SCENE ONE
HAMELIN TOWN
[USR] Is Stella’s Deli ‘BIG BAPS’. Music cue 2: Chorus. After song ends…Exit Chorus [SL]
Music cue 3: Enter Otto [SL]
OTTO: Hello, boys and girls! Welcome to the town of Hamelin! I’m Otto Strudel, and I work just there…[points]…at our family deli, Big Baps. Don’t ask, it was mum’s idea. I’m in charge of putting the fillings in all the doughnuts, and I’ve got lots of doughnut jokes. Would you like to hear one? Okay. How does Bob Marley like his doughnuts? With jammin’. [laughs] Every time I come on, I’ll tell you a different doughnut joke, okay?
Music cue 4: Enter Stella [SR] holding a shopping bag.
STELLA: Hello, boys and girls! I’m Dame Stella Strudel, and this is my deli. I used to run a colonic irrigation clinic, but a hosepipe ban put paid to that. Excuse the outfit, only I can’t afford designer dresses because our deli isn’t delivering.
OTTO: Maybe we should start delivering direct to customers, Mum.
STELLA: But we don’t have a delivery van, Otto.
OTTO: We could use Deliveroo to deliver for us, Mum.
STELLA: How does that work, then?
OTTO: We just sign our deli up to Deliveroo, and they deliver food direct to our customers, just like Amazon does.
STELLA: No thanks, Otto.
OTTO: But why not, Mum?
STELLA: I’m not having my food chucked over people’s garden fences.
OTTO: Yeah, what was I thinking. What’s in the bag, Mum?
STELLA: nI’ve just picked up a load of sweets from Tesco, but then I remembered I’m on a diet, so I can’t eat them.
OTTO: Then why don’t you give them to all the boys and girls.
STELLA: What a good idea. Boys and girls, who would like my sweeties? All of you it seems. Here you go. [distributes sweets]
OTTO: How much did all those sweets cost you, Mum ?
STELLA: Nothing, Otto.
OTTO: You shoplifted them!?
STELLA: Don’t talk daft! I got them out of a skip at the back of Tesco.
OTTO: Look, Mum, everybody’s spitting them out now.
STELLA: I wonder if there are any handsome men in the audience. [pointing] That man in the third row with the blue top. Yes, you! Do you know if there are any handsome men in the audience? Never mind, dear, go back to sleep.
OTTO: Muuum! You’re more embarrassing than the name of our deli!
STELLA: What’s wrong with, Big Baps? [hoists bosom]
OTTO: Everybody laughs when I mention the name of our shop.
STELLA: I’m all for giving people a laugh, Otto.
OTTO: Then they’re wasting their time watching this show.
STELLA: Life’s all downhill with you, isn’t it, Otto?
OTTO: I prefer downhill to uphill.
STELLA: That’s because you’re so lazy.
OTTO: I’m not lazy, Mum, I exercise first thing every morning!
STELLA: Yes, first one eyelid, then the other. Why can’t you be more useful around the place, so I can earn enough money to live the life of luxury I deserve.
OTTO: Who says you deserve a life of luxury?
STELLA: I do! After a life of poverty with your late father, I think I deserve some compensation. He once said, ‘money means nothing to me, Stella’. And he wasn’t lying, because whenever I asked him for money, he gave me nothing.
OTTO: I never knew dad. What was he like, Mum?
STELLA: Your father was like an old lawn mower, Otto.
OTTO: You mean he kept the grass short?
STELLA: No, he emitted foul odours and didn’t work most of the time.
OTTO: You never told me how he died.
STELLA: It was alcohol what did it.
OTTO: He drank himself to death!?
STELLA: No, a twenty-four pack of Carling fell off the top shelf and fractured his skull. Which is ironic, seeing as he used to be a safety officer. At the end of his shift, he would go around turning off all the lights and unplugging everything. I’ll never understand why air-traffic control sacked him. Then he got a job as a bus driver and I didn’t speak to him for three months.
OTTO: How come?
STELLA: I thought I wasn’t allowed to. He packed in bus driving and started selling boomerangs online, but it went bust after a month.
OTTO: Why was that, then?
STELLA: Too many returns! [laughs] Boomerang? Returns? Never mind.
OTTO: Was dad bald, Mum?
STELLA: As a billiard ball, why?
OTTO: That means I’ll probably go bald too and needn’t bother buying a new comb.
STELLA:Did you know that 90% of bald men still own a comb? They just can’t part with it. [to audience] Keep up.
OTTO: They say that baldness is a sign of virility, don’t they?
STELLA: It isn’t, Son, believe me.
OTTO: You look tired, Mum, didn’t you sleep well last night?
STELLA: No, Otto, I had a terrible nightmare.
OTTO: What was it about?
STELLA: I dreamt I was trapped inside a giant snow globe, and it left me feeling shook up. [to audience] I’ll wait. But the main reason I’m tired, is that I run a business single-handed.
OTTO: You don’t run it single-handed, Mum, you’ve got me.
STELLA: And you’re about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
OTTO: Speaking of chocolate; do you know why Toblerone is triangle-shaped?
STELLA: No, Otto, why is Toblerone triangle-shaped?
OTTO: So it’ll fit in the triangle-shaped box. [laughs]
STELLA: The stress of working with you will have me in a box soon enough.
OTTO: Maybe you should take up meditation to relieve your stress, Mum.
STELLA: Do you think it’ll work?
OTTO: I don’t know, but it beats sitting around doing nothing.
STELLA: And you’re the expert on that.
OTTO: I’d best be off, Mum, I’m picking up a new game for my X-Box.
STELLA: Oh, no you’re not! You’re helping me make a new batch of sausages.
OTTO: What kind?
STELLA: The German kind, what else?
OTTO: I prefer British bangers. My favourite is Lincolnshire.
STELLA: That’s where your father was born.
OTTO: I didn’t know dad was from Lincolnshire.
STELLA: Yes, we met in Skegness. It was a whirlwind romance; I was in a whirl, and he had wind. But my life changed for the worse after a nasty accident.
OTTO: What nasty accident?
STELLA: The one where I got my finger stuck in a wedding ring.
