Orton, aged sixteen, knocks at a little semi-detached house with a brass plate on the gate. An impressive matronly woman opens the door.

ORTON   Mrs Lambert?

MADAM LAMBERT   Madam Lambert.

INT. MADAM LAMBERT’S HOUSE. DAY. 1950.

They have come inside. She is looking at his letter.

MADAM LAMBERT   You are anxious to improve your diction?

ORTON   (mutters) Yes, Madam Lambert.

MADAM LAMBERT   What is your chosen field?

ORTON   I want to be an actor.

MADAM LAMBERT   Indeed? Leicester has produced some fine actors. Leicester is the home town of Richard Attenborough. Tea? You’ll find a biscuit in the barrel.

INT. MADAM LAMBERT’S HOUSE. DAY. 1950.

Orton sits with a book open. He has just been reading.

MADAM LAMBERT   … movement, elocution. These I can teach you. The arts proper to the stage: how to smoke a cigarette with poise, elegance and, above all, conviction. The powder compact as a means of expression. Go to any production in the West End and you will see these arts brought to a pitch of perfection. But all that is as nothing without the one essential requirement.

ORTON   I have the money.

MADAM LAMBERT   Money! Pish. I am not speaking of money. I am speaking of talent. Judging by what you’ve read, you have no talent. No talent whatsoever.

ORTON   I still want to learn.

MADAM LAMBERT   Bravo! No marks for talent. Full marks for the Dunkirk Spirit.
She toasts him with the teacup.

INT. ORTON’S BEDROOM. DAY. 1950.

Orton is pinning up a poster of an amateur performance on the wall.

INT. ORTON HOUSE. LIVING ROOM. DAY. 1950

Elsie Orton is raging.

ELSIE   Bloody plays!
She looks down at a stained bedspread.

INT. LEONIE’S HOUSE. DAY. 1980.

LEONIE   My mum didn’t have much of a horizon. She’d have liked him a civil servant. A suit every day of his life.

INT. ORTON HOUSE. LIVING ROOM. DAY. 1950.

ELSIE   Next time tell them to provide you with a costume. Using our bedspread. It’s wicked.

INT. ORTON’S BEDROOM. DAY. 1950.

Orton looks at his scrapbook. He has obviously been in several plays by now as there are various pictures and notices.

ELSIE   (voice-over) You’ll clean it! Covering it with distemper. It’s ruined. Bloody ruined.
She comes to the foot of the stairs.

(voice-over) I bet Dirk Bogarde didn’t distemper his mother’s bedspread!
He closes his scrapbook

(voice-over) Bloody disgusting. And get some clothes on.
Walking around like Sabu. I don’t know where to look.
There is a knocking at the front door and a sudden silence.

INT. ORTON HOUSE. HALL. DAY. 1950.

Elsie, at the foot of the stairs. Point of view from top of the flight.

ELSIE   (whispering) John. John.
Orton goes to the top of the stairs.

ORTON   What?