BBC2 Play of the Week

Helen Langrishe:
[speaking to herself, alone in bed] Poking about again. Poking about as usual. I've eyes in my head. I won't go out again. I won't go down again. I'll stay where I am. I'll stay here, in my bed. [takes letter from behind pillow] I'm no good without you. Your lovely body. Love of all my life and all my senses. Days are passing, years could go by. Oh, my love, the happiness we had. Your lovely body. Love of all my life and all my senses.

Imogen Langrishe:
What star is that?

Otto Beck:
Venus.

Imogen Langrishe:
I thought it was Hesper.

Otto Beck:
Hesper? No, no, unmistakably Venus. The brightest of the planets - -a planet in fact, not a star.

Imogen Langrishe:
I thought they were the same.

Otto Beck:
The same - -the same as what?

Imogen Langrishe:
The same as each other, planets and stars.

Otto Beck:
Decidedly not. Planets are closer than stars, for one thing, and nine of them revolve around the sun against a background of constant stars that do not move. How does one know it's Venus, you ask? Well, because it's the brightest of planets and because it's in the position it should be, if it is Venus, moving in the direction Venus ought to move in. How then can it be anything else but Venus?

Imogen Langrishe:
I see.

[About the victory of the Czech football team.]

Grayson:
There'll be Czechs bouncing in the streets of Prague tonight.

Anderson:
I wouldn't be nervous about flying if the wings didn't wag. Solid steel. Thick as a bank safe. Flexing like tree branches. It's not natural.

Anderson:
Now a philosopher exploring the difficult terrain of right and wrong should not be over-impressed by the argument 'a child would know the difference'. But when, let us say, we are being persuaded that it is ethical to put someone in prison for reading or writing the wrong books, it is well to be reminded that you can persuade a man to believe almost anything provided he is clever enough, but it is much more difficult to persuade someone less clever.

Anderson:
[on learning that McKendrick lectures at Stoke University] An excellent university, I believe.

McKendrick:
[sarcastically] You know perfectly well you wouldn't be seen dead in it.

Anderson:
Even if that were true, my being seen dead in a place has never, so far as I know, been thought a condition of its excellence.