SCENE ONE
THE VILLAGE OF FOLLY-ON-THE-WOLD
Gertie’s Greengrocer’s shop with a practical door is [USR] a fruit and veg stall is outside. Music cue 2: Marsha and Chorus. After song ends…
JIMMY: [off] Marsha! Marsha!
CHORUS 1: It sounds like your boyfriend’s looking for you, Marsha.
MARSHA: Quick, hide me!
CHORUS 2: Why?
MARSHA: I think he might want to show me something.
CHORUS 3: If he hasn’t by now, he probably never will!
Chorus laugh.
MARSHA: It’s his pet ferret, but I can’t stand the thing.
CHORUS 4: [looking SL] Here comes Jimmy, now!
MARSHA: Don’t let him see me!
CHORUS 1: Hide behind us, Marsha.
Marsha kneels on the floor behind them with her face buried in her lap.
Enter Jimmy [SL]
JIMMY: Has anybody seen, Marsha?
CHORUS 2: What do you want her for, Jimmy?
JIMMY: I’ve got something to show her.
CHORUS 3: What is it, Jimmy?
JIMMY: I’m not telling you.
CHORUS 4: Don’t be shy, Jimmy, you can show it to us.
JIMMY: Only if you promise not to scream.
CHORUS: We promise!
JIMMY: Close your eyes, then.
Chorus shut their eyes, nudging each other and giggling. Jimmy takes a ferret from his pocket, which is attached offstage by fine fishing-line.
JIMMY: You can look now.
CHORUS: [open eyes and scream] Aaaah! [exit at a run SR]
Marsha’s still crouched on the floor.
JIMMY: [stuffs ferret back in his pocket] What you are doing down there, Marsha?
MARSHA: [stands] Jimmy Jester! What are you doing frightening the living daylights out of everybody?
JIMMY: I was just showing them my furry little friend.
MARSHA: What furry little friend?
JIMMY: The one I keep in my trousers.
MARSHA: I beg your pardon!
JIMMY: Little Willie.
MARSHA: [shocked] Jimmy Jester!
JIMMY: Little Willie, my pet ferret. [takes ferret out] See?
MARSHA: Put it away! Put it away!
JIMMY: All right, Marsha, keep your hair on! Off you go, Willie, straight home, mind. Music cue 3: [ferret is yanked offstage – peering out] ‘Ere Marsha, who are all these people?
MARSHA: They’re the audience, Jimmy.
JIMMY: What are they doing here?
MARSHA: They’ve come to watch us perform.
JIMMY: I bet they wouldn’t like us watching while they performed.
MARSHA: Behave yourself, Jimmy, and let’s introduce ourselves.
JIMMY: Okay, Marsha. [to audience] Hello, everybody, I’m Jimmy Jester!
MARSHA: And I’m Marsha Mallow.
JIMMY: She’s got a soft spot for me. [laughs] Marsha Mallow? Soft spot?
MARSHA: You’ll get a sore spot if you keep making fun of my name, Jimmy.
JIMMY: Knock, knock, Marsha.
MARSHA: Who’s there?
JIMMY: Butch.
MARSHA: Butch who?
JIMMY: Butch your arms around me and give us a kiss. [hugs her]
Enter Gertie [SL] holding two large melons against her chest.
GERTIE: Jimmy Jester, you lazy excuse for a shop worker! Didn’t you hear me shout you earlier?
JIMMY: Yes, Gertie.
GERTIE: Then why didn’t you answer me?
JIMMY: You’ve always told me never to answer you back.
GERTIE: Hurry up and grab hold of my large melons.
MARSHA: And that’s the best offer you’re going to get today, Jimmy.
Jimmy takes melons and places them on the stall.
GERTIE: Remind me to get my…[posh accent]…mange tout out later, Jimmy.
JIMMY: What’s with the posh talk all of a sudden? Last week, it was mangey toot.
GERTIE: One can’t talk common when one runs a high-class delicatessen. [pronounce as delicate-arsen]
MARSHA: I thought you ran a greengrocer’s, Gertie.
GERTIE: I’ve gone upmarket and stocked up with exotic foods from around the world.
JIMMY: I wondered what that funny smell was.
GERTIE: That’ll be my Italian smoked duck. It’s cured, you know.
JIMMY: I didn’t even know it was ill. [laughs]
Enter Snow White from the shop.
SNOW W: Good morning, everybody!
MARSHA: Did you know your Aunt Gertie has gone upmarket, Snow White?
SNOW W: No, I didn’t. Why’s that then auntie?
GERTIE: It’s because the bottom’s fallen out of the fruit and veg trade.
SNOW W: I thought business was slack lately.
GERTIE: It’s slacker than Jimmy’s work rate, and that’s saying something. It’s not easy running a business on my own. I could do with a man about the place.
JIMMY: What about me, Gertie? I’m a man about the place.
GERTIE: I meant a real man, like my late husband Billy. He used to say to me, ‘Gertie, you’re the salt of the earth, you are’. Then he’d throw me over his shoulder for luck. Oh, but he was tight-fisted. On our wedding anniversary, I asked him to take me somewhere expensive. So, he took me to a petrol station. He was a very keen gardener and was always poking about my allotment with his little dibber. Then one day, he went to pick a cauliflower for Sunday lunch, when tragedy struck.
MARSHA: What happened, Gertie?
GERTIE: He dropped down dead. [bites her first]
MARSHA: Whatever did you do, Gertie?
JIMMY: Let me guess; you opened a tin of peas instead? [laughs]
GERTIE: [snaps] No, I didn’t!
MARSHA: Don’t be mean, Jimmy!
JIMMY: Don’t blame me Marsha, I didn’t write this stuff.
GERTIE: I was all out of peas, and opened a tin of carrots instead.
JIMMY: Oh, well, that makes all the difference. I’m a keen gardener myself. People say I have green fingers.
GERTIE: Only because you keep shoving them up your nose.
