MADBINTON 1:2

SCENE 2 - THE ALLOTMENT

FX - BRACKEN UNDERFOOT, RUSTLING LEAVES ETC.

PETE: Hello there. I’m Pete Pendragon, a horticulture journalist, pleased to meet you. I’m investigating a few unusual entrants that have turned up at various produce fairs around the country. Whose are these raspberries?

QUEEN ROGER: They’re mine. I’m Queen Roger. Fourth in line to the Duchy of Dortmund but stuck ‘ere in this dashed forsaken villein pitch. And this is my good lady wife, Oboe Peter.

OBOE PETER: Oboe Peter, pleased to meet yourself.

PETE: Hi. Do you submit these to any produce fairs at all?

QUEEN ROGER: I beg your pardon?

OBOE PETER: Our produce don’t compete. We grow ‘em for the eat.

PETE: Fair enough. How do you find the soil here?

QUEEN ROGER: Easy ducky: head south from Oboe’s nethers and there you have it in great humps and clumps around her clodhoppers.

PETE: I know where the soil is; I mean, how do you find the soil for growing crops?

OBOE PETER: Intensely loamy.

QUEEN ROGER: Loamy, somewhat gritty and deeply peaty. Haha! We’ve got peat in the soil, Oboe Peter on the soil, and this strange new Pete, soiling my carefully dredged furrows. And furrowing my brow! There’s heavy moss too. Turns the worms into rebellious little Picts.

PETE: Ha! Yes. Petes aplenty. But seriously, I can see that your onions are growing well. And the bean stalks are very fine.

OBOE PETER: They’ll keep growing just grand without your melty buttered compliments young sire. And before you turn accuser let me tell ya - these veg are normal. Intensely so. That’s the business of the clan Roger Oboe. Tasty, fleshy reliables of the kinsfolk vegetalis.

PETE: So you’re just a family business are you? Only, the gentleman over the hill there referred to you as a club and I was wondering if there are any other members?

OBOE PETER: It’s my hubby’s hobby really but we together are an approved village club complete with the Colonel’s sanction. Would you care to join us in the shed for high tea? I’ve made carrot cake…

PETE: I see. And no, thank you, I had something on the train. Is anyone else around?

OBOE PETER: Well if you pop yourself over that ridge, you’ll find Clem and the boys digging.

PETE: Clem, okay, I’ve not met him. What’s he digging?

QUEEN ROGER: An ampitheatre, I believe. Somewhere to wrestle.

PETE: Wrestling? Sounds like an, er, big project then. Ok thanks, I’ll wander over and take a look.