Gasping - the Play by Ben Elton Read Free Book Online Page A

machines by which people hoard oxygen, we now
build bigger versions of the same machines, in order to make further profits
replacing it.
     
    CHIEF: Exactly.
     
    PHILIP: Look Chief, call me an insanely
cautious old turd if you will; look me in the eye and say ‘Phil, if you drag
your feet any further you’re going to be tripping over tube trains’;
ring my people and tell them that their boss wouldn’t recognize solid gold if
he was surrounded by three quarters of a million Californians jumping up and
down, waving their pick axes and shouting ‘yeeha, we’ve struck it’, I just feel
that there’s going to be objections.
     
    CHIEF: Philip, we didn’t create this
situation, we only make the machines. If a problem exists, the consumer has
created it and thank God we live in a society where the consumer has a right to
create problems.
     
    PHILIP (still doubtful): Yes, I see that certainly, it’s just that, well ... selling air? I
see a media backlash, and frankly, I’m buggered if perhaps they wouldn’t have a
point. I mean, everybody owns the air, don’t they? We don’t really have a right
to sell it? Do we? Or what?
     
    CHIEF (a tiny bit angry): Yes Philip, and while you’re taking your Ph.D. in moral semantics Mr
Suzuki is laying down the keel of the first Super Sucker. You’re my top man
Philip, President of the division and quite frankly I’m surprised ...
     
    SANDY (pleased): Perhaps you’re tired Phil. You drive yourself like an insane man.
     
    CHIEF: The air is a natural resource. Like
food or coal. Is the grocer or the coal man wrong for selling his wares? And
yet people need food and warmth as much as they need air. It seems that a man
is to be allowed to put bread on his table, clothes on the backs of his
children, buy land upon which they can run and play, and yet he is to be denied
the chance to provide fully and properly for his family the most basic human
prerequisite of the lot, the wherewithal to breathe. Denied that chance for
fear that some hypothetical, free-loading drop-out may find himself momentarily
short of breath.
     
    SANDY: Phil, this is more than a business
venture, it’s a moral crusade!
     
    PHILIP: You’re right Sandy ... sorry Chief,
just thinking things through that’s all.
     
    CHIEF: I understand my boy ... A fellow’s
always a bit soft and loopy when he’s in love eh? Any developments on that
front yet? Can’t have you mooning about for ever.
     
    PHILIP: Well she did say something quite
encouraging a month or two back ... haven’t quite got round to acting on it
yet.
     
    CHIEF: Ha ha, well you get on with it lad.
Got to clear the air my boy. So that we can sell it.

 
     
     
     
     
    ACT TWO

 
     
     
     
     
    SCENE ONE
     
     
    The control room of a huge air supplier,
consoles of buttons and flashing lights, computer screens, electronic maps of
Britain with different coloured areas and arrows on them that could mean wind
direction. If possible the arrows should move and the lights and stuff flash
etc. There is celebration bunting hanging about, the Lockheart Logo is very
prominent, there is a dais and a ribbon to be cut, a table full of champagne.
It is clearly a media opening.
     
    (PHILIP, in black tie, is alone ...)
     
    PHILIP (nervously rehearsing a speech): ... It’s just that what you said to me that
time at Image Control ... deeply sensible of enormous honour, yes deeply ... Oh
God, oh God ... Come on Philip, be a man for Christ’s sake, she’s damn hot for you too so just go for it!
     
    (Enter KIRSTEN also dressed for launch.)
     
    KIRSTEN: Go for what Philip?
     
    PHILIP (confusion): What? Oh, just all this Kirsty, you’ve really gone for it, no woman
could do more, a truly Herculean effort. Christ, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much champagne and dippy things.
     
    KIRSTEN (checking things): Well Philip, I can’t deny I’m confident, the Industry awards for the
most champagne and dippy things at a launch are next month and I think