Bücher online kostenlos Kostenlos Online Lesen
Therapy

Therapy

Titel: Therapy Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: David Lodge
Vom Netzwerk:
Harrington’s voice broke, for instance (he plays the Springfields’ youngest, Robert) I made it a running joke for a whole series.
    Anyway, this week’s episode centres on Edward and Priscilla’s fear that Alice may be pregnant, because she keeps throwing up. Cindy Davis next door is a teenage unmarried mother, her Mum looks after the baby while she’s at school, and the dramatic point of the episode is that while the Springfields have been terribly liberal-minded about Cindy, they’re horrorstruck at the thought of the same thing happening to their own daughter, especially as the likely father is young Terry Davis, whom Alice has been dating with their teeth-gritting consent. Needless to say, Alice isn’t pregnant or even at risk since she won’t allow Terry any liberties at all. She keeps throwing up because the sexually frustrated Terry is spiking the goats’ milk which is delivered exclusively for Alice’s use (she’s allergic to cows’ milk) with an alleged aphrodisiac (in fact a mild emetic) with the collusion of his mate, Rodge, the milkman’s assistant. This is eventually revealed when Priscilla accidentally helps herself to Alice’s special milk and is violently sick, (“EDWARD (aghast): Don’t tell me you’re pregnant too?”) But before that a good deal of comedy is generated by the elaborately circuitous ways in which Edward and Priscilla try to check out their dreadful suspicion, and the contrast between their public tolerance and private disapproval of single-parent families.
    “It’s running a bit long, Tubby,” Hal said, indistinctly because he was gripping a ballpen between his teeth as he riffled through his copy of the script. Another ballpen protruded from his wiry thatch of hair just above his right ear — parked there some time earlier and forgotten. ( I should be so lucky.) “I was wondering if we could cut a few lines here,” he mumbled. I knew exactly which lines he was going to point to before he found the page:
     
EDWARD:       Well, if she is pregnant, she’ll have to have a termination.
PRISCILLA (angrily):            I suppose you think that will solve everything?
EDWARD:       Hang on! I thought you were all in favour of a woman’s right to choose?
PRISCILLA:     She’s not a woman, she’s a child. Anyway, suppose she chooses to have the baby?
PAUSE, AS EDWARD FACES UP TO THIS POSSIBILITY.
EDWARD (quietly but firmly): Then of course we shall support her.
PRISCILLA ( softening ): Yes, of course.
PRISCILLA REACHES OUT AND SQUEEZES EDWARD'S HAND.
 
    I’d already had a run-in about these lines with Ollie Silvers, my producer, when I first delivered the script. Actually he’s much more than my producer nowadays, he’s Head of Series and Serials at Heartland, no less; but since The People Next Door was in a sense his baby, and still gets better ratings than anything else Heartland does, he couldn’t bear to hand it over to a line producer when he was promoted, and still finds time somehow to poke his nose into the detail of every episode. He said you couldn’t have references to abortion in a sitcom, even one that goes out after the nine-o’clock watershed when young viewers are supposed to be tucked up in bed, because it’s too controversial, and too upsetting. I said it was unrealistic to suppose that an educated middle-class couple would discuss the possible pregnancy of their schoolgirl daughter without mentioning the subject. Ollie said that audiences accepted the conventions of sitcom, that some things simply weren’t mentioned, and they liked it that way. I said that all kinds of things that used to be taboo in sitcom were acceptable now. Ollie said, not abortion. I said, there’s always a first time. He said, why on our show? I said, why not? He gave in, or so I thought. I might have known he’d find a way to get rid of the lines.
    When I asked Hal if the cut was Ollie’s idea, Hal looked a bit embarrassed. “Ollie was in yesterday,” he admitted. “He did suggest the lines aren’t absolutely essential to the story.”
    “Not absolutely essential,” I said. “Just a little moment of truth.”
    Hal looked unhappy and said we could discuss the matter further with Ollie, who was coming in after lunch, but I said it was too late in the day to have a knock-down-drag-out argument on a matter of principle. The cast would pick up the vibrations and get anxious and uptight about the scene. Hal looked relieved, and hurried

Weitere Kostenlose Bücher