Book Club
The show opens with a blissful jazz ballad and with the curtains opening onto the stage and the camera panning onto the live studio audience. Next the host Mandar Nigdikar walks out onto the stage and takes a bow in his suit before sitting into his chair.
“Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the first airing of “book club”. As you know there has been a boom in the small story side of writing as of late and the two that seem to be selling in the greatest numbers are “Seeing A Beauty Queen Home” by Bill Naughton written in 1959 and “Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver” by Thomas Hardy written in 1894. Tonight we will discuss the similarities and differences of these two short stories. So now to introduce my first guest, the resident expert on the female mind and also a well published author Mr. Robert Pickles.” Robert enters the stage wearing PVC flares and a sports jacket with an unusually large collar. He says hello to the audience before sitting down. Mandar begins to speak again “Now my other guest tonight is Psychologist Tom McKernan. Tom enters the stage where trainers, jeans a “CK” T-shirt.
Mandar takes a sip of water from the glass in front of him and begins to speak once more. “ Well gentlemen I think we should really get down to business and start discussing these stories. Is there anything either one of you would like to say to start with?” Robert speaks at this point and says “I find the men in these two stories to be treating the women in them with no respect whatsoever. In Thomas Hardy’s story for instance Tony at one point after each in term has been either asked on to the wagon or has herself asked to be let on, has his to be fiancée and two other women in the wagon at the same time without each other knowing. What kind of a man does that?” at this point Robert crosses his legs and a tremendous squeaking noise is heard throughout the set as the PVC rubs past each other. “As for Bill Naughton's story I have many points for Tony. First off he just struts up to the ladies and expects one of the to run out to him which they do out of pity a quote to prove this is, ‘I use to stroll up to the corner where the girls all stood in a circle…I’d run my eye over them, and the one my eye rested on would come running’, then he expects Maggie to let him walk her home which she does again most probably out of pity. He then deliberately misses the last tram back hoping to get somewhere with this Maggie and then to top it all off he pretends to Maggie’s grandma that he’s some-one else altogether. I mean Maggie's Nan who lets her stay with her on weekends and dear old creature…” Robert is cut off mid flow by Tom who says, “For such a well known celebrity I think you’re looking at this completely wrong. Actually thinking of it I’m not particularly surprised. Neither of the characters are meaning to disrespect the women in the respective stories. Tony Kytes doesn’t mean to hurt the women, he just doesn’t know what he wants and Rudy just has a lot of self-confidence and he knows his strengths. At no point in the story are we told that the women going to Rudy do it out of pity, indeed the story says that the women go to him as they all want to dance with him a quote to suggest my point is true would be this, ‘every stumer in the place wanted to have a dance with ‘Rudy’ – as they called me’ ”. Robert interrupts Tom here and says “Ah but you forget my friend that story is being told by Rudy himself unlike the Thomas Hardy story, thus everyone telling a story about themselves so really they could have gone out of pity”.
