Personal Ad
Office. Brusque young WOMAN at desk. She slaps open a file of documents.
WOMAN: Next!
(Enter a MAN, diffidently)
MAN: Good morning.
WOMAN: And you are?
MAN: Er, Davies, Michael Davies –
WOMAN: (reading from file) ‘Box 1029, sincere, intelligent business executive, six feet, tolerant, good sense of humour’?
MAN: Oh yes, that’s me.
WOMAN: Let’s have you against the wall then.
MAN: I’m sorry?
WOMAN: Come on, come on, I’m not immortal you know. (she shoves him up against a wall) Exactly how tolerant are you?
MAN: Well, I – (she knees him in the groin and he doubles up) What the – ?
WOMAN: Hmm. Not very.
(she crosses something out in his file and takes out a tape measure to check his now diminished height)
Five foot three and a half inches. Just as well you came in isn’t it, otherwise some poor cow from Clapham might have got herself lumbered with some walking Toby jug.
MAN: Look, what’s all this about?
WOMAN: Just normal procedure, Box 1029. Before running your ad we must be perfectly satisfied you are all you claim. For example, you say here you’re intelligent.
MAN: Well, one doesn’t like to boast –
WOMAN: What’s a pagoda?
MAN: Huh?
WOMAN: Watch my lips. Pa-go-da.
MAN: Oh, well, it’s a sort of Venetian boat isn’t it?
WOMAN: I’m asking the questions, Box 1029. If a man walks into a bar and gets a black eye, what sort of bar is it?
MAN: A colour bar, ha ha ha?
WOMAN: An iron bar, Box 1029. Well, you’ve failed the intelligence test. You’ve got a choice of replacements: idiot, pratt, berk, simpleton or graduate.
MAN: Well, I was at Cambridge –
WOMAN: I’ll put moron. Now then, sincerity. Do you masturbate?
MAN: No!
WOMAN: I thought so. We’ll change that to ‘lying bastard’.
MAN: Would you believe me if I told you you’re the most repellent young hussy it’s ever been my misfortune to come across?
WOMAN: No, I went to Cambridge too. Now then, business executive. What kind of business?
MAN: I’m an account manager in an advertising agency.
WOMAN: Lowest of the low, Box 1029. I’ll put ‘scumbag’. Right, that just leaves sense of humour.
MAN: (eagerly) Right, bloke goes into a –
(she smashes a custard pie into his face)
WOMAN: You’re not laughing, Box 1029.
MAN: Ha ha ha.
WOMAN: Pathetic. (she crosses it out)
MAN: That doesn’t leave me with very much does it?
WOMAN: Let’s see. (reads from file) ‘Moronic, lying bastrd, dwarfish, scumbag status, seeks uninhibited stripper or similar for sex, bondage and concert-going.’
MAN: I say, you’re not leaving that last bit in are you?
WOMAN: What have you got against Beethoven?
MAN: No, I meant that bit about sex.
WOMAN: Why not, it’s the only part that matters isn’t it?
MAN: Well, yes, but –
WOMAN: Then meet me in the Plume and Feathers at seven-thirty. I don’t like Beethoven either. Next!
PS
This must come from my depressed period when everything I wrote seemed to be combative, spiteful and mean-minded. A group of us were trying to put together a comedy sketch show to pitch to the local TV channel, and since these were all the rage at the time we figured if not now, then when? But life wasn’t going great for me and that tension was obviously leaking out onto the page. Equally obviously, we weren’t likely to get very far if this was the kind of thing we were offering up. (I think the Snooker Interview sketch must have come about around the same time.) One of the other writers actually drew me aside at one point and suggested my stuff seemed to be getting awfully dark. “Try to lighten up,” he advised. “Go for a walk before you try and write the next one.” One of the reasons I was suffering was because I only had friends like that. A couple of years later, the phone rang. It was this writer again, and he sounded as surprised to hear my voice as I was to hear his. Turned out that he had rung the wrong Robin in his address book and tried to busk it. I can laugh about it now. Luckily, I was even able to laugh about it then, a sure sign that I must have turned a corner. The show never got anywhere of course. Ah bloody well.