Therapy

electrical component factory in West Wallsbury. They heard on Friday that it’s going to shut down at the end of next month. They all got redundancy notices with their payslips.” We looked at each other. “Well, that explains a lot,” I said. “Just our luck,” said Hal. “Sodding management might have waited till tomorrow,” said Ollie.
     
    I was sorry for the workers, but the explanation couldn’t have come at a better time as far as I was concerned. I’d been so demoralized by the way that evening’s show had bombed that I would probably have agreed to anything Ollie and Hal proposed. Now, I no longer blamed myself. I was a bloody good scriptwriter after all — always had been and always would be. I was ready to do battle for my principles. “Jake gave me a rough idea of what you have in mind,” I said to Ollie. “You want me to write Priscilla out of the story, is that it?” “What we have in mind,” said Ollie, “is an amicable separation which removes Priscilla from the scene at the end of the current series, and sets up a new female interest in Edward’s life for the next one.” “ Amicable?” I exploded. “They would be completely traumatized.” “There would be a certain amount of pain, of course,” said Ollie, “but Edward and Priscilla are mature modern people. They know that one in three marriages ends in divorce. So does our audience. You’re always saying sitcom should deal with the serious things in life occasionally, Tubby.” “As long as it’s consistent with character,” I said. “Why should Priscilla want to leave Edward?”
    They had various bizarre suggestions: e.g., Priscilla decides she’s a lesbian and goes off with a girlfriend; she gets oriental religion and goes off to an ashram to learn meditation; she is offered a wonderful job in California; or she just falls for a handsome foreigner. I asked them if they seriously thought any of these developments were (a) credible or ( b ) manageable in just one episode. “You might have to rewrite the last two or three, to prepare the ground,” Ollie conceded, avoiding the first question. “I have an idea for the final episode,” said Hal. “Let me run it by you.” “This is a great idea, Tubby,” Ollie assured me. Hal leaned forward. “After Priscilla walks out, Edward advertises for a housekeeper, and this stunning bird arrives at the door for an interview. Edward suddenly sees there may be a silver lining to his troubles. It’s the very last shot of the series. Leaves the punters feeling better about the split, and interested in what will happen in the next series. What do you think?” “I think it stinks,” I said. “Naturally you’d be paid handsomely for the extra work,” said Ollie. “To be frank, you and Jake have us over a barrel on this one.” He glanced slyly at me from under his hooded eyelids to see if he had awakened my greed by this admission. I said it wasn’t money I was concerned about, but character and motivation. Hal asked me if I had any better ideas. I said: “The only plausible way to remove Priscilla from the show is to kill her.” Ollie and Hal exchanged startled looks. “You mean, like have her murdered?” Hal faltered. I said, of course not, maybe a car crash or a swift fatal disease. Or a minor operation that goes wrong. “Tubby, I don’t believe I’m hearing this,” said Ollie. “We’re talking sitcom here, not soap. You can’t have one of your principal characters die. It’s a no-no.” I said there was always a first time. “That’s what you said about tonight’s episode,” said Ollie, “and look what happened.” “That was the audience’s fault,” I protested, “you said so yourself.” “The best audience in the world is going to be stymied if they turn up expecting a comedy show and find that it’s all about the mother of a family dying in the prime of life,” said Ollie, and Hal sagely nodded his agreement. Then Ollie said something that really made me angry. “We appreciate how hard this is for you, Tubby. Perhaps we should think about getting another writer to work on it.” “No way, José,” I said. “It’s commonplace in America,” Ollie said. “They have whole teams of writers working on shows like ours.” I know,” I said, “that’s why the shows sound like a string of gags written by a committee. I’ll tell you another thing about America. In New York they have street signs saying, ‘Don’t even think of parking