The Brexit Laments, Act I

The Brexit Laments

ACT I: AMANDA’S ABANDONED LASAGNE

Scene: a Civil Servant is alone in a dimly lit room. She is working at a furious pace. The rest of the room is full of empty desks stacked with piles of paper at varying angles. For some minutes all we hear is the clatter of her fingers on the keyboard. After some time she stands.

CIVIL SERVANT:

I can’t be doing with this

I have to get home

I have to make tea

I’ve been here three years

And I’ve barely got started

There’s no time to transfer

There’s no real scope

And I’ve an Aldi lasagne

In the fridge at home

I was going to make

My own garlic bread

I’ve got a Jamie Oliver recipe

I can’t

Be doing

with this

She circles the room, gracefully, expressively, before tripping on a filing cabinet as a parade of cleaners enters the room.

CIVIL SERVANT

Bugger

The cleaners begin to sing. There’s some dance business with mop handles and bucket. You know, like those annoying people with the bins that used to be on the Royal variety performance every bloody year.

CLEANERS:

She can’t be doing with this

She can’t be doing with this

She’s forgotten the lasagne

Went out of date last week

The junk mail is drifting

The milk’s got a fur coat

And when she checks her answerphone

She’s in for a nasty shock

Two of the cleaners attempt a tap dance, but there really isn’t room. A spotlight falls on the civil servant, stage left, tenderly holding a photograph of Liam Neeson

CIVIL SERVANT:

I like to think he’d murder for me

This photo, of course

Is a surrogate

A stand-in, a mere

Bit of wish fulfilment

For a Thursday afternoon, I did

have a photo

Of my father

Because the writer is male and God forbid

He should write a female character

Without daddy issues

But I have them, as it goes.

I do,  I’ve got

My Daddy’s eyes

And Daddy was a leaver and

Thanks to him there’s all this paperwork

So many laws to rewrite

So many statutes to burn

And I’ll never get to eat

My lasagne….

CLEANERS:

She’ll never eat her…….lasagne

A crescendo, the curtain falls, there’s the sound of muffled sobbing, and the clicking of a keyboard