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Back A Private Function
Chapters (21)
  1. Cover
  2. Landing Page
  3. A Private Function
  4. CONTENTS
  5. INTRODUCTION
  6. The Old Crowd
  7. CAST
  8. A Private Function
  9. PREFACE
  10. CAST AND CREDITS
  11. Prick Up Your Ears
  12. PREFACE
  13. CAST AND CREDITS
  14. 102 Boulevard Haussmann
  15. CAST AND CREDITS
  16. The Madness of King George
  17. PREFACE
  18. CAST AND CREDITS
  19. About the Author
  20. Also by the Author
  21. Copyright

POLICEMAN   ‘When little Betty Macdree says she has been interfered with her mother first laughs. It is only something the kiddy has picked up off the television. But when, sorting through the laundry, Mrs Macdree discovers a new pair of knickers are missing, she thinks again. Her mother takes little Betty to the police station where, to everyone’s surprise, she identifies PC Brenda Coolidge as her attacker. A search is made of the Women’s Police Barracks. What is found there is a seven-inch phallus and a pair of knickers of the type worn by Betty. All looks black for kindly PC Coolidge. This is one of the most enthralling stories ever written by Miss Sayers. Read it behind closed doors. And have a good shit while you’re reading it.’

INT. POLICE COURT. DAY. 1962.

MAGISTRATE   The Probation Officer has suggested you are both frustrated authors. Well, if you’re so clever at making fun of what more talented people have written you should have a shot at writing books yourselves. You won’t find that such a pushover. Sheer malice and destruction, the pair of you. I sentence you both to six months.

ORTON   Both? Fucking Ada!

HALLIWELL   It was your idea.

ORTON   But I’m the youngest.

EXT. OPEN PRISON. DAY. 1962.

Orton, stripped to the waist, exercises with the weights on a lawn in the sunshine.

PEGGY   (voice-over) Prison worked wonders for Joe. Made a man of him if you like. And being a man, of course, he made out of it much more of an ordeal than in fact it was.

LAHR   (voice-over) Where did he go?

PEGGY   (voice-over) Brixton, for about five minutes. Then one of those open places in Sussex. Quite near my health farm actually, and with much the same effect.

LAHR   (voice-over) Though at rather less expense.

PEGGY   (voice-over) Yes.

INT. PRISON PSYCHIATRIST’S OFFICE. DAY. 1962.

PSYCHIATRIST   What about your parents?

ORTON   Dead. Both of them, when I was a little kiddy. I’m an orphan. The guy I share a room with, Ken, he cracks on he’s the orphan. Don’t you believe it. Reckons he got up one morning and found his dad with his head in the gas oven and didn’t even call an ambulance. How is he by the way?
The Psychiatrist nods.

INT. PRISON PSYCHIATRIST’S OFFICE. DAY. 1962.

The sound of Halliwell weeping out of shot.

PSYCHIATRIST   Well, that was your mother. Tell me about your father.
Halliwell blows his nose.

HALLIWELL   Nothing to tell. I was eighteen. Came down one morning and found him with his head in the gas oven.

PSYCHIATRIST   You called the ambulance, naturally?

HALLIWELL   Eventually. I made a cup of tea first. Well, he was quite plainly dead.

PSYCHIATRIST   You weren’t fond of him?

HALLIWELL   Not particularly.

PSYCHIATRIST   You’re fond of your room-mate?

HALLIWELL   We’re everything to one another.

PSYCHIATRIST   Sleep together, do you?

HALLIWELL   No, but we have sex.
Psychiatrist smiles patiently.

PSYCHIATRIST   Are you sure?