AFTERTHOUGHT
JOHN WELLS
Adam and Eve and Pinchme went down to the river to bathe; Adam and Eve were drowned, so who do you think was saved? Anon.
Having missed the first showing of Dr Miller's Controversial and Highly Praised Adventures in Wonderland, I found the work last Sunday afternoon both disturbing and alarming. As I watched it I realised, with an increasing frisson of déjà vu and esprit d'escalier, that my own treatment of the creation myth quoted above, torn with blood and suffering as it had been from the cruel, possessive, sticky little hands in the nursery and held up in all its soul- rotting obscenity for all the adult world to see, would never now be accepted by Huw Wheldon. The manuscript lies beside the type- writer now, stained and faded, the once-bright staple rusting in the corner of the page: I hope the editor of the SPECTATOR will forgive me for reproducing it here.
'Opening titles in white art-nouveau letter- ing on a wonderfully cool and faintly dotty black background. Then a sepia still of Car- naby Street early one Sunday morning. The pavements and roadway are littered with Vic- torian bric-a-brac, old uniforms, union jack shopping bags and copies of the Observer Colour Section. Dissolve to same shot, shop- ping bags and Observer Colour Sections now faintly stirring in a dawn breeze. A mar- vellously plastic silence hisses in the sound track, reminiscent of a Victorian magic-lantern show. A lanky figure in long white plimsolls is seen in the distance with a prominent nose, skipping towards us. He dances along the street, occasionally pausing to look in the windows of the men's boutiques. It is Pinchme.
'He skips up to the camera, and we hold a grainy close-up of his long, sensitive face. He seems possessed of an almost daemonic creative energy, a thousand ideas passing through his mind in the space of a few seconds, reflecting themselves in curious pass- ing frowns and smiles. He is a confused child of his century, awed by the wonder of his manhood and incessantly bombarded with innumerable stimuli, hitting him from every side like incandescent atomic particles. Sud- denly his eyes close, and he falls rigidly back- wards into the Victorian bric-a-brac, old uni- forms, union jack shopping bags and copies of the Observer Colour Section. He is asleep.
'We now go in close for a montage of shots showing the sleeper's changing expression. He is dreaming. Behind him a door opens and there is a thunderous rattle of Chinese goatskin drums played by the insanely trendy Chinese lutinist Lapsang Souchong. Adam appears. It is Sir Laurence Olivier, in black face and with his Richard III hump. He is dressed in a late Victorian nightdress and high-heeled black boots. He capers down the pavement, ad- libbing passages from the St Crispin's Day speech in Henry V, and finally strikes a gro- tesque pose with one foot on the sleeper's face. The sleeper's face twitches sensitively, the Chinese drums give way to the discordant twanging of the giant lute, and Eve appears in the doorway of a shop called The Camp Commandant. The part is played by the fashion model Twiggy, dressed as Alfred Watts- Dunton. She sings a distorted version of the Apostles' Creed, grimacing and twisting about, and finally lifting her hands menacingly above her head and rushing after Sir Laurence utter- ing weird screeching sounds. Sir Laurence flees. The sleeper appears to wake up, and pursues them, followed at some distance by the diminutive lutinist staggering under the weight of his giant Chinese lute. There is a final despairing twang as he negotiates the corner, and the picture fades.
`The docks at Wapping. Graham Greene and Margaret Rutherford with shrimping nets are dancing barefoot along the quay, intoning the first chapter of Genesis. Godfrey Winn, as their son in a sailor suit, is clambering happily over a pile of lobster pots and fashionable Victorian bric-a-brac in pursuit of Orson Welles in a poke bonnet, playfully cracking a whip. The distant sound of a military band is heard, and we see in the distance Sir Laurence, the late Victorian nightdress now held above his knees, attempting to sustain his Richard III impersonation as he avoids the demented attacks of Twiggy, who is offering him a bite out of a wax apple impregnated with benze- drine. Pinchme is hard on their heels, waving his arms, shouting about tonal values and lifting his hands palms outwards as he tries to visualise camera angles. As they come closer we see that the band is composed of the massed television critics, banging big bass drums and with blaring trumpets. Lapsang Souchong can be seen behind them, both hands clapped over his ears and the great Chinese lute swaying dangerously from side to side in its harness.
'At the quayside Spike Milligan is now ad- libbing to the tune of "Oh God Ow Help in Ages Past," and Godfrey Winn is sitting on Graham Greene's shoulders, drumming on his bald head in time to the music. Adam, sym- bolising mankind's unwillingness as a sentient being to exist in an insensitive environment, grips his nose between finger and thumb and leaps over the side. We hear a dim splash, and see a series of agonised close-ups of Twiggy Eve's face as the Band of Critics charge past and down a steep place into the river. Unable to resist the rush, Twiggy Eve. too, is swept away, and the Chinese lutinist arrives panting on the brink only just in time to rescue Pinchme himself.
'As the actors and critics struggle in the churning water, Lapsang Souchong looks up at Pinchme and smiles, striking a strange dying note on his lute. Pinchme smiles too, and we hold his face in grainy close-up. The picture dissolves, and we return to the sleeper in Car- naby Street. He wakes up, still smiling, and taking up a copy of the Observer Colour Sec- tion he gets up and walks away, reading as he goes. His imagination apparently caught by some article within, he quickens his step, skips a few paces, and dances away out of sight. Closing credits with artless nursery illustrations, Victorian bric-a-brac, etc.'
Perhaps I could try Rediffusion.
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