous if is.) I gave my essays to a small one-woman parenting website for FREE and she then sold it to a conglomerate (one of Canada's major media players) and they published my essays and apparently, I have no right to them. Talk about stealing from the poor to give the rich...


The Appalling Truth

Technology changes us. With the invention of the clock we lost the ability to live in the present. The telephone made us Pavlovian slaves to the sound of a ringing bell. And with the advent of television, we removed ourselves indoors, for the most part leaving the streets to marauding canines and fancily-attired exercise addicts.

As a mother and very serious media watcher, I am as troubled as anyone about the violent and sexist content on television. But were television wall-to-wall programming of the PBS caliber, and commercial-free, I would be just as concerned.

I just don't like what TV is doing to my family. It has become some kind of oracle -- never mind McCluhan's "electronic fireplace" -- that commands all of our attention. We don't listen to each other, husband to wife, mother to kids, kids to parents. It was with this in mind that I suggested to my husband that we ban the tube from the house, on an experimental basis, for, say, about a year.

"No way!" he said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because, it would be hypocritical," he deftly answered. "We both work in TV."

"You work in TV. I don't."

"Well, you like to criticize TV. How can you criticize something you don't watch!" Good point.

"I just don't like what the thing is doing to our family," I continued. "It's noisy. It jangles the nerves. It's like a drug. It's addictive. We watch anything, anything, even programming aimed at adolescents. I mean, I used to read Dostoyevsky. Now I watch Steve Erkle."

"So you traded one idiot for another," my husband quips, but I am not amused.

"Well, you know what I mean. Besides, the stupid contraption keeps us from doing what human beings are really supposed to be doing."

"And what's that? Foraging for nuts and berries?"

My husband, the TV junkie, sees nothing wrong with the boob tube. "I grew up on it, " he answers, "and I'm no psycho."

If my husband had his way, there would be a TV in every room. And they'd all be tuned into Star Trek. And I must admit, there are times I felt the only interest we ever had in common was Star Trek, oh and the X-files, and way back when, Cheers. In the early months of my first pregnancy we'd cuddle together on the couch like two spoons and I'd fall asleep, my head cradled in his lap, before Sam Malone's first conquest. Togetherness.

But now we're like two channel-zapping zombies. "You know, they say that spending time together in front of the television does nothing to enhance a relationship," I tell my now bleary-eyed husband, trying to make him feel guilty. It's a war of attrition and it is working, sort of.

"Okay. Two weeks," my husband relents. "We'll try no TV for two weeks. That's all. But you tell the kids."

We have two boys, Andrew and Mark, 7 and 4. They kick up a huge fuss when I tell them that our tiny bungalow has been unilaterally declared a TV-free zone. Now it's their turn to try to make me feel guilty. They hang their pathetic little heads in genuine mourning as they watch their dad, the TV freak, reluctantly disconnect the enormous tangle of wires enabling the miracle of modern home theatre in our suburban castle. And am I feeling guilty? No way!

I stand tall and victorious in our living room, easy to do when you are five foot ten, a champion of my somewhat left-of-center family values, the protector of my children.

That evening, we read our children books, sing them songs and tuck them in for the night. I go to bed with that Margaret Drabble I've been using as a giant paper-weight for the past year and my husband snuggles up with Stephen King.

Two days pass. The kids have finally stopped complaining about The Terrible Loss. In fact, they don't appear to care at all any more. They have found other, more interesting, things to do. Myself, on the other hand, I'm suffering from a mean case of withdrawal. "It's Thursday Night. Must-See-TV. Do you think maybe you can bring the TV up for just one show?" I ask my husband, who happens to be down in his workroom drilling a hole into a six-foot piece of plywood for no apparent reason. "We'll keep the sound really low," I add, because kids can hear hypocrisy even in their sleep.

"Why don't your read, Ms. Literature Freak? You haven't exactly been burning up the library shelves," my husband sneers rather condescendingly as he stops to wipe some sawdust from his nose hairs.

"Well, that's because I only read the best, and my brain's too fried at the end of the day to read the best," I answer, convincing even myself. (That has been my pat excuse for my intellectual lethargy since becoming a mother.)

My husband rolls his eyes back into his head and puts down the drill. No further argument from him. He happily carries the TV upstairs and reconnects its myriad wires in no time. (A real pro, my husband.) We sit back and laugh at George and Kramer, Elaine and Jerry. "This show is just like real life!" I announce.

The problem is, we do the same for Murphy Brown a few days later. And for X-files, each night my husband clambering up the basement stairs with a twenty-inch Sony stuck to his face, and then stumbling down again thirty-something minutes later, trailing his wires behind him. Then the true test. Indeed, a real dilemma for us. A rerun of Star Trek: TNG is airing; but at 7:00, before the kids' bedtime. What to do? Clearly, no sleazy hypocritical way around this. "I can always get a tape and watch it at work," my husband, the news editor, smiles, taunting me once again. "You, on the other hand, will have to do without."

A real dilemma, and I am not alone, I know. I recall a friend, fortyish, married with two kids, unapologetically telling me that watching Star Trek reruns was the highlight of his day. "It's the only philosophical show on TV," he claimed.

And, certainly, here is Captain Picard, perhaps the wisest man in the universe, forcing me to face a very ugly personal truth: It isn't my kids; it isn't even my husband. I am the real TV addict in my household

Looking for Mrs. Peel 9: Something the cat dragged in

Dorothy in her cell: "Heaven by comparison"

Scene Thirty-Seven: Westminster Office

SOUND: Typing

Dorothy: On the tenth day of October, 1943, there was a peculiar atmosphere in the Nipponese Office. They took the roll call list from me but did not go through it. I was then told to go back and wait in the Rose Garden with the other women. We all stood a long time in the sun. Two women fainted from the heat. Then I heard the sound of marching feet in the Girdle walk Soldiers rushed in and surrounded us. Two familiar looking Nipponese Officers arrived with 3 I had never seen before. Obviously Kempetai. A Japanese woman interpreter accompanied them. They asked me all manner of ridiculous questions.

Scene Thirty-Eight: Rose Garden

SOUND: Silence

Man: Hiss

Interpretor: Mrs. Nixon. Are there any radio in the women’s camp?

Dorothy: Of course not. They are strictly forbidden.

Man: Hiss

Interpretor: Have you heard of any in the men’s camp?

Dorothy: No. How could I have?

Man: Hiss

Interpretor: What do you know about Japanese tankers being sabotaged
in Singapore Harbour.

Dorothy: Nothing.

man: Long Hiss

Interpreter: You are to instruct the women to return to their cell block and wait outside in an orderly line as we search each cell.

dorothy: Fine. But as Women’s Representative, I insist on being present at these searches.

Woman: Mrs. Nixon. I must speak to you.

Dorothy: yes

Woman: (whispering) I must get back to my cell before it is searched.

Dorothy: Why?

Woman: My diary. I left it out in the open.

Dorothy: Diaries. What is it with you women and your diaries? Do you realize how many hours I have spent in the Nipponese office defending the contents of various diaries? Maybe you should be made to suffer for your sloppiness.

Woman: Please Mrs Nixon. More people than me will be harmed if the Japanese read my diary.

Dorothy: What guilty secrets are you hiding? I’m to accompany the Kempetai on the search. I’ll see what I can do.

Scene Thirty-Nine: Inside Empty Changi

SOUND: belongings being thrashed about man: Yelling

dorothy: It’s a stethoscope. What can you possibly find suspicious about a thing like that. The person in this cell is a doctor. Doctors use stethoscopes to hear into people’s chest.

man: yelling

DOROTHY: You don’t understand a word of what I am saying. Do you?
Well, interpret this. See me jump up and down. See me point to my privates. Please. I need to go to the loo.

Man: Harrumph

Dorothy: Where’s her cell? There’s the diary.Right out in the open.
(sx pages turning) My God. Names. Places. Secret communications in the camp. What fools some females be! Ah. (reciting) I am certain it is Mrs. Nixon who is bringing the News into the camp. She could have me killed! (sx ripping of paper) Where’s the dustbin?

Scene Forty: Westminster Office

SOUND: typing

dorothy: The Kempetai then conducted a cell by cell search. After it was over, I arranged for a late supper for the women. I stayed in the office, pretending to type whenever a guard passed. After that I turned off the light and hid and waited my chance to sneak over to the Men’s Camp. Timothy Morgan was still trying to figure out who’d been taken by the Kempetai. Gradually, it became clear it was the men from the Radio Racket....ah, might I take that last sentence back...Thank you... A few days later more men were taken, Timothy included ,as well as two from the omen’s Camp, Mrs. Rose, Camp poetess, and Dr. Mary Jones

Scene Forty-One: Changi Camp

SOUND: (birds chirping)

Mrs. Crawford: Mrs. Nixon! I’ve heard they are searching Dr. Jones’ belongings. First Mrs. Rose than Dr. Jones. That means they will come for us too!

Dorothy: Calm down, Mrs. Crawford. Remember, I am the only one who knows you were one of my distributors. And I promise you,no,I make an oath, that no matter what happens, if the Kempetai do come for me,too, I will never ever give you away.

Scene Forty-Two: Westminster Office

SOUND: typing

Dorothy: Almost six months passed. Then Dr. Jones and Christine Rose were returned to the camp. A few days later, on April 2nd I was called to the Nipponese Office. As I was no longer Women’s Representative I was relaxed about it, I assumed I was to get a wireless message. Instead I was arrested by the Kempetai and taken to the YMCA in a car with McGowan and Peters from the Men’s Camp. I waved to Nicky, my husband, as I got into the car, and tried to smile, as if everything were fine, but I knew I was in for it.I had heard rumours of the YMCA. Beastly rumours. All three of us were escorted to a basement room and told to sit at small school desks
and then we were interrogated.

Scene Forty-Three: YMCA Basement

SOUND: Yelling

Dorothy: I told you. NO ONE gave me any news. There was no NEWS

Man: Yelling

Dorothy: Sometimes I collect rumours floating around and write them down and distribute them, to make the women feel that they aren’t
totally cut off from the world. That’s all.

Man: Yelling

Dorothy: I’ve never heard anything about Japanese boats being blown up in the harbor. I’ve never seen any radio receivers or transmitters in the camp. I am not engaged in espionage and I know no one who is. Sx SLAP.

Man: Yelling.

Dorothy: I don’t care who gave me away. People will admit to anything under extreme conditions.

Scene Forty-Four: Westminster Office

SOUND: typing

Dorothy : I was not hurt during this episode. I was screamed at, cajoled, bribed with food,even threatened with beheading but not physically harmed. After many exhausting hours of interrogation I was taken with McGowan and Peters to a Cage in the basement and put in with 20 others, all sitting cross-legged and looking like something the cat dragged in. Five British men, the others were Malays, Chinese Eurasians and 2 Japanese. Another woman was there, someone I knew: Li Chan.She and her husband had a store and often ran supplies into the camp. I squeezed in behind her.

Scene Forty-Five: The Cage at YMCA

SOUND: groaning of men

Mrs. Chan: (whisper) Believe it or not, this is one of the bigger cages, can’t be more than 20 by 12.

Dorothy: (sx teeth chattering) You seem surprised?

Chan: Yes, you are the first European woman I have seen here. I saw one other Chinese woman. And I heard rumours of a Portugese woman jailed as well.

Dorothy: Dr. Jones and Mrs. Rose were here at the YMCA for only a day and then kept at Smith Road. They are back at Changi now. In rough shape but alive

Chan: I heard rumours that Timothy Morgan is dead

Dorothy: Yes, I did too. Why are you here?

Chan: My husband and I are accused of smuggling radio parts in to the Men’s Camp. We didn’t of course.

Dorothy: Of course.

Chan: And you?

Dorothy: I don’t know why I am here.

Chan: You seem to know that man over there. The thin one with the abscesses on his arms. Norris? You two made eye contact as you entered.

Dorothy: We did?

Chan: He’s been here a while. He’s starving to death. He will beg you for your ration of rice.

Dorothy: Oh

Chan: Some bloat up like balloonfish, some sink back into their eye sockets. I never thought human skin could turn so many colours: black, blue, white, yellow, red, purple, brown, green

Dorothy: Did they torture you too?

Chan: I got the electric shock but not for many months now.

Scene Forty-Six: Westminster Office

SOUND: typing

Dorothy: I heard tales of torture and death in that place, enough horror stories to fill many books. But I never saw any Europeans actually being tortured. The Kempetai took their victims out of the cell starting at ten pm. I could hear screams of agony all night long. It made my skin crawl. Also, a bright light shone in my face so I couldn’t sleep. I was not tortured, although a guard liked to kick me every time he passed. I kept my composure, to set an example for the Asiatics in the cell. If I go to Hell, and it is likely, I won’t be caught by surprise.

Looking For Mrs. Peel Complete play pdf

Colin Firth or Clive Owen?

Bette Davis in the Letter.

Hmm. I'm watching The Letter, the 1940 Bette Davis vehicle based on the Somerset Maugham short story.

I've been reading a lot about this year's 2011 Academy Awards and the key media controversy: whether the King's Speech (a throwback to Old Hollywood kind of movie and a revisionist view of history with respect to the Royal Family) will win over The Social Network - a movie for our times - but also a rewriting 'history'- if you can call it that.

Both the King's Speech and the Social Network are examples of great storytelling and all great storytelling entails stretching, varnishing, embellishing the truth.

This Letter movie is part of Turner Classic Movie's 30 days of Oscar, it was nominated for a number of Oscars, including Best Picture.

This movie is an entirely forgettable venture (it ain't no Wuthering Heights, although it is William Wyler's signature flourishes and much like the King's Speech, it has only indoor sets: CHEAP to make, I guess). I'm also guessing that I am one of the few people who purchased it over Amazon this year. Me and a bunch of Bette Davis fans.

It's about the wife of a Malayan rubber planter who shoots her lover and tries to cover it up. It is based on a true story. And the real story (as least as printed in the local press, can be found in the Malaya Straits Times archives.)

I bought The Letter on DVD because I recently wrote a play about my own British grandmother's experiences as the wife of a planter in Malaya in the 20's and 30's and her internment at Changi Prison in Singapore in late 1941, when the Japanese overran Malaya on bicycles after Pearl Harbour.

First thing I noticed today, upon a second viewing: there's a problem with the dialogue. In one of the first scenes Davis's character tells the police that as a planter's wife, she is used to being alone. But then a little later the husband claims he has never spent more than one day away from her.

Apart from that... well, today, I found one point most interesting with respect to my grandmother's Changi experience. The lawyer defending Davis's character says at one point 'any respectable woman would have shot a man who was making advances..' they don't mention the word "rape".

I believe this really does reflect the thinking of the times. (And I guess that is all you can ask from historical fiction, some umbrella truths.) In the Double Tenth Trial, when the Japanese Kempetai is put on trial for torturing and sometimes killing certain European civilians, the real-life prosecutor for this trial suggests that the worse my grandmother suffered was having to sleep and go potty in front of men.

She was kicked and punched, threatened daily with beheading, and starved to within inches of death, and forced to sit cross-legged for 5 months in solitary confinement, but the worse thing she suffered was the indignity of having her feminity compromised by farting in front of members of the male sex.

The Prosecutor for this Double Tenth trial comes off as sexist. He suggests my grandmother has a good memory because married women are always vindictive.

(Of course, just recently in Canada, a Manitoba judge let a man get off with rape because the woman who was taken to the woods for the attack was wearing skanky clothing, a tube top and lots of makeup... (unlike the rest of us respectable gals who wear shirtwaist suits and corsets and niqabs.)

Ps. I saw a woman in a niqab in the Bellagio casino in Vegas. Why would a husband who believes that a woman should be shrouded in public go to Vegas? It's like my husband forcing me to go to Hooters, which he joked about going to, until I set him straight.

My play, Looking for Mrs. Peel, tries to stay close to the 'truth' which, of course, is always point of view. I 'm trying to do the same with Flo in the City. But it's probably not the way to go, as the King's Speech and the Social Network show.

This The Letter movie has the woman pronounced not guilty at trial, but I believe the woman in question was convicted, but the local Europeans raised such a ruckus she was allowed to leave. And that TRUTH tells alot about their clique back then.

Indeed, when I first found this stash of Nicholson letters I tracked down Canada's best selling author of YA history novels. She told me flat out: Forget the History. Go for the Story.

Hmm the elements of this post would make for a good essay, but I'm too lazy to plot it out, today.

And even I have been saturated with Colin Firth media stories. They all contradict each other anyway. That's the Hollywood publicity machine, I guess. The 60 Minutes King's Speech story was obsequious and not investigative in any way and didn't touch on the issue of the Royals and their iffy politics pre-1940, nor did it touch on Colin Firth's left wing advocacy, widely-publicized in England, his recent endeavor for the History Channel: Democracy is not a Spectator Sport. I wonder why? But it did reveal that he liked to play-act in kindergarten. Now THAT won't offend anyone in the US, will it?

I guess they are trying to get non urbanite, right wingers to go see the King's Speech. They are even taking out the swear words as if no one ever swears in front of kids.

I think I have to find someone else to adore. James McAvoy is just SOOOO young, although he clearly likes older women...So Clive Owen it is!

Looking for Mrs. Peel 8: Howling Bloody Murder

SOUND: Typing

Dorothy: "Good news" I told Giles, the Head of Entertainment, as he passed me the keys to his Morris before scrambling for the harbour, "My husband has been given permission to come live at the Cathay. Aren't I lucky?"

I then volunteered as VAD in the 10th Australian General Hospital, which moved into the cinema of Cathay building February 10. A real baptism of fire, as they say. Still, mostly, I held the hands of dying men, sang them songs. Sometimes I shaved their beards or washed their dirty feet.The situation in Singapore City was getting more chaotic by the hour. Many dozens of seriously wounded or burned were being carried in on stretchers, lifted up over the carcasses of crushed automobiles at the hospital entrance. The Cathay building was under constant bombardment: The hospital couldn't display a Red Cross Flag as the Army Corps Headquarters was installed there. The nurses had been evacuated as it was felt their services could be put to better use in another theatre: as most of the orderlies had scurried off and taken shelter in the basement, to drink and play cards, tensions were at flashpoint.

Scene Twenty-Eight: Flashback. Hospital

SOUND: hospital sounds, chaos, the cries of the wounded

Orderly : growl

Dorothy: What was that you called me. A bloody Pommy?

Orderly: growl

Dorothy.: That’s simply not true. I do not favor the English patients over the Australians. I spent all last night with that Australian private who was trying to tear off this bandages. And the night before I raided surrounding flats for supplies for everyone. Where do you think all these silk bed sheets came from? The Chanel No. 5 I've been using to mask the stench of putrifying flesh?

Orderly: Growl

dorothy: How can I? How can I feed that Welshman. His jaw has been blown off. His lips have gone gangrene! There’s nothing but green jelly where his mouth should be! (Crying)

Orderly: Softer Growl

Dorothy: I know. I know. But if you won’t take a break, neither will I.

Scene Twenty-Nine: Westminster Office

SOUND: typing

Dorothy: On the Sunday, the Japanese concentrated on bombing the Cathay Building. We we received over a dozen direct hits! Smoke filled the building. On February 15, The British Capitulated. The hospital was given a few days reprieve and then forced to move to Changi. On February 21 I was interned at Katong and then later moved to Changi. I had to walk nine miles to get there carrying my luggage.

Scene Thirty: flashback. Changi

SOUND: enormous din of prisoners

Dorothy: Dr. Jamieson? What is this?

Dr. J: Rules of Conduct for Changi Civilian Internees courtesy of Mr.Asahi the Nipponese Commandant. You can read them out loud for all the newcomers.

Dorothy: Ladies. Ladies please. Doctor Jamieson has asked me to read out the following rules for Internees. One: The behavior and attitude of the internees towards the Nipponese authorities will be obedient and respectful. Two: When the Nipponese come into the room, Internees must bow and stand to attention. Three: No internee shall approach the Nipponese authority directly, communicating only through the Camp leader. Four. NO lights on before 7:30. Lights out 10:30. Five All civilian subjects will do the necessary work inside the camp for their welfare.Six: Communication between the Men’s Camp and the Women’s Camp is strictly forbidden.

Internee: Is that all? Sounds just like me old boarding school.

Scene Thirty-One: Westminster office

SOUND: Typing

Dorothy: I first worked in the library and then took a turn as floor Representative. I was elected deputy Women’s Representative in the Women’s Camp from January to June 1943. I had lost out to Dr. Mary Jones, a specialist in tropical pediatrics, for the post of Women’s Representative by three votes. The deputy is a sort of Administrative head, dealing with supplies, budgets, rules and regulations.

Scene Thirty-Two: Committee Meeting Changi

SOUND: women around a table whispering

Dorothy: Expenditures. Central Fund. So far. Food 283,00, Tobacco
and Cigarettes, 52,000, Medical supplies, 30,500; Communication with mens camp executive: One free issue egg per person per week: From now on funds to be spent on rice polishings, ground nuts, pulses and dahls and not on eggs.

Woman: What? Are we to eat like the Hindus now?

Dorothy: The camp doctors assure us these provide better dietary value for the money.

Women: Ridiculous! I can’t believe it.

Dorothy: As for the request for kennels for our dogs, the Men's Camp believes this to be unimportant. Timber is scarce and needed for building projects like the Men's Sanitorium. On a disturbing note, books have been disappearing from the reference library. It is believed that the paper is being used to make cigarettes. Please remind the women under you that the sign of a civilized society is how it treats its books.Lastly, a cable has been sent to the Canadian Prime Minister, acknowledging his Christmas greetings and asking for assistance from the Canadian Red Cross.

Woman: If the Americans would share their baskets we wouldn't have
to go begging from the Canadians!

Communication with the Nipponese Command. They have agreed to have
toilet paper and kotex added to the list of essentials for new internees.They have agreed to have a piano tuner come into the camp. They have allowed one lecture a week from the Men's camp. : the Lecture Series commences on February 1st with "The Lighter Side of the Law" by Timothy Morgan, and on the 7th there will be a talk on Television. Most welcome news of all, they have permitted us sea bathing excursions, once a month. Now to address the complaints about women spending too long in the showers. Shower time will remain the same,two and one half hours in the morningn and the same in the afternoon. If anyone feels that some are abusing their
privileges the official channel for making a complaint is through their floor representative.

Woman 2: If you ask me some women seem to enjoy exposing themselves
in public.

Dorothy: Well, the long queue lines for meals and showers and the like are only going to get worse, I'm afraid. The Nipponese have warned us to expect a rush of new internees.

Group: No. How many. Impossible

Woman Two: How many?

Dorothy: As many as 900. Including 72 children. That will mean three
to a cell.

Woman one: Intolerable.

Dorothy Procedure as follows: New internees are to be registered in the school room by the office secretaries aided by some volunteers. They will be asked basic information only. Where are you from? Husband? Children? Any utensils. Bedding? Women with children will go to E Upper and Women with girls over 13 to the Carpenter’s shop to be claimed as cellmates. New arrivals who remain unclaimed will be assigned cellmates by the housing committee.

Women: I’m going to sleep in the Rose Garden. I have dibs on the Chapel.

Scene 32 1/2 Schoolroom. Murmur of voices

Dorothy: Name?

Woman: Mrs. J.P. Smithy

Dorothy: Born?

Woman: Kuala Lumpur

Dorothy: Education?

Woman:. St. Margaret’s Harrow and Pension at Lucerne Switzerland

Dorothy: Children?

Woman: Yes

Dorothy: Ages?

Woman: One Year Nine Months

Dorothy:Husband?

Woman:In POW camp. Gordon’s Corporal

Dorothy: Are you happy here?

Woman: No!

Dorothy:Why?

WOman: Husband not here and I do not like prison

Dorothy: What about food?

Woman: I am not ill, but not good food and not enough.

Dorothy: What about child?

Woman: Better food than us. But not enough. Could do with more food. Are you a doctor?

Dorothy: No, I am merely the Women’s Deputy Representative.

But I do not wish to be interviewed. So good day.

Scene Thirty-Three: Westminster Office

SOUND: typing

Dorothy: I was elected Women’s Representative, in June 1943, responsible to the Nipponese for the conduct of all 300 or so women at Changi Internment Camp. I had the freedom to leave the women’s camp for daily visits to Tominaga, the new Nipponese Commandant, a round-faced toad of a man. Unlike the Men's Camp Representative, who chose to avoid confrontations with the Nipponese Command,I made a point of making a daily visit to Tominaga's office. It was the only way to face my fear. Every day I would demand insulin and other medicines for the sick women. And every day I would be denied, with a sharp slap to the face. One day he punished me for my persistence by having me to fill up a giant blackboard with tiny "N"'s and "O" s. On my walk back from Tominaga's office I would usually stop by the Men’s Camp, on official camp business, of course.

Scene Thirty-Four: Flashback. Men’s Camp Office. Changi

SOUND: Radio being tuned

Dorothy: Let’s see, I have GRH 9.81 mc/s 30.53 m or try GSL 6.11
mc/s 49.10 meters.

announcer: This is World Affairs on the BBC Overseas Service. A Talk with Wickham Steed. A few days ago our Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, in a speech to the American Congress, assured the American people that the British will be fighting the war with Japan until the conclusion. One wonders why he had to make such a speech. Could it be that the average American (fading) is unaware that we are fighting …

Scene Thirty-Five: Changi

SOUND: Background din of crowd, paper being torn from typewriter

Man: Grumph

Dorothy: Thank you, Norris, but I need only one copy

Man: GRump

Dorothy: I have decided that this News will be passed on in the Women’s Camp orally. I will have my distributors memorize the basic facts from this news sheet and then I will destroy it.

man: ??

DOROTHY: They can draw pictures as a memory aid. For instance, in this case, a picture of a boat.

Man: HMMM

Dorothy: Yes, I am convinced this is for the best. Some internees have been too cavalier when it comes to distributing news. They think it’s a sort of schoolyard game. I am taking no chances. Man: HHHMMM??

Dorothy: I’ve chosen four of the most sensible woman in the camp to be my distributors. All reliable married women. No power hungry spinsters among them.

Man: ??

Dorothy: Sorry,I will not give you their names. They don’t even know who the others are.

Man: Growl

Dorothy: I can’t be bullied into revealing who they are. And, yes, I am well aware that Mary will object to the secrecy. But I once caught her reading a newssheet to Lady Drew, out in the open. Mary is a dear but she can be quite scatterbrained at times.

Scene Thirty-Six: Changi Women’s Camp

SOUND: Loud din of prisoners

Dr Jones: Mrs. Nixon. I’ve heard from Dr. Geeson that BBC broadcasts are coming into the Men’s Camp. Such good news for us. With the tensions here at such a fever pitch. I hear you were involved with the scuffle between the ladies in the Carpenter’s Shop.

Dorothy: Yes, Mary I never thought I’d need a Sikh guard to protect me from one of our own.

Dr. Jones: Were you hurt?

Dorothy: No. Kicked and bitten on the arm. That’s all. Rather droll in retrospect. Mrs.Maloney had a vicious disagreement with another of the Eurasians, Mrs. Dock, over a morsel of chicken she'd scrounged, and Mrs. Dock ran of to complain directly to Tominaga. I chased her down but arrived too late. She had already flung open the door of his quarters and caught him taking a shower. I wrestled her to the floor in the doorway. Tominaga's guard arrived and joined us on the ground for a group grapple. All this with our esteemed Commandant howling bloody murder in the background. I was blamed for the incident of course. Spent two days in the lavatory with the two women. Lucky I was there, otherwise they would have killed each other.

Jones: Well, hopefully this BBC business will raise morale. I volunteer of course to be one of our distributors.

Dorothy: Mary, I’ve already chosen my distributors.

Jones: Who are they?

Dorothy: Only I will have that information. No doctors among them

Jones: No doctors? But we are the natural leaders here.. The Nipponese respect us. Where would you be without our expertise in nutrition and tropical disease. We are ideally placed to pass on information to the camp population.

dorothy: I’m sorry Mary.

Jones: You were my deputy. We worked together. You know you can trust me.

Dorothy: Mary. You are busy enough with your statistic-taking and caregiving to the newborns. Don’t be offended. I wouldn’t divulge this information to Timothy,either.

Jones: You wouldn’t tell the Men’s Camp Rep? He must have been livid. He believes the women’s camp is under the jurisdiction of the Men’s Camp.

Dorothy: Well,men never think women can do anything. They don't understand how we women are better practiced at making do under
confinement.What did Maugham write? The soul of man wanders through infinite reaches of the universe and she, woman, seeks to imprison it?

Jones: You are obsessed about secrecy! Still upset about the incident
with Lady Drew and the News.

Dorothy: These are BBC Broadcasts.

Jones: I am able to be discreet. You know that! Tominaga told Mrs. Rose he loved her poems, by the by. Finds them amusing.

Dorothy: He's only impressed with her Ivy League credentials. The Japanese are such snobs.

Jones: Well,that's one step better than the average colonial, wouldn't you say? Who judges a woman's worth by her husband's social standing. As the wife of a mere rubber planter you surely can appreciate...

Dorothy: Well,And Mrs. Rose has no business going over my head either to talk to Tominaga. Typical American. Wanting all the perks of power without the responsibility.

Looking For Mrs. Peel Complete play pdf

Looking for Mrs. Peel 6: Fairy tale Flower Scapes

Bit from Dorothy's Memoir

Scene Fourteen: Westminster Commissioner of Oaths office

SOUND: Office Noise

Clerk: : Please be seated Mrs. Nixon. I see you have come all the way to Westminster from Cumberland. And in January! It all must be quite a shock. How long have you been in England?

Dorothy: Two months

Clerk: This should not take too long. All you need do is read your testimony in front of Mr. Cramden, the Commissioner of Oaths, and I will type it.

SOUND: Telephone Rings Clerk: Ah, she’s quite frail. I hate to send her back out. Yes, fine. There’s been a delay. Instructions from the barristers. Shouldn’t be long. Would you like some tea or water?

Dorothy: Tea, please.

SOUND: Clink and clang and tap water splash.

Clerk: I see that you are the wife of a rubber planter.

Dorothy: Yes

Clerk: A large plantation?

Dorothy: No, well, yes, at one time. But tin has taken precedence over rubber lately

clerk: My mother’s Canadian cousin, Sydney moved to a Malayan rubber plantation as a new bride, before the Great War. It was either that or the Canadian West,you know, but she was afraid of the bitter cold, and wild Indians.

Dorothy: Ah?

Clerk: Her husband got all caught up, those early days, in the frenzy of rubber speculation. Automobile tires, you see. She left him, though, after only a few years in the tropics. Returned to Ottawa.But had he given up his Asian mistress, she might have stayed longer.

Dorothy: Uh Huh.

Clerk: The original plan was for them to go out there and make a fortune and both return home as soon as possible, but with the boom of 1910 over and the price of rubber so unstable and the frightful cost of living over there, the dream soon faded.

Dorothy: Yes,

Clerk: Her daughter Emelia was born out there. Do you have any children?

Dorothy: Yes, three. My eldest was in the RAF. Ferry Command Based in Montreal. He's been demobbed and he's back at Oxford. I’ve been trying to contact him.

Clerk: How old would he be now?

Dorothy: 22, or 23. Born October 1922. .

Scene Sixteen: Flashback.Europe Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

SOUND: baby crying.

woman muttering "Rubber London. 18 cents. How will we manage?"

Nurse: A big fine rosy pink boy you have there, Mrs. Nixon.

Dorothy: Thank you, Nurse.

Nurse: Sister Ellen. Normally, Mrs. McLeod, the District Medical Officer would normally pay you a visit, but she’s been run off her feet setting up the KL infant welfare program.

Dorothy: I understand.

Sister Ellen: (sx paper flapping)I see that all went smoothly. A natural delivery. You may be a tiny woman, but you have the pelvis of an Empire Builder.

Dorothy: A loathsome man, that Dr. Wood. I asked him about hiring a native nurse and he lectured me on the duties of the Imperial wife. I am to be a homemaker and a social weaver, it seems, not a layabout and gadfly.

Sister Ellen: Damned if we do.Damned if we don’t. That’s a woman’s lot I’m afraid. And that goes double here in the colonies.

Dorothy: And my husband will have something to say about that 500 dollar fee. Outrageous. What did he do to earn that?

Sister Ellen: He applied the latest scientific birthing methods in a somewhat hygienic setting.

Dorothy: Scientific methods!

Sister ellen: Would you have preferred to have a Malay midwife deliver you baby? On a mat on the floor of your bungalow. I hear they like to chant over the afterbirth.

Dorothy: The fan on this side of the ward is broken. It’s hot as Hades in here. And the mosquito nets are torn. Why was I put in Second Class?

Sister Ellen: Two many malaria cases in the first class ward. Probably. Well, Dr. is discharging you anyway.I see you are going to a Hill Station for a postpartum confinement?

Dorothy: Yes. I am doing it the Chinese way.

Sister ellen: Excellent. No need for a home visit, then.. Still, I will leave you some information on the best infant formulas.

Dorothy: Thank you sister. But I would still like to talk to Mrs. McLeod about a nurse. I have my hands full running the bungalow. So many visitors.

Sister Ellen: She’ll advise you to get a good British nurse, or nothing. Native nurses are little help. They need constant supervision. And even if you find a reliable one, do you want your son’s first words to be AYAH and not Mama? Enjoy him while you can, Mrs. Nixon. It’s the tragedy of colonial life, having to part with our little ones so young. For their own good, of course.

Scene Seventeen:Westminster Commissioner of Oaths Office

SOUND: window opening

Clerk: I think I’ll open the window a smidge. Splendid countryside in Malaya, as she described it. Misty blue-green mountain ranges. Fiery fairy tale flower-scapes, Birds as big and bright as Chinese kites. It must have been glorious to spend your days surrounded by such proof of God’s Majesty. Such natural beauty.

Dorothy: Nothing beautiful about a rubber plantation. A bleak tree laboratory, really, complete with daily bleedings.

Scene Nineteen: Rubber Plantation.Verandah

SOUND: loud pops monkey shrieks.

Dorothy:(reading under her breath) The Planter's Store: Tapping knives, earthenware latex cups, acetic acid, coagulation sprayers and sprays... Bush's coagulating and bleaching powder. Immediate separation and clotting of rubber at the same time giving a fine light colour. ...Of Interest to planters: reduce your factory costs by sending your rubber rolls to us for regrooving. We have special machines to turn, grind, recut grooves. Maybe he would be interested. (sx. paper tearing).

Denise.: Ayah? I mean Mummy.

Dorothy: Denise. What are you doing on the verandah so early. 5.30.
Father has only just left for work.

Denise. : I can’t sleep. The trees are exploding.The monkeys are all fighting over the blijakozas.

Dorothy: Seed pods. Denise. Say it in English. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The seed pods are popping open and falling to the ground.
It’s nature’s way.

Denise: What are all the coolies doing way down there? They look like ants.

Dorothy: They are lining up for muster. They are starting their work day. Rubber only runs in the morning.

Denise: When I am big, can I help the Mummy tappers clean the tree milk from the cups like the coolie children?

dorothy: Latex, Denise. No, the Tamil children have to work with their mothers and fathers. You and your brother are luckier. You get to go to school soon. Now,let’s go find Ayah.

Scene Eighteen: Westminster Office. SX Ambient Office Sounds.

Clerk: No, the jungle was no place for a woman back then. Too lonely. Nothing to do but write letters, maybe garden.. The Man of the House out working from dawn until past dusk. Still, back in Canada she missed having the huge airy bungalow and all those servants. A Malay driver, a cook, a Chinese lady’s maid and two houseboys who pinched money from her. But that was to be expected.

Dorothy: Yes, we’ve all heard the clichés. The proud lazy Malay, the pious eager to please Tamil, the shrewd hardworking Chinese.

Clerk: Ah, let me see how much longer he’ll be

Scene Nineteen: Rubber Estate 1937

SOUND: Sound of singing in Chinese and radio with poor reception

Announcer: And that concludes our hour of Hindustani music on the Britith Malaya Broadcasting Corporation. Right after the midday rubber and tin prices, a discussion of Harvey Firestone's efforts to raise rubber in Liberia. But first,this: Up Country listeners. Are you tired of poor reception and interference from Tokyo and Saigon? Well, a reminder that powerful new 1937 Marconi wireless sets and receivers are available on easy payment plans.

dorothy: No, not turtle soup. Yes, Muligatawny is fine. If you can find some guinea fowl at Cold Storage for under 1.00 buy it. Serve it roasted. Nicky? About that auction sale today, Anna could really use the Singer hand sewing machine to make some extra money. But even if the bidding is very low on the Crosley Shelvador refridgerator, we can't justify it.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: Yes, I did promise Kajan I’d try to persuade you to promote him to teacher. We have 11 older children on the lines now, and as you know, regulations state we must have a primary school.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: I do not see this as interfering in Estate Business. Kajan is very keen to improve his lot and there’s no work recruiting these days. He is the only Tamil we have who can read and write well.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: Upsetting the natural order of things? Courting scandal? Don’t be ridiculous.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: What’s wrong with putting ideas in their heads if they are the right ideas?

Nicky: Bark

dorothy: I know the Tamils want their children to work with them, but as this Depression proves, we can’t promise to keep them in work forever.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: I know I am not a missionary but if the shopkeepers of the Central Indian Association aren’t interested in helping their lower
castes, we Europeans will have to.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: Now that our last child have been sent away, what am I to do, stand behind the Cook all day? The Bungalow runs itself.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: Fine. I will find something to do, off the estate. If that’s how you want it.

Scene Twenty: Westminster Office

SOUND: office

Clerk: And were you on the plantation when the Japanese invaded?

Dorothy: No, I was at the Book Club.

Clerk: Book club?

Dorothy: The Kuala Lumpur Book Club. A library. I was secretary. We
had just moved our offices to the Padang,the green, where all the important government buildings are located, so we were expecting it.

Clerk: The bombings, you mean.

Dorothy: Yes. Boxing Day 1941. The Japanese planes usually passed overhead and bombed the aerodrome, but this time it was different.

Scene Twenty-One: Flashback, Box Day 1941 Kuala Lumpur Book Club

SOUND: artillery, planes

Woman: What’s that sound?

Dorothy: Our anti-aircraft guns up on the roof. The planes are bombing us this time. Find shelter!

SOUND: Loud sounds of roof collapsing, desk being thrown around etc

Dorothy: sx(Scream)

Scene Twenty-Two: Westminster Office

SOUND: ambiant office noise

Dorothy: I was thrown under a shelf. My desk overturned. My typewriter pulverized. My car outside crushed. Afterwards Marion, the ARP Warden and I collected the casualties. 4 dead. 3 wounded.

Clerk: And then you headed for Singapore?

Dorothy: Shortly afterwards.

Looking For Mrs. Peel Complete play pdf

Looking for Mrs. Peel 6: Courting Scandal

Bit from Dorothy's Memoir

Scene Fourteen: Westminster Commissioner of Oaths office

SOUND: Office Noise

Clerk: : Please be seated Mrs. Nixon. I see you have come all the way to Westminster from Cumberland. And in January! It all must be quite a shock. How long have you been in England?

Dorothy: Two months

Clerk: This should not take too long. All you need do is read your testimony in front of Mr. Cramden, the Commissioner of Oaths, and I will type it.

SOUND: Telephone Rings Clerk: Ah, she’s quite frail. I hate to send her back out. Yes, fine. There’s been a delay. Instructions from the barristers. Shouldn’t be long. Would you like some tea or water?

Dorothy: Tea, please.

SOUND: Clink and clang and tap water splash.

Clerk: I see that you are the wife of a rubber planter.

Dorothy: Yes

Clerk: A large plantation?

Dorothy: No, well, yes, at one time. But tin has taken precedence over rubber lately

clerk: My mother’s Canadian cousin, Sydney moved to a Malayan rubber plantation as a new bride, before the Great War. It was either that or the Canadian West,you know, but she was afraid of the bitter cold, and wild Indians.

Dorothy: Ah?

Clerk: Her husband got all caught up, those early days, in the frenzy of rubber speculation. Automobile tires, you see. She left him, though, after only a few years in the tropics. Returned to Ottawa.But had he given up his Asian mistress, she might have stayed longer.

Dorothy: Uh Huh.

Clerk: The original plan was for them to go out there and make a fortune and both return home as soon as possible, but with the boom of 1910 over and the price of rubber so unstable and the frightful cost of living over there, the dream soon faded.

Dorothy: Yes,

Clerk: Her daughter Emelia was born out there. Do you have any children?

Dorothy: Yes, three. My eldest was in the RAF. Ferry Command Based in Montreal. He's been demobbed and he's back at Oxford. I’ve been trying to contact him.

Clerk: How old would he be now?

Dorothy: 22, or 23. Born October 1922. .

Scene Sixteen: Flashback.Europe Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

SOUND: baby crying.

woman muttering "Rubber London. 18 cents. How will we manage?"

Nurse: A big fine rosy pink boy you have there, Mrs. Nixon.

Dorothy: Thank you, Nurse.

Nurse: Sister Ellen. Normally, Mrs. McLeod, the District Medical Officer would normally pay you a visit, but she’s been run off her feet setting up the KL infant welfare program.

Dorothy: I understand.

Sister Ellen: (sx paper flapping)I see that all went smoothly. A natural delivery. You may be a tiny woman, but you have the pelvis of an Empire Builder.

Dorothy: A loathsome man, that Dr. Wood. I asked him about hiring a native nurse and he lectured me on the duties of the Imperial wife. I am to be a homemaker and a social weaver, it seems, not a layabout and gadfly.

Sister Ellen: Damned if we do.Damned if we don’t. That’s a woman’s lot I’m afraid. And that goes double here in the colonies.

Dorothy: And my husband will have something to say about that 500 dollar fee. Outrageous. What did he do to earn that?

Sister Ellen: He applied the latest scientific birthing methods in a somewhat hygienic setting.

Dorothy: Scientific methods!

Sister ellen: Would you have preferred to have a Malay midwife deliver you baby? On a mat on the floor of your bungalow. I hear they like to chant over the afterbirth.

Dorothy: The fan on this side of the ward is broken. It’s hot as Hades in here. And the mosquito nets are torn. Why was I put in Second Class?

Sister Ellen: Two many malaria cases in the first class ward. Probably. Well, Dr. is discharging you anyway.I see you are going to a Hill Station for a postpartum confinement?

Dorothy: Yes. I am doing it the Chinese way.

Sister ellen: Excellent. No need for a home visit, then.. Still, I will leave you some information on the best infant formulas.

Dorothy: Thank you sister. But I would still like to talk to Mrs. McLeod about a nurse. I have my hands full running the bungalow. So many visitors.

Sister Ellen: She’ll advise you to get a good British nurse, or nothing. Native nurses are little help. They need constant supervision. And even if you find a reliable one, do you want your son’s first words to be AYAH and not Mama? Enjoy him while you can, Mrs. Nixon. It’s the tragedy of colonial life, having to part with our little ones so young. For their own good, of course.

Scene Seventeen:Westminster Commissioner of Oaths Office

SOUND: window opening

Clerk: I think I’ll open the window a smidge. Splendid countryside in Malaya, as she described it. Misty blue-green mountain ranges. Fiery fairy tale flower-scapes, Birds as big and bright as Chinese kites. It must have been glorious to spend your days surrounded by such proof of God’s Majesty. Such natural beauty.

Dorothy: Nothing beautiful about a rubber plantation. A bleak tree laboratory, really, complete with daily bleedings.

Scene Nineteen: Rubber Plantation.Verandah

SOUND: loud pops monkey shrieks.

Dorothy:(reading under her breath) The Planter's Store: Tapping knives, earthenware latex cups, acetic acid, coagulation sprayers and sprays... Bush's coagulating and bleaching powder. Immediate separation and clotting of rubber at the same time giving a fine light colour. ...Of Interest to planters: reduce your factory costs by sending your rubber rolls to us for regrooving. We have special machines to turn, grind, recut grooves. Maybe he would be interested. (sx. paper tearing).

Denise.: Ayah? I mean Mummy.

Dorothy: Denise. What are you doing on the verandah so early. 5.30.
Father has only just left for work.

Denise. : I can’t sleep. The trees are exploding.The monkeys are all fighting over the blijakozas.

Dorothy: Seed pods. Denise. Say it in English. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The seed pods are popping open and falling to the ground.
It’s nature’s way.

Denise: What are all the coolies doing way down there? They look like ants.

Dorothy: They are lining up for muster. They are starting their work day. Rubber only runs in the morning.

Denise: When I am big, can I help the Mummy tappers clean the tree milk from the cups like the coolie children?

dorothy: Latex, Denise. No, the Tamil children have to work with their mothers and fathers. You and your brother are luckier. You get to go to school soon. Now,let’s go find Ayah.

Scene Eighteen: Westminster Office. SX Ambient Office Sounds.

Clerk: No, the jungle was no place for a woman back then. Too lonely. Nothing to do but write letters, maybe garden.. The Man of the House out working from dawn until past dusk. Still, back in Canada she missed having the huge airy bungalow and all those servants. A Malay driver, a cook, a Chinese lady’s maid and two houseboys who pinched money from her. But that was to be expected.

Dorothy: Yes, we’ve all heard the clichés. The proud lazy Malay, the pious eager to please Tamil, the shrewd hardworking Chinese.

Clerk: Ah, let me see how much longer he’ll be

Scene Nineteen: Rubber Estate 1937

SOUND: Sound of singing in Chinese and radio with poor reception

Announcer: And that concludes our hour of Hindustani music on the Britith Malaya Broadcasting Corporation. Right after the midday rubber and tin prices, a discussion of Harvey Firestone's efforts to raise rubber in Liberia. But first,this: Up Country listeners. Are you tired of poor reception and interference from Tokyo and Saigon? Well, a reminder that powerful new 1937 Marconi wireless sets and receivers are available on easy payment plans.

dorothy: No, not turtle soup. Yes, Muligatawny is fine. If you can find some guinea fowl at Cold Storage for under 1.00 buy it. Serve it roasted. Nicky? About that auction sale today, Anna could really use the Singer hand sewing machine to make some extra money. But even if the bidding is very low on the Crosley Shelvador refridgerator, we can't justify it.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: Yes, I did promise Kajan I’d try to persuade you to promote him to teacher. We have 11 older children on the lines now, and as you know, regulations state we must have a primary school.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: I do not see this as interfering in Estate Business. Kajan is very keen to improve his lot and there’s no work recruiting these days. He is the only Tamil we have who can read and write well.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: Upsetting the natural order of things? Courting scandal? Don’t be ridiculous.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: What’s wrong with putting ideas in their heads if they are the right ideas?

Nicky: Bark

dorothy: I know the Tamils want their children to work with them, but as this Depression proves, we can’t promise to keep them in work forever.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: I know I am not a missionary but if the shopkeepers of the Central Indian Association aren’t interested in helping their lower
castes, we Europeans will have to.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: Now that our last child have been sent away, what am I to do, stand behind the Cook all day? The Bungalow runs itself.

Nicky: Bark

Dorothy: Fine. I will find something to do, off the estate. If that’s how you want it.

Scene Twenty: Westminster Office

SOUND: office

Clerk: And were you on the plantation when the Japanese invaded?

Dorothy: No, I was at the Book Club.

Clerk: Book club?

Dorothy: The Kuala Lumpur Book Club. A library. I was secretary. We
had just moved our offices to the Padang,the green, where all the important government buildings are located, so we were expecting it.

Clerk: The bombings, you mean.

Dorothy: Yes. Boxing Day 1941. The Japanese planes usually passed overhead and bombed the aerodrome, but this time it was different.

Scene Twenty-One: Flashback, Box Day 1941 Kuala Lumpur Book Club

SOUND: artillery, planes

Woman: What’s that sound?

Dorothy: Our anti-aircraft guns up on the roof. The planes are bombing us this time. Find shelter!

SOUND: Loud sounds of roof collapsing, desk being thrown around etc

Dorothy: sx(Scream)

Scene Twenty-Two: Westminster Office

SOUND: ambiant office noise

Dorothy: I was thrown under a shelf. My desk overturned. My typewriter pulverized. My car outside crushed. Afterwards Marion, the ARP Warden and I collected the casualties. 4 dead. 3 wounded.

Clerk: And then you headed for Singapore?

Dorothy: Shortly afterwards.

Looking For Mrs. Peel Complete play pdf

Looking for Mrs. Peel 5: Truly Graceless Moment

Me and My Aunt Denise

Scene Twelve: Nixon apartment, another day.

SOUND: cooking sound CBS News on the TV

Walter Cronkite: Tens of thousands are expected to March on Washington tomorrow to protest the Vietnam War in what is promised to the the first of many such demonstrations. In a related event, today, a throng of young men descended on the Justice Department to hand in over 1000 draft cards.

Dorothy: Daddy! You’re home! Give me a horse back ride. One two three…(sx slap) Giddyup. I’m Billy Hartak and you’re Northern Dancer.

Granny: Peter, is Place des Arts posh? Are slacks appropriate for the play? I only have… Peter! You’ll hurt your back. She’s much too big to be carried around like that!

Dorothy: Ahhh. (sx plunk of feet on floor) What play?

Peter: grump
Dorothy: I wanna go see Othello

Peter: grump

Dorothy: I do too know lots about Shakespeare

Peter: grump

Dorothy: I don’t care about going to see Jungle Book. That's for kids. I wanna see Laurence Olivier.

Dorothy vo: A few minutes later I signal my displeasure louder and clearer.
Martha: (distant) Supper in five minutes.

Dorothy: You can’t pass
Granny: What?

Dorothy: This is my bedroom and you can’t come in. Eat in the breakfast nook.

Granny: Why, you mischievous monkey child. Get out of the way

Dorothy: No!

Granny: You spotty faced devil. No one tells me where I can and cannot go.

Dorothy: I do.

Dorothy vo: And there we dance ridiculous in the doorway, the shriveled 72 year old sparrow woman and the stringy 12 year old monkey child, palm against palm, elbows akimbo, faces ablaze with indignation, in an inter-generational showdown, of sorts, a humiliating fandango for me, a truly graceless moment suspended in time and space,for although we're ludicrously mismatched in height we're remarkably even in strength. Eventually,my father emerges from the bathroom with a copy of Sports Illustrated conveniently rolled in his fist.(sx toilet flushing)

Peter: HUH??
Dorothy: I need the table. I have to do homework.
Peter: Haa

Granny: Your daughter won’t let me pass.

Peter: HAAA! (sx. Slap of magazine against ass)

Dorothy: Owwww. I AM in my room.
Granny: That girl. That spoiled spidery greasy haired thing. She can never visit me in Malaya. I would lose face in front of my Chinese friends.

Dorothy: I’d lose that face if I were you. You sun-baked bag of wrinkles. (sx thwack)

Marthe: The tomales are ready. Piping hot so take care.
Granny: Insupportable. That ghastly Eurasian girl put her up to it, I wager.

Dorothy vo: Much later that night my father comes to tuck me into my cot.

Dorothy: What’s wrong Daddy? Was the play sad?

Peter: Sniffle

Dorothy: You're raining on me, Daddy.Don’t cry.

Dorothy vo: Expo ends. The leaves on the Maple trees turn red, yellow and orange and fall in great mouldy heaps in the gutter. Soon, the inevitable first blast of wintry weather.

Scene Thirteen: Nixon Living Room November 1967
SOUND: radio talk show

Announcer: (sx jingle. "Give the family its joys and they'll all agree. Give them RCA TV." Donut VO It's Colour Preview Days at RCA. No money down on new models starting at 329.00 Offer lasts until Dec 15th.)A blizzardy November 19 in Montreal. How will the pound sterling’s dramatic drop affect the Canadian economy.We’ll be talking to two experts..

Dorothy vo: My last real memory of my grandmother mirrors my first.

Dorothy: Mummy, look out the window. Granny is out in the snowstorm in her shoes and socks.

Martha: Yes, she’s taking a taxi to the Liquor Commission. I told her to wait for Daddy. Old people can be so comical, sometimes.

Dorothy: Yes, so comical. She’s ugly and old and says mean things. And she drinks like a fish.

Martha: What did you say? Ma petite bonjour. Don’t ever let me catch you talking like that again, especially about family. Your grandmother is a lady, all my friends say so.

Dorothy: But she sent Daddy away to England at 5 years old to live with strangers who didn't want him, and he had holes in his trousers and he had to beg “Please more porridge”at school, just like Oliver Twist.And he got locked in a dark cupboard when he was bad.

Martha: I think your father exaggerates sometimes. Memories can be like that. We can’t judge your grandmother's life. She’s had some very hard times too.

Dorothy: Like what?

Martha: Oh, she had to sit for a long time cross-legged in a small room with lots of men and she wasn’t allowed to talk. During the war.

Dorothy: That happens to Ingrid all the time! At detention after school.

Radio guest: Certainly the American Administration must be concerned. The White House doesn’t want the British to pull out of East of Suez entirely.(fade) I wouldn’t be surprised if some feverish back room negotiations are going on right now.

SOUND: radio being tuned
Announcer 1: 1965: Singapore has been expelled from Malaysia just two years...

SOUND: Radio being tuned
Announcer 2: 1963: A new country was born today. Malaysia comprised of The Federation of Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. SOUND: radio being tuned

Announcer 3: 1960 The twelve year old Communist Emergency in Malaya has been ended

SOUND: Radio being tuned
Announcer 4: 1957. Malayan Independence has been declared.

SOUND: Radio being tuned
Announcer 5: 1955: The UK is giving 6,000,000 pounds to The Federation of Malaya to offset the fall in the price of tin and rubber and to underwrite the cost of erecting villages for Chinese squatters

SOUND: radio being tuned
Announcer 6: 1948. A State of Emergency has been declared in The Federation of Malaya as 3 European Planters were murdered by Communist Chinese insurgents yesterday.

SOUND: Radio being tuned
Announcer 7: 1946. A war crimes trial gets underway in Singapore in March, related to atrocities committed by the Japanese Secret Police at a civilian prisoner of war camp located at Changi Beach. Former expatriots are supplying testimony for the prosecution under oath in London this month.

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Looking For Mrs. Peel 4: Sun-baked bag of Wrinkles

Scene Eight: Nixon Living Room Following day

SOUND: clink of glass on glass, running water, background noise of children on street

Dorothy: (singin) R.E.S.P.E.CT: find out what it means to me.

Dorothy vo: The morning after I empty and wash a dozen ashtrays. The black square obsidian astray; the spotty green Bavarian blown glass one ;the tacky affair shaped like a sea shell from Old Orchard Beach, Maine; the clunky see-through job stamped with the Molson Export Ale logo. Among other classic 60’s designs.

Granny: Martha. Did you see the little yellow Bakelite ashtray? I’m sure I put it by my chair.

Martha: Dorothy must have moved it. It’s her job to clean up after parties. Here’s a nice one with the Rocky Mountains on it.

Granny: No, I prefer the Bakelite one. It fits nicely into my hand.

Martha: Dorothy! Where’s the little yellow ashtray?

Dorothy: (afar) In the hall, on the telephone table, where you like it.

Martha: Well, get it and give it to your grandmother. Right now!

Granny: And Martha, would you shut that window. The racket those Canadian children make. They shout and shriek all day.I’m used to the gentle Malay children at play.

Martha: Certainment (Sx SLAM OF WINDOW SHUTTING)

Scene Nine: Nixon Duplex Another day.

SOUND: French Radio. ID: Ici Radio Canada. Thunder rumblings
Woman on radio: De Gaulle n’a pas le droit de se melanger dans nos affaires…

Dorothy vo: My mother begins to invent excellent reasons during the day to escape.

Martha : (on phone) Vive le Quebec libre. Quelle gros espece de serpent. Je descend dans deux minutes.(sx clack of receiver being replaced)

Dorothy vo: Leaving me trapped alone with my grandmother

Martha: I’m going to Mme. Dufour’s for a visit. Take care of your grandmother.

Dorothy: Where’s Mark?

Martha: He’s gone to Rickie’s to play that Pepper album on his new stereo. (sx slam of door)

(Sx Radio background: That was The Mammas and the Pappas. San Francisco or be sure to wear flowers in your hair. Next, a new crossover song by Bobby Gentry (new promo) The Buddy G Thing: every night from 4-9. On CKGM. It's what happening. So Glob on.)

Dorothy VO: Bakelite ashtray in her left hand, Rothman’s unfiltered in her right, the cranky old crone paces up and down our cramped apartment , absurdly overdressed for late July in black stretch pants and a thick brown turtleneck sweater. Her boobs sag almost to her knees like two spent balloons and her bum is wide and flat like a giant burnt pancake.She shuffles past the dining room where I sit cross-legged on my cot stroking my library books: Ring of Bright Water, Born Free, King of the Wind and Silent Spring, all about animals,all borrowed from the NDG Library for boys and girls, all books I've taken out many times before, and listening to music on my brother's battered Realtone transistor radio.

(Sx Wonderbra jingle: Back ground music:To be free and alive, everywhere that you go.Is to wear what you dare anywhere and to travel with flair and style that will show wherever you go...)

She veers right into the adjacent living room taking eight more slouching steps to the window, and pauses for a spell,above Mummy’s mildewed African Violet on the sill. She scowls at the wind tossed branches of the Maple outdoors. She taps her cigarette ash into the little yellow dish in her opposite hand, then she whips around to look me in the eyes,through the crack in the French doors separating the rooms, the very moment a bolt of lightning rips open the murky slice of Montreal sky behind her. (Sx Thunder) She opens her miserable marionnette-lined mouth as if she is going to speak

Granny: What are yoooou reaaaad...?

Dorothy (vo)but I’m saved by the bell, or more precisely by the buzzer

(Sx DOOR BUZZER. Sound of quick quick steps closing in
Ingrid: Here’s the Tiger Beat you wanted back, the one with Illya and Herman's Hermits.

Dorothy: Can you stay and play a bit?

Ingrid: No, my Auntie Pryanka is here from India. We’re teaching her to walk in high heels. What a riot! Is that your grandmother?

Dorothy: Yep.

Ingrid: She’s a real sun-baked bag of wrinkles. What’s with the frown?

Dorothy: What are you doing?

Ingrid: Playing Monkey See Monkey Do. Have I got the scowl right? The hunchback?

Dorothy: Don’t imitate her like that. She’ll see!

Dorothy: What does she have eyes at the back of her head too?

Scene Ten: Nixon Kitchen. Some days later

SOUND: Whir of Mixmaster

Dorothy vo: And then the old lady oversteps even a visiting mother in law’s prerogative.

Martha: Dorothy, come and lick the beaters. Oh, I meant the other Dorothy of course.

Granny: What are you making?

Martha: Shoofly Pie. Dorothy's favorite. Sugar and spice and everything nice. And French Chocolate Cake. My specialty. 6 eggs and ¾ of a pound of butter.

Granny: No wonder your kids have spots. 6 eggs! What an appalling waste.

Martha: Do you know what I find wasteful. 40 ounces of gin a week!

Scene Eleven: Outside Nixon Master Bedroom
SOUND: muffled arguing. Heaving breathing

Dorothy vo: Generally my mother prefers to air her complaints out in the open, French Canadian style. This closed door business is new to me.

Martha: (muffled) I’m sick of playing happy hostess to your mother. Take her out sometimes, at night.

Peter: grumble

Martha: I know this is your busiest time. But sometimes I think you are just making excuses. Why not go to dinner at Bill Wong’s or Ruby Foo’s. She likes the Chinese so much. Or get tickets to one of those fancy Centennial galas. You work for the Expo. Mon Dieu. Pull some strings!

Peter: grumble

Martha: What a thing to say. Everyone loves their mother. It's only natural.And you haven’t seen her in 30 years, when she took that fameux bateau de banane steerage to visit you in school in England. It's not her fault you ignored her letters after the war.

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Looking for Mrs. Peel 3:Kill the Queen?

Dorothy Nixon: My grandmother, secretary of the Kuala Lumpur Book Club, Changi Double Tenth Incident Survivor.

Scene Four: Lemon Creek Living Room

SOUND: Announcer on radio

Announcer: ( This is Roger Scott broadcasting live on location from Expo 67 Or Girl Watching Central.( sx cheesy wolf whistle sound effect) Everywhere you turn a gorgeous young thing in a sarong, sari, or kimono. Still it takes more than a beautiful face and perfect proportions to be a hostess at the fair. All 240 Official Expo hostesses speak both English and French…and have some college; And lucky me,in a minute, I get to interview two leggy birds from the British Pavilion whose miniskirts are the envy of all the Expo hostesses, (ID. CFOX. MontreeeeALL The Island City) But first this word from Clairol.Who writes this shit?

(sx radio: Sad-sack women's voice: Oily hair?? My hair is so oily this big man from Texas came up and asked if he could invest. PSSSt. Good news for you; fade)

Marthe: Mark. Dorothy. Come to the window. They’ve found a parking space right in front.

Dorothy Vo: She is small. Very very small. With a broken down sparrow body, the high forehead and steely gaze of a chicken hawk and a giant square chin just like that Tasmanian Devil on TV. Her hair is snow white and short cropped. My tall tall father shyly takes her little birdy hand as she materializes onto the sidewalk from the rusty cocoon of our Austin Cambridge car. With my fine-tuned daughterly radar I can sense that despite his big bones and broad shoulders, my dad is the one feeling very very small.

Dorothy: I bet Granny’s never seen anything like Madame Dufour’s pink Thunderbird with the wings at back.

Mark: They’re fins, tail fins, not wings.

Dorothy: I bet they don’t even have cars in Malaya. Bunga's father doesn't drive!

Mark: No they travel by rickshaw and elephant, mostly.

Dorothy vo: My peregrine progenitor has to pause three times to catch her breath as she climbs the 18 or so freshly swept stairs to our second story 5 and a half.

Marthe: Don’t crowd the door.

Peter: (Indistinct grumble)

Martha: Dorothy, so pleased to finally meet you. This is Mark,our eldest and, this, of course is “my” Dorothy, or String Bean as we call her. (whispers: Mark:HO HO HO Green Giant. Dorothy:Shut up Mark)

Granny: Oh, Martha. What enormous children you have

Martha: Well, I am very proud of my cooking. I am French.

Daddy: (growl)

Martha: Mark, help your dad bring up your grandmother’s suitcases. Dorothy, you must be exhausted. Let me show you your room.(fade) I hope you like the colour yellow, we bought new curtains for your visit. And we finally found a store that sells yogurt, so you can have your usual breakfast in bed.

Granny: Oh, you needn’t have bothered.

Scene Five: Nixon Living Room

SOUND: Drone of TV. (CFCF 12 Montreal)

Man on TV: Good Evening.I am Pierre Berton. Last month the Australian Rock Group, the Seekers, sang at Expo67 and their performance was broadcast live to over 70,000,000 people worldwide by Telstar satellite. Newton N. Minow, the US Broadcast Regulator (who famously called Television a "vast wasteland" back in 1961) claims that satellite technology, will, in the long run, have more of an impact than space technology, because spaceships only send men into space while satellites will send ideas into space. Our special guest today is Marshall McLuhan, University of Toronto professor ...fade

Dorothy vo: A few days later, Granny, recently retired colonial librarian, lectures my older brother on a point of media literacy.

Mark: When Bridge on the River Kwai played on TV, the next day everyone at school was whistling (whistles tune) I told them my grandfather helped build that bridge.

Granny: Oh Mark. Don’t believe anything you see in the cinema. It’s all bosch. If you – and your sister – come to visit me in Malaysia I’ll let you read some first hand accounts. Many of my good friends died on that beastly Thai Burma Railroad. Yes, many friends, British, Chinese, Malay and Indian.

Dorothy: When I go can I have a mongoose like Riki Tikki Tavi ? I don't want to be gobbled up by a King Cobra like Daddy's dog. And I don’t want lizard tails to fall into my oatmeal. No way. And I don't want to see a monkey being killed, because they cry just like human babies, Dad says.
Granny: Girl. Whatever are you chattering about? What tall tales has your father been telling you?

Dorothy vo: So, I decide to ignore my grandmother, which is easy as it is Canada’s Centennial year and those magical Expo islands are only a short bus and metro ride away. (sx Mexican mariachi band. Israeli fiddle; Trinidad steel drums). Expo, with its mishmash of experimental eye-candy architecture,is better than real life, anyway, a mind bending multi-national experience, McLuhan’s Global Village in giant size diorama. I lope miles over the macadam on my long giraffe legs and queue for hours in line in the wilting humidity,(or biting wind or freezing drizzle, whatever the 6 month Expo season serves up)to gawk at cultural signifiers like wallabies and totem poles and scorched space capsules and visit "the future" with its talking robots and video phones, and uncluttered modular dwelling places. At the International Broadcasting Center, around the corner from where my father works, I see how radio programs are produced (in tiny little rooms) and learn that it takes a mile of tape to make an hour of TV.
When my senses get overwhelmed I visit the Australian Pavilion to sink my burning toes into the decadent deep wool carpet there, or I escape to the near people-free garden behind the glittering geodesic dome of the American Pavilion to lie down in the prickly grass, by some mini waterfall, often the lone fleshly figure amid the park's many bizarre Cezanne-inspired sculptures. But not always

Scene 5 1/2 Park at Expo
(sx) water, wind

Dorothy: I like your lipstick. What colour is it?

Woman: Blue Surf by Yardley. The London Look

Dorothy: Yardley opens your eyes.

Woman:Huh?

Dorothy: That's their slogan - in Mademoiselle oh

Dorothy I like your white Go Go boots too

Woman: Oh, they are part of my uniform.

Dorothy Uniform?

Woman: I'm a hostess at the Kaleidoscope Pavilion

Dorothy: You are a beauty queen then. The TV said every hostess at Kaleidoscope is a beauty queen. .

Woman; They exaggerate. I was a contestant in the Miss Canada Pageant, that's all.

Dorothy:That's pretty good

Woman: Yea, that's pretty good

Dorothy: What are you reading? Beooo

Woman: Beautiful Losers

Dorothy: Is it good?

Woman: Sort of. It's by Leonard Cohen. He's from Westmount, you know

Dorothy: Read me a bit

Woman: No. It's too grown up for you. But I can recite the words to Suzanne for you.. Have you heard the song on the radio?

Dorothy Sort of

Woman: Well Suzanne was a poem before it was a song. We studied it in literature class. Suzanne takes you down. Beside the still water..

Dorothy:Sorry.I gotta go and meet my brother. We were watching movies at the Cuban Pavilion. About the Revolution. But I got bored.

Dorothy VO:I do watch dozens of other movies at Expo67, much much happier movies. Multi-screen movies, interactive movies, movies that surround the audience 360 degrees and movies where the stage- and audience- move around the screen. Movies where the medium is the message. Movies that teach about point of view. And sometimes, on the site, if I hear the sound of polite applause rippling my way I know a major movie star or world celebrity is soon to rise up out of the ether. Twiggy? Princess Grace?

Scene Six: Expo 67

SOUND: wave of applause, growing louder

Martha: Look! It’s Bobby Kennedy and his family.

Dorothy: Where?

Martha: Over there.

Dorothy: I can’t see anything except his golden hair. All those men in black

Martha: Those are his secret service agents. He has a lot of protection. He has to have.

Scene Seven: Nixon Living Room

SOUND: background cocktail party chatter. coughing in background

Dorothy VO: Returning home I wolf down a savory pot au feu and catch a summer rerun of a favorite TV show, the Man from UNCLE, and drop with numb knees onto my little cot. My father, an accountant for the Fair Commission, works late most nights, so my mother tackles a second shift, entertaining Granny, who fairly crackles with charisma in the company of grownups, especially men.

Granny: Yes, Martha. A double scotch would be fine. We made our own amusements in those days. Dances at the Royal Selangor Club,in the Reading Room on Saturdays. Cricket on the padang. Once I was given a polo pony by the Sultan of Jahore’s son Bu. For keeping him on the straight and narrow, before a match. And, I was the only woman ever allowed into the men’s bar at the Club, as Selangor's official cricket scorer; and in 1953 I was actually filmed scoring a match in a March of Time newsreel about the Emergency. Millions saw me.

Man: (chortle. grunt.)

Granny: The children were in England, at school.

Man: HUH?

Granny. Of course I missed them. But duty called - and my duty was to my husband. Still, during the Depression I travelled steerage to England on a banana boat just to see them.

Man: Grumble Granny: If you are referring to Somerset Maugham, I must warn you. He has painted a rather unflattering portrait of colonials. In my opinion he’s a misogynist. He hates women.

Martha: I know what misogynist means. I was taught both Greek and Latin at the College Marguerite Bourgeoys. Jules, did I tell you about my visit on the Royal Yacht Britannia. Il ya deux semaines. The Queen was in Halifax and the boat had to go back and get her. Meanwhile Peter and I were invited to a soiree on board, on June 28, I think. Well, the lights were off deckside and there were frogmen in the water and a crewman asked me why I wanted to kill the Queen. I said, “I don’t want to kill the the Queen. I’m not a maudite separatist. He said he didn’t care one way or da udder because he was Welsh.

Granny: Ah, what an appalling thing to say, even in jest.

Dorothy: (coughing) Mummy, I can’t sleep. The smoke is coming in under the door.

Martha: I’ll open annuder window.

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Looking for Mrs. Peel 2: Just Like Emma Peel

Granny in 1967

"Cross my hand with silver pretty lady, if you'd see,
What the future holds in store for you and how soon you will be free,

Cross my hand with silver (if you have none don't be shy)I'll take it out in food or booze (or Gordon's Special dry)

Just cross my hand with silver or call at Cell Fifteen
With any simple offering, (be sure you are not seen)

No cumshaw ever comes amiss but if you have it handy
The fates show true benevolence if first well laced with brandy,

The lines engraved upon your palm are clear as mud to me,
There's fame and food and fortune and a journey on the sea

But a lurking danger threatens and a white-haired lady frowns,
(It isn't Eve or Nella and it isn't Mrs. Chowns.)

Fate draws a veil across the name, but one thing's plain to see,
The danger is averted if you put your shirt on me.

"Scene One: Nixon Living Room Montreal November 1967

SOUND: Television, (Murdersville episode of The Avengers TV Series from November 1967) someone being dunked in water and crunch of eating

Voice on TV: (sx water) You could spare yourself this Mrs. Peel. (sx splash)You know what we want (sx Splash) Who knows you are here?

Martha: Dorothy , depeches-toi,come say goodbye to your grandmother. This is your last chance to see her. She’s leaving for the airport very early tomorrow morning

Dorothy : (sx crinkling of cellophane bag, crunch of junk food being chewed)

Martha: And, adjust the rabbit ears on the TV for Heaven’s sake. All that interference. Mrs. Peel's face is covered in snow!

MUSIC:Red Rubber Ball. The Cyrkle 1966

Scene Two: 2008 kitchen near Montreal Canada

SOUND: food sizzling on stove, radio din, cell with Ode to Billy Joe ringtone.

Dorothy: Blair. Get my cell, would you?

Blair: (distant)grunt

Dorothy: Aghh. Geez. (sx clunk of pan) Hello?

Denise: Dorothy. It’s your Aunt Denise.

Dorothy: Hi. I know. I was just thinking of you, actually. I’m listening to a BBC Documentary - about My Lai. On my laptop. 40th anniversary of the year 1968. Big year in the US. Of course, 1967 was our big year -here in Canada.

Denise: Radio Four, I presume. We never miss The Archers. I’ve rung to say that I received Mother’s war memoir in the post today. I want to thank you for returning it so promptly.

Dorothy: Wow. That’s fast. I just scanned the pages and saved them to CD. I still have a tonne of research to do before I can make any sense of it. Especially the spy business. Did you see that snippet I sent you from the 1963 Malaysia Who’s Who?

Denise: Yes, I did.

Dorothy: But did you notice the twenty year gap? It says Dorothy Forster Nixon: Born 1895 County Durham; Quaker Co-educational School; land girl in forestry WWI. Then it jumps to librarian, Kuala Lumpur Book Club 1935-present with mention of internment at Changi. Nothing about her domestic life as a rubber worker’s wife.

Denise: No I didn't. Odd. Well, I can't thank you enough for all you are doing for my mother.

Dorothy: Well, Granny didn’t get the recognition in the UK. No OBE or flattering obit at her death like the others involved, but she’ll have this, my humble family tribute. I’ll dedicate it to everyone written out of history.

Denise: Yes, to think that the grandchild with whom she had the least rapport is doing the most to keep her memory alive. Must ring off. Short of breath these days. Give my love to your mother.

Dorothy: I will. Bye now. Hmm. The grandchild with whom she had the least rapport. That’s one way of putting it, I guess.(sx plunk of fan, frying sound turns into applause)

Scene Three: Clanranald Elementary Auditorium, Montreal 1967

SOUND: Applause

Teacher (sx mike): Good work Mark Luxenberg and Rebecca Birenbaum. The top students at Clanranald Elementary for 1966/67 . Assembly dismissed. Have a great Expo summer. And please don’t lose your report cards on the way home. Here's Bobby Gimby to trumpet you home (sx scratch of record CA NA DA Song on cheap record player over PA system)

(sx vague sound of birds, children and car radios fade in and out as Ingrid and Dorothy walk by."C'etait Bits and Pieces par le Dave Clark Five. A Suivre Light MyFire, Les Doors... US President Lyndon Johnson meets today with Russian Premiere Alexsei Kosygin in New Jersey at what is being dubbed the The Glassboro Summit....

(sunny ID-jingle) CFCF 600 Montreal...

Silky Woman's Voice: There's a new look in telephones. The new look is the princess phone. It's little, it's lovely, it's light. It's so slender it can fit anywhere.)

Dorothy (VO): 6th grade down. One more year of elementary school to go. I walk the two blocks home to my family’s untidy second floor apartment on Lemon Creek Road in the dingy Snowdon district of Montreal (with its row upon row of unadorned red brick duplexes and only two landmarks worthy of the designation: the glamorous Art Deco Snowdon Theatre with its bejewelled art deco spireand the glaring globoid Orange Julep Drive-in Restaurant) in the company of classmate and neighbour Ingrid Singh. Bombay born, Ealing raised, one of the many exotic new Canadians coming to live in my neighborhood.

Dorothy: Let me see your report card Ing.

Ingrid: Let me see yours first.

Dorothy: Nothing to see. Very good in every subject. Not one teacher comment.

Ingrid: Well, I got five excellents.

Dorothy: And a page and a half of teacher comments, I bet.”Ingrid talks back in class and teaches the little ones how to say words like douchebag. Please wash her mouth out with soap.”

Ingrid: H! Ha!. So, what do you want to do when we get home. Go up to Queen Mary Road and play Monkey See Monkey Do?.

Dorothy: Nah, too hot.

Ingrid: Wanna go see if that one-legged hobo is still living in the backseat of the blue Firebird in the used car lot?

Dorothy: Not allowed. And he's not a hobo. He's a war veteran.

INgrid: Spy vs. spy then?

Dorothy: Ok. But I wanna be Emma Peel this time.

Ingrid: No. I get to play Emma. I’m from England. You can be Agent 99 or Honey West.

Dorothy: I wanna be Emma. You’re from India. I’m the one who’s REALLY English. I’m a tall Yorkshire girl, just like Diana Rigg. My dad says.

Ingrid: You said you were born here in Canada. And your father in K-u-a-la Lum-pooor.

Dorothy: Makes no difference. My grandparents are from Yorkshire.

Ingrid: Is you grandmother tall like you and your dad?

Dorothy: I dunno.

Ingrid: Well,I’m much much MUCH prettier than you, so I still get to play Mrs. Peel.

Dorothy vo: Right, then. So Ingrid,with her shimmering swell of jet black hair, flawless mocha skin and blossoming Swedish curves, gets to be Emma Peel, as usual. That's because Emma Peel is really Diana Rigg, an English lady who is undeniably the most beautiful – and possibly the best TV actress on either side of the pond. At least according to critic Cleveland Amory in the April 28, 1967 issue of TV Guide Magazine, the very same issue I have tucked away as a keepsake because April 28, 1967 was also the opening day of Montreal's wonderful world's fair.

Ingrid: So, Emma goes undercover at the British Pavilion at Expo where she hides out with the Mary Quant mannequins. She’s watching out for Russian spies who want to kidnap…ah…Queen Elizabeth when she visits in two weeks. And Honey is a double agent working in the Russian Pavilion.

Dorothy: I’ve been to the Russian Pavilion. All it has inside is machines. Why can’t Honey hide out in Thailand? Their pavilion is shaped like a golden dragon boat.

Ingrid: Don’t be daft. Nothing happens in Thailand. So, my flat is the British Pavilion and your flat is the Russian Pavilion and our bedrooms are where we send our top secret transmissions. On pink princess phones.

Dorothy: I don’t have a princess phone.

Ingrid : It’s pretend!

Dorothy: Next week I won’t even have a bedroom.

Ingrid: Why?

Dorothy: Because my Yorkshire, well, Malaya, grandmother is finally coming for a visit and she gets my brother’s bedroom and he gets mine.

Ingrid: Is she coming for Expo? Is she coming to see the Queen?

Dorothy: I guess.

Ingrid: Where are you going to sleep?

Dorothy: On a cot in the dining room.

Ingrid: So, then. You’ll finally find out if she’s really tall or small.

Looking For Mrs. Peel Complete play pdf