Lost Empires

Richard Herncastle:
[narrating] Christmas eve - my first away from home. Not that I had a home any more. But Christmas is the time for remembering it - and loneliness stabs like a pain.

Vesta Tilley:
[singing] We've watched you playing cricket and every type of game./In football, golf, and polo you men have made your name./But now your country calls you to play your part in war,/And no matter what befalls you, we shall love you all the more./So come and join the forces, as your fathers did before.

Richard Herncastle:
[narrating] 'Join the Army, boys.' It's a fine life, they said. Make a man of you, they said. Only trouble was, some of us never got the chance to be men - they went straight from the cradle to the grave. Me, I should have known better. Long before I joined up I'd learned that life has a nasty habit of knocking you down and pushing your face in the muck. Before the war to end war, I was on the stage - on the stage, where the smiles are as bright as the lights - because you're not supposed to see the unhappiness and the pain.

Bill Jennings:
[on stage] I don't think the act is working.

Hank Johnson:
Oh, pal, don't take on so! Be positive!

Bill Jennings:
Okay - I'm positive the act isn't working.

Hank Johnson:
Well, whose fault is that, tightwad? Whoever heard of buying a comedy act from a French mime artist?

Bill Jennings:
It was a bargain!

Hank Johnson:
Some bargain! What did we get? Ten pages of blank paper!

Bill Jennings:
Yes, but we didn't know that till we had it translated.

Julie Blane:
We're all just props to Mr. Ollanton.