In the Bleak Midwinter

Molly:
You're not going to drive that old heap are you? With live people in it?

Joe Harper:
With actors in it. There is a difference.

Fadge:
You see, we must make the design all about space. People in space. Things in space. Women in space. Men in space.

Tom Newman:
So we'll sort of be space men?

Fadge:
In a sense.

Joe Harper:
It was late November, I think, and I was thinking about the whole Christmas thing: the birth of Christ, the Wizard of Oz, family murders, and quite frankly, I was depressed.

Joe Harper:
I'd always wanted to live my life in an old movie, sort of a fairytale, you know. Mind you, I suppose, if you think that most fairytales turn out to be nightmare and a lot of old movies are crap, then that's what I did.

Joe Harper:
You know the way doctors say that nervous breakdowns can happen very fast and dramatically, sort of a big bang, or there are the other kind which happen very slowly over a period of time. I was thirty-three years old, and this one had started when I was seven months and had just begun to take hold.

Joe Harper:
I've been an actor now for eleven years. If everything had gone according to Laurence Olivier's book, I'd have known triumph, disappointment, and married a beautiful woman. Instead, I've known tedium, humiliation and shacked up with a psycho from hell.

Tom Newman:
Hamlet isn't just Hamlet. Oh no, no, no. Oh, no. Hamlet is me. Hamlet is Bosnia. Hamlet is this desk. Hamlet is the air. Hamlet is my grandmother. Hamlet is everything you ever though about sex, about geology . . .

Joe Harper:
Geology?

Tom Newman:
In a very loose sense, or course.

Joe Harper:
Let me introduce you to our designer. This is Fadge.

Nina Raymond:
Did he say "Vag?"

Tom Newman:
I'm glad she uses the abbreviation.

Carnforth Greville:
She does seem to have bit of a vision problem, doesn't she?

Fadge:
She's brushed her teeth with soap for the last three nights, but she won't admit it.

Molly:
What is the show, anyway? My brother wouldn't even tell me. Oh, I hope it's something Christmasy, a comedy.

Molly:
Great. "Hello kids. Do stop watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and come and watch a four hundred year old play about a depressed aristocrat."

Vernon Spatch:
Rachmaninoff. That bit in Brief Encounter. And Brief Encounter, actually. That makes life worth living. I'll buy you the video for Christmas.

Carnforth Greville:
If I ever forget my lines in Shakespeare, I always say "Crouch we here awhile and lurk!" That seems to do the trick.

Molly:
Why? What happens?

Carnforth Greville:
Nothing, normally, but, you know, improvise a moment of intrigue, give you a chance to think of something, pick up a script.

Carnforth Greville:
If I ever forget my lines in Shakespeare, I always say, "Crouch we here awhile and lurk."

Tom Newman:
The fight! If it all goes wrong, drop the sword, take this off, and throw it at me. Then I say, "The boot! The boot was poisoned!" and die.

Nina Raymond:
You've turned into an old sweetie, haven't you?

Henry Wakefield:
No, I'm still a miserable git, and this is all a front to stop you from missing up my performance.

Audience Member:
Any ice cream?

Fadge:
We have herbal tea, natural fruit juice, organic rice cakes, balsamic chocolate, and straw.

Audience Member:
But any ice cream?

Fadge:
What are you, a fascist?

Vernon Spatch:
You're doing wonderfully well. Tell me, are your nipples hard?

Fadge:
If they were any harder, Tom could do chin-ups from them.

Terry Du Bois:
'Tis a far, far better thing I do now than I did that night with the sailor and the artichoke.

Carnforth Greville:
Go easy on yourself, old chap. I'm afraid we can't all afford the luxury of nourishing our souls. That's the prerogative of the romantics among us, I fear. These things happen. What does he say?

Carnforth Greville:
"If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all."

Nina Raymond:
And you have me.

Joe Harper:
Really?

Nina Raymond:
If you like.

Henry Wakefield:
Get his name on the dotted line, love. He's a shifty git.