Two Plays for Tuppence

By James Bourke

Two plays for Tuppence consists of two plays written specifically for television. Both plays have an Irish setting and an Irish ambiance.

The first play, A Most Civil Servant, deals with the manner in which its central character, Mr. Carmody stumbles into a position in the Civil Service in Dublin Castle. It is 1922. The War of Independence has ended and the Irish government is taking over from the British. During this transition period there is a good deal of confusion over the allocation of offices, which Mr. Carmody exploits to his advantage.

The play was inspired by the short story They Also Serve by Mervyn Wall, first published in Harpers (1940) and included by Benedict Kiely in The Penguin Book of Irish Short Stories (1981). However, the play is not an adaptation of Walls story. It covers a much broader canvas and deals with events which are not in Walls famous short story, including a visit to Paris where Mr. Carmody and his mate Frank meet James Joyce. After many strange episodes in various parts of Dublin, the play reaches a dramatic climax in the final scene.

The second play, Hobsons Choice, tells the curious tale of Clive Alexander Goode, a Dublin academic, who has endured twenty-five years of living hell with his wife, Beth. He plans and executes the perfect murder, believing that he is morally justified in ridding society of the evil one. Subsequently, he is charged with the unlawful killing of his wife and is committed to the Dundrum Mental Asylum, where he seeks enlightenment.

The play illustrates how we fabricate our own morality and how we deal with our own demonsthe conflicts within ourselves. Clive professes a blind belief in the magical powers of the Sidhe, whom he first encountered when he was growing up in Sligo on the south side of Knocknarea. Like W. B. Yeats, he believes in the mystic world.

There are twelve scenes that represent episodes in Clives troubled mind. We meet Clive in conversation with various people. The evil one, Clives malevolent wife, appears only at the beginning of the play, but she is the catalyst around whom the play revolves. The play straddles two worldsthe real and the unreal, the mundane and the mystical.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jun 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514499337

James Bourke

James Mannes Bourke comes from Dublin. He is a retired university lecturer who specialised in language education (TESL). He has published many academic papers and monographs on various aspects of language education. Since taking retirement in 2008, he has turned to creative writing and published a novel, Under the Alien Sky, and a collection of short stories, Footprints in the Mind. More recently, he has written a second novel, Confessions of an Alien, and two plays for television, called Two Plays for Tuppence. He has a special interest in the short story, and his topics range from life in Ireland to Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He is currently working on a collection of Oriental stories. He seems to have the rare ability to capture in words the colourful way of life of people in remote places and their age-old culture. Dr. Bourke has more than a passing interest in language and language education. He spent over thirty years training future teachers of English as a second language. He is working on an English grammar textbook for ESL students and a primer for teachers of English called Language Awareness for Language Teachers. He still does some consultancy work as an English-language (ESL) specialist. Academic qualifications: diploma in education, 1960; BA, University College Cork, 1968; MA in applied linguistics, University of Essex, 1978; and PhD in linguistic problem-solving, Trinity College, Dublin, 1992. More information about the author can be found in his website, www.jamesmannesbourke.com.

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© 2016 by James Bourke.

ISBN:                  Softcover              978-1-5144-9932-0

                            eBook                   978-1-5144-9933-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any performance of the plays on television, film or stage requires the permission of the copyright holder [e-mail]

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/31/2016

Xlibris

800-056-3182

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

734532

Contents

Foreword

Introduction to Play no. 1.

A Most Civil Servant

Annotations and Glossary (1)

Introduction to Play No. 2.

Hobson’s Choice

Annotations and glossary (2)

Acknowledgements

FOREWORD

This slim volume contains two plays entitled A Most Civil Servant and Hobson’s Choice. Both plays were written specifically for television. They differ considerably in theme and time but there is a common thread underlying them. They both depict a mature man wrestling with his inner demons. They are both Dubliners and the city of Dublin is part of the fabric of the plays. There is very little romance in either play but a lot of inner strife, conflict and rationalising.

The first play, A Most Civil Servant, is a mildly comic and satirical portrayal of the Civil Service and its anti-hero, Mr. Carmody. It takes place against the background of the Irish War of Independence and the birth of the Irish Free State. The play deals with the conflict between career advancement and the voice of conscience.

The second play, Hobson’s Choice, is a comic story with a dark side. Its anti-hero, Mr. Clive Goode decides to end a troubled relationship in a most unconventional manner, prompted by mystic voices from the Celtic underworld. The play explores the twilight zone between sanity and madness, between the normal and the paranormal, between comedy and tragedy.

James M Bourke,

April, 2016.

INTRODUCTION TO PLAY NO. 1.

The Civil Service isn’t such a funny institution as people make out. It’s slow in its movements but it’s sure. Mervyn Wall ‘They Also Serve…’ In B. Kiely (ed.) The Penguin Book of Irish Short Stories (1981:291-8). London: Penguin.

The play, A Most Civil Servant, deals with the manner in which its central character Mr. Carmody, surreptitiously walks into a position in the Civil Service in Dublin Castle. It is 1922. The War of Independence has ended and the Irish government is taking over from the British. During this transition period, there is a good deal of confusion over the allocation of offices, which Mr. Carmody exploits to his advantage.

The play was inspired by the short story ‘They Also Serve…’ by Mervyn Wall, first published in Harper’s (1940) and included by Benedict Kiely in The Penguin Book of Irish Short Stories (1981). However, the play is not an adaptation of Wall’s story. It covers a much broader canvas and deals with events which are not in Wall’s famous short story. Mr. Carmody and his unorthodox entry into the Civil Service are the springboard for whole new series of episodes and dilemmas that reach a dramatic climax in the final scene.

The setting of the play is a rather unflattering portrayal of the Civil Service, - that invisible paper tiger that tells government ministers what to think and specifies the regulations and standards that are required in every aspect of public life. The Irish inherited the great slumbering giant of British bureaucracy, which was based on Victorian values and which regarded all ‘natives’ as incompetent and corrupt and hence had to be tightly controlled by watertight regulations. A job in the Civil Service was a job for life. The main activity of civil servants was filling out forms and filing them. There were stacks of files everywhere and even though each was numbered and dated, your file was always missing. Nobody knew why this was the case and some of the older civil servants believed it was work of an evil spirit. There was no need to worry about performance targets. In fact, the more inept the person was, the more likely he or she would be promoted. That is no longer the case.

The play takes us back in time to the early days of the Irish Free State and the inner strife of Mr. Carmody, who has conned his way into the Civil Service. He lives in a state of perpetual fear that his dark secret will be uncovered.

Historical note

The play takes place against the background of the Irish War of Independence and the euphoria over the birth of a nation as the Union Jack was lowered and Ireland celebrated independence. For those unfamiliar with Ireland’s long struggle for independence, historians tell us that for 750 years, from the Anglo-Norman invasion (1169) to the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), the British tried every dirty trick in the book to conquer Ireland by naked military aggression, plantations, ethnic cleansing, Penal Laws, etc. However, British politicians failed to realize that they were on a collision course with history. Their harsh rule only stiffened Ireland’s resolve to break free of the Union. One wonders why it took Britain, - an enlightened nation – so long to learn that the Irish valued independence above everything else.

A MOST CIVIL SERVANT

Persons of the Play:

Sir Alfred Cope, Under-Secretary for Ireland

General Nevil Macready, Commander of British Forces, Dublin Castle

District Inspector Swan, Royal Irish Constabulary

Colonel George Smyth, Commander of British Forces, Cork

Major Cecil Sloane, War Office, London.

Major Blackwell, Military Intelligence Unit, Dublin Castle

Mr. B. Carmody (Ben), unemployed Dublin middle-aged gentleman

Mr. Benson, Personnel Coordinator, Civil Service Dept, Dublin Castle

Molly, the cleaning lady, Department of Internal Affairs, Dublin Castle

Mr. F. Moffat (Frank), Ben’s best friend

Mr. Cahill, master tailor

James Joyce, an Irish writer living in Paris

Mat Mulligan, a blind beggar

Scene 1: January, 1920. Meeting at Dublin Castle to seek ways and means of putting down the rebellion in Ireland.

It is January, 1920. The Great War has just ended but a new war has erupted in Ireland, the *Irish War of Independence. The *Dáil met for the first time in January 1919 and reaffirmed the *1916 Declaration of Independence. Hostilities have been escalating and the British army can no longer cope with the situation.

Sir Alfred Cope: Gentlemen, the PM wishes to have our views on the vexed question of the Irish insurrection. I need not remind you that Ireland is and always will be part of the British Empire. Now, it seems, a minority of hot-heads is agitating for Independence, which is quite preposterous. Under the terms of the Defence of the Realm Act (1919), we are charged with the suppression of rebellion in every part of the United Kingdom.

General Macready: I think that *HMG may have to consider some form of Home Rule for the Irish but Independence is out of the question. We may not have sufficient military resources to contain the situation.

Major Sloane: Most of the troops that have recently returned from active duty in the Great War are war weary, have no desire to face into another protracted war and one can understand that. Moreover, their experience of trench warfare is of little use in Ireland where the name of the game is guerrilla warfare, no doubt borrowed from the hit