AIDAN. You want to be a writer or not?

CHARLOTTE. No, he wants to spend another nine months fetching your cappuccinos and judging tit shots. That’s why you did your MA, isn’t it, Sam?

AIDAN stands, excited.

AIDAN. No see this is what I’m talking about. We have an opportunity here, to move the readership on. The boys who started reading us ten years ago, they’re grown-ups now, they’re not out on the pull every Friday, they’re settling down, they’ve got mortgages, girlfriends they love. The climate is changing. They’re not just reading us for the tits any more.

RUPERT. Uh, I think the tits are quite a big part of it.

AIDAN. Okay, but they want to find a pair of tits to grow old with.

RUPERT. Again, I think they want to get old, while the tits stay the same age.

AIDAN. ‘How I Proposed to My Girlfriend.’ Seven hundred and fifty words. What do you think, Sam?

,

SAM. Wow.

AIDAN. Great.

SAM. Yeah, but –

AIDAN. What?

SAM. Just not sure –

AIDAN. You’re nervous, don’t be –

SAM. I’m not but –

AIDAN. I’ve read your samples.

SAM. I just / don’t think I want to.

AIDAN. You’re a good writer, what?

SAM. I don’t want to write about it.

AIDAN. Why?

SAM. Because it’s private.

AIDAN. The proposal?

SAM. Yeah.

AIDAN. But you just told us about it.

SAM. Yeah / but –

RUPERT. You did just tell us about it, mate.

SAM. But you’re my friends.

AIDAN. I’m not your friend.

SAM. No, sure but –

AIDAN. We’re your colleagues, I’m your boss. That’s why I’m asking you to – anyway, you don’t have to write the reality, you write the Doghouse version. When Rupert wrote the piece on being dumped by Pippa Middleton, that wasn’t you know that wasn’t gospel that wasn’t, you know, vérité, was it?

RUPERT. No. For a start, okay, it was me that dumped her –

The others groan, they’ve heard this grievance rehearsed before.

CHARLOTTE. Yeah yeah, we know, you’re too good for her –

RUPERT. For the party planner? Yes, / as a matter of fact –

AIDAN. What I’m saying is, this isn’t, I’m not asking for gonzo journalism here. I mean, hopefully the real thing won’t go wrong but it would be good, wouldn’t it, Charlotte, if when Sam writes about it, it goes wrong? A little / bit –

SAM. Wrong?

AIDAN. You know, awry.

RUPERT. Tits up.

CHARLOTTE. Just, structurally, if there were some obstacles –

AIDAN. You might forget the ring.

RUPERT. Or you might get cold feet.

CHARLOTTE. The island might’ve been used for chemical-weapons testing and the beach might be littered with the bodies of dead puffins.

AIDAN. Keep it light.

RUPERT. Get pictures.

AIDAN. Yes, get pictures, Charlotte, can we loan Sam a decent camera?