George, Betty, Rufus, Pauline, Stella, Dickie, Oscar and Svend stand talking and drinking. Harold circulates with a tray of drinks, Glyn with canapés. Rufus, Betty and Dickie are in a group, glasses in hand.

RUFUS   In the 1930s one could buy a three-bedroom house in a London suburb for between six and seven hundred pounds and a good second-hand car for less than a hundred pounds. A typical dinner in 1937 would consist of soup, sole Colbert, roast chicken and bacon or roast beef with appropriate vegetables, chartreuse of fruit or sherry trifle, biscuits and cheese and coffee. The price was five shillings a head. The wine list might offer a 1923 vintage champagne for thirteen-and-sixpence, a Liebfraumilch for five shillings, and a Graves for four-and-six.
Harold moves in with the drinks; they each take another glass.

BETTY   With coal twenty-seven-and-six a ton.

DICKIE   The 1930s was a decade of increasing prosperity – except of course for the unemployed. And they were very much a minority.
Harold walks on to another group. Oscar is holding forth to Svend, Stella and Rufus.

OSCAR   We have seen it.

STELLA   Isn’t it terribly bleak? We’re going next week.

RUFUS   Terribly bleak. You can’t get in.

OSCAR   The true optimist does not maintain that cruelty and misery are optical illusions. The optimism that gives life instead of denying it simply declares that the universe does make sense. I have no doubt (for the limits of foolishness have not yet been reached by the human race) that some will call this piece sentimental and therefore false. Dolts! While they stand on one leg and itch, this beautiful, funny and ripely theatrical parable is demonstrating that it is true precisely because it is true.
Glyn is handing out canapés from a plate on a small silver tray. We follow him across to where Betty is standing with Svend.

BETTY   Do you like champagne?
Svend is politely impassive.
I adore champagne … I simply adore it.
After a pause she gives up and moves to another group – Oscar standing with George, Pauline, Stella.

GEORGE   How’s mental illness, Oscar?

OSCAR   I shall shortly be opening another clinic.

PAULINE   That’s three.

OSCAR   Four.

GEORGE   According to one forecast, the mad will soon outnumber the sane. One in three people under the age of sixty already have some experience of a mental institution.

BETTY   How gruesome!
Harold passes with drinks again.

OSCAR   Your father sends his love.

STELLA   How is he?

OSCAR   He sat in a chair yesterday for a full quarter of an hour.

STELLA   He sounds wonderful.

PAULINE   What a pretty bracelet, Svend. Is it gold?

STELLA   It looks like gold.
Svend smiles and says nothing.

GEORGE   What’s it for?

OSCAR   Nothing. No function at all. That’s the beauty of it.
Oscar and Svend move away.

GEORGE   How did he meet him?

PAULINE   How does he meet any of them? Applied for a job at the clinic. He’s a male nurse.