The company included Linda Bassett, Danny Dyer, Douglas Hodge, Patrick Marber, Kika Markham, Catherine McCormack, Corin Redgrave, Samantha Robson, Gary Shelford, Andy de la Tour, Frances de la Tour, Penelope Wilton, Susan Wooldridge, Henry Woolf

Director Gari Jones

PRESS Sir, before you became Minister of Culture I believe you were the head of the Secret Police.

MINISTER That is correct.

PRESS Do you find any contradiction between those two roles?

MINISTER None whatsoever. As head of Secret Police it was my responsibility, specifically, to protect and to safeguard our cultural inheritance against forces which were intent upon subverting it. We were defending ourselves against the worm. And we still are.

PRESS The worm?

MINISTER The worm.

PRESS As head of the Secret Police what was your policy towards children?

MINISTER We saw children as a threat if—that is—they were the children of subversive families.

PRESS So how did you employ your policy towards them?

MINISTER We abducted them and brought them up properly or we killed them.

PRESS HOW did you kill them? What was the method adopted?

MINISTER We broke their necks.

PRESS And women?

MINISTER We raped them. It was all part of an educational process, you see. A cultural process.

PRESS What was the nature of the culture you were proposing?

MINISTER A culture based on respect and the rule of law.

PRESS How do you understand your present role as Minister of Culture?

MINISTER The Ministry of Culture holds to the same principles as the guardians of National Security. We believe in a healthy, muscular, and tender understanding of our cultural heritage and our cultural obligations. These obligations naturally include loyalty to the free market.

PRESS How about cultural diversity?

MINISTER We subscribe to cultural diversity; we have faith in a flexible and vigorous exchange of views; we believe in fecundity.

PRESS And critical dissent?

MINISTER Critical dissent is acceptable—if it is left at home. My advice is—leave it at home. Keep it under the bed. With the piss pot.

He laughs.

MINISTER (cont.) Where it belongs.

PRESS Did you say in the piss pot?

MINISTER I’ll put your head in the piss pot if you’re not careful.

He laughs. They laugh.