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7 Story of the Year |
From Mary Celeste |
[Follow-spot on Journalist with pencil and notebook, and newspaper; he's on the Gibraltar quayside. Elsewhere his Editor is picked out by the lamp on his office desk with typewriter, ticker-tape machine and so on; he's in London. Beyond or behind, a bevy of Girls, attired as Bathing Belles, who belong to the Newspaper Proprietor]
[Journalist is battling to get his bosses to run a Mary Celeste story, rather than their usual puerile scandals]
Journalist
I write for a publication
It's not quite the London Times
but we boost our circulation
by covering the sordid crimes
Editor
so my earnest young reporter
can earn a small retaining fee
with corpses fished from the water
and unnatural acts at sea
Journalist
But no! I said it to my editor
I made it very clear:
Go, tell our hungry creditors
I found the Story of the Year
Gimme a banner headline
'Public loves Mary Celeste'
Just you supply the deadline
And I'll supply the rest.
[Crowd thrilled by the idea of being in the newspaper]
Crowd
That's the stuff you ought to handle
That's the stuff we wanna read
That's the stuff you ought to handle
Journalist
{spoken} The public's sick of seaside scandal
[The Proprietor's Girls patiently explain that this is not what is required of the Journalist]
Proprietor's Girls
But the proprietor wants a tale that's juicy and embarrassing:
your disappearing sailors, that'll bore him stiff
try to find a link with hanky-panky in the garrison
or fallen women falling from the cliff
[Journalist is angered by this cheap tactic and his next verse is more passionate and critical; trashy backing-vocal 'oohs' and 'aahs' are sung by the Girls]
Journalist
You need the kind of mug that loiters
in the corridors of hell
who will telegraph to Reuters
any muck that he can sell
Editor
then we'll flog his filthy fantasies
to poor folk stuck in hovels
and his racy royal romances
to rich folk hooked on novels
[Journalist evidently sickened by this cynical creed: he picks examples from the paper he is carrying]
Journalist
But not me! I said it to my editor
I made it very plain
I'm not a garbage predator
with a gutter in my brain
Look at the muck you publish
'Millionaire in Harbour Rape'
'Spot the Load of Rubbish,
Win a Barbary Ape'
[Crowd not impressed by these headlines: they beseech the Editor to go along with the Journalist's suggestions]
Crowd
Use the ship, it's hunky dory
that's the stuff we wanna read
Use the ship, it's hunky dory
Journalist {spoken}
beats any monkey story.
[The Proprietor's Girls explain less patiently that this is not what is required of the Journalist]
Proprietor's Girls
But the proprietor needs a tale of corruption in the colony:
your disappearing sailors, that'll never sell
Try to find a link with a blackmail, or a felony?
And maybe throw a cannibal in as well?
Editor {spoken}
I mean, you wanna go on working, don't you?
[Crowd
evidently persuaded that this meretricious suggestion will make good reading; taking up his notebook and pencil, Journalist uncertainly capitulates]Crowd
Make it up, you got it brother
that's the stuff we wanna read
Make it up, you got it brother
Journalist {spoken}
'Read how the missing sailors ate each other'
But who's going to believe this?