Back Beached
Chapters (7)
  1. First Production
  2. CHARACTERS
  3. 259 DAYS BEFORE SURGERY
  4. PLAYWRIGHT’SNOTE
  5. DIRECTOR’SNOTE
  6. ABOUTGRIFFIN
  7. GRIFFIN STAFFAND DONORS

Extreme close-ups of pink lamb and earthy beetroot with a red wine jus and strawberry tart and figs wrapped in Parma ham and truffe ravioli

C-grade celebrity blonde who left Summer Bay three years ago, in a crimson bikini

I lost 15 kilos in just 16 weeks! I ate five times a day. Now that’s a plan I can follow. Call Jenny!

Close-up of hands massaging thyme butter into pheasant in a picture-postcard village and a toothless farmer raising a tumbler of red to the camera

Doe-eyed, peaches-and-cream, naughty goddess dribbling a finger smothered in whipped double cream across her pouting lips

Cheeky giggle as it drops into the milky folds of her soft white breasts

‘I want to make love to this cheese’

And who doesn’t?

Jamie Oliver looking a dickhead—

ARTY: Mum! I’m reading!

ARTY takes the remote and turns off the telly.

JOJO: But we always watch telly at this time.

ARTY: Not when I’m only allowed protein shakes we don’t.

JOJO: You hungry, love?

ARTY: No.

JOJO: You sure?

ARTY: Mum!

JOJO: Sorry, sorry.

ARTY: Don’t nag. It doesn’t make for a happy home life.

JOJO: But we are happy.

ARTY: Avoid arguments. It’s one of the 12 ways to win people to your way of thinking.

JOJO: Are we arguing?

ARTY: Y’know, I used to think people were scary. A puzzle I couldn’t find the pieces to. But a confident smile and changing who you are is all that’s stopping you from achieving success.

JOJO: You can’t trust people ’cause they smile, love. Some doctor stabbed eight kids in China and I bet he was full of smiles and lollypops.

ARTY: Mum, you have to listen to people. Sincerely. You can’t go off on tangents—it doesn’t make the other person feel valued.

You should read this book.

JOJO: What for? I already got the most important job in the world.

Looking after my Moon.

ARTY: You won’t have to when I’m thin.

JOJO: You’ll still need me to cook and clean.

ARTY: Haven’t you wasted enough years? Don’t you want to experience the joy of productivity? So at the end of your life you can say, ‘There, I did that, I achieved’. Otherwise, what have you got to show for anything?

Beat.

JOJO picks up a tile from the Scrabble board.

JOJO: They weren’t wasted. Them years—

ARTY: Don’t touch that! Lulu and I are in the middle of a game.

JOJO: Lulu?

ARTY: I meant Lou / ise—

JOJO: LULU?

Beat.