ALISTAIR
What a fucking. Knob-jockey.
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I don’t care if he hears me. I’m sorry, but what was that? What does he think? What does he think is happening here?
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Does he think he’s some kind of lord ’cause he’s got a gastropub? What, thin beef and gay puddings for people who think ’cause they’re eating orange fish it must be smoked salmon? ’Cause he can get ‘patio’, ‘lavatory’ and ‘facilities’ into one sentence, yeah?
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Calling us ‘Gentlemen’ as if he had any idea, any idea of what the word means. God, the look on his face when I gave him that cash – Tom and Jerry pound signs in his eyes. Graciously letting us stay if we don’t smoke or call a prozzer or make any noise – what is this, the fucking Quiet Carriage?
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You know, checking we do want that many bottles ‘’cause it seems quite a lot for ten people’. Not this ten people, mate. But you know what, we’re not people.
Cause people – people like him – you know, honest, decent hardworking people hell-bent on turning this country to fuck. He thinks he can have anything if he works hard enough. He also thinks Rugby League is a sport. He thinks his daughter’s getting a useful education at Crapsville College or wherever she’s – I mean this man keeps cheese in the fucking fridge.
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‘While you’re under my roof you respect my rules’? I’ve got a new rule for you, mate, it’s called survival of the fittest, it’s called ‘fuck you – we’re the Riot Club’. Respect that. ‘Can’t have one rule for them and another rule for you’ – why not? Seriously, why the fuck not? We’re the fucking Riot Club. And we’ve hardly started, mate.
And her, people like her, the stuck up bitch, fucking skank – you’re a prostitute, love, get on your knees. ‘Not doing that, it’s not in my job description’, ‘I’m a professional, I need a proper break’ – even the hookers want paid holidays – ‘Ring my line manager’ – I’ll wring your fucking neck if you’re not careful. Where’s your imagination? – we’ve got the finest sperm in the country in this room, she should be paying us to let her drink it.
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And these people think we’re twats. Are we going to sit here and take it, carry on taking it? Who the fuck are they, anyway? How did they get everywhere, how did they make everything so fucking second-rate?
Thinking they’re cultured ’cause they read a big newspaper and eat asparagus and pretend not to be racist. Bursting a vein at the thought there’s another floor their lift doesn’t go up to, for all their striving, for all their making everything accessible and fucking mediocre. ‘Isn’t that shopping centre lovely?’ It’s not fucking lovely, it’s just new. It’s a fucking mirage for you to spend invisible money that isn’t even yours and then blame it on me for being fucking born. ‘You can’t have that, that’s not fair.’ You know what’s not fair? That we have to even listen to them. Thinking ’cause there’s more of them, they’re better when they’re worth their weight in shit. Saying ‘it’s not about the money’ on the in breath and ‘give it give it give it’ on the out, mixing up quantity and quality like it’s a fucking cocktail I mean I am sick, I am sick to fucking death of poor people.
1 The text extract reprinted here is taken from the published edition of the 2010 production. The text reprinted by Oberon Books for the West End revival in 2012 contains revisions that Laura Wade made for this production.