THE NAP

Richard Bean

THE NAP

OBERON BOOKS
LONDON

WWW.OBERONBOOKS.COM

First published in 2016 by Oberon Books Ltd
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Copyright © Richard Bean, 2016

Richard Bean is hereby identified as author of this play in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The author has asserted his moral rights.

All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to United Agents, 12-26 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LE (info@unitedagents.co.uk). No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the author’s prior written consent.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or binding or by any means (print, electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

PB ISBN: 9781783197316
EPUB ISBN: 9781783197323

Cover artwork by The Unloved

Printed and bound by 4edge Limited, UK.
eBook conversion by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Characters

Act One

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Act Two

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

By the Same Author

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank my good friend Don Black, a snooker nut, for sparing the time to beat me on the baize and share with me his passion for the game. More technical snooker advice and support was given by Katie Henrick, the snooker professional at the RAC club. John Astley contributed further research notes on the modern world of snooker, and astonished me with his skill. Dennis Taylor was generous with his anecdotes, and liberal in giving out useful phone numbers. I visited the Gambling Commission in Birmingham and Richard Watson explained to me a typical match fixing scenario and thus supplied the plot.

I’d like to thank family and friends for reading the first few drafts and giving notes – Erica Whyman, Chris Campbell, Clive Coleman in particular. Robert Hudson, a fine Sheffield actor, helped me enormously with local colour.

Richard Bean, 2016

Characters

Dylan Spokes 23

Stella Spokes 50

Bobby Spokes 55

Danny Killeen 60

Mohammad Habib 40

Eleanor Sargent 25

Waxy Chuff 50

Duncan Ferryman / Danny Carr 30

Tony DanLino 30

Seth 50

Referee, stewards, etc as required

The Nap was first performed on 11 March 2016 at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, with the following cast:

Act One

SCENE ONE

A British Legion snooker room in Manor Top in Sheffield S12. Morning, but in this windowless basement, it’s dark. A clock on the wall shows 1.13 pm. The snooker table is bare, no balls are set, the table lights are not on. Enter DYLAN, a young man of about 25. He is wearing a baseball hat or youth hat a-la-mode, hoodie, jeans and trainers. He could be a burglar, and not the snooker professional that he is. He turns the main room lights on, and stands by the switch, not entering the room. He takes it in, expressionless. He is carrying nothing but a solid snooker cue case, and the room key which has two keys on it: one for the room, and one for the cupboard. A snooker room, for him, is a church and so all his actions are reverential and ritualistic as if to do something wrong would be to upset the God of Snooker. He does not suffer from OCD but his sport demands a ritual to which he adheres. He chooses to sit at one chair and table, sits and puts his cue case down. He gets the feel of the location, feels it’s wrong and so, not dramatically, he moves to the other table, sits, feels that it’s right, and only then does he make it his ‘office’. He puts his cue down, takes his hoodie off which reveals a Stone Roses T-shirt (I Wanna Be Adored). He takes off first his hat, then a signet ring from one of his fingers, and the St. Christopher medallion chain from around his neck and places them on his side table. It is as if he is purifying himself before touching the cloth. With care and patience, takes out his 3/4 cue and inspects the tip, which, finding it wanting, he files with a piece of sandpaper from his cue case. He then chalks it. Having done that, he finds his talcum powder in his cue case and dresses his cue with it. He puts one 20p piece in the light meter. The table lights come on. He approaches the table, looks at it as if trying to build a relationship with it. He runs his hand in a short stroke from baulk end to spot end and then back from spot end to baulk end. Having felt the nap, and judged the quality, depth and age of the baize he is convinced it needs ironing. He locates the cupboard and opens it with the key. From the cupboard, he takes the table iron and plugs it in. He takes the box of balls, inspects them, and takes one ball and rolls it against the cushions. He sets three or four balls for a trick shot, and plays it. Enter BOBBY, a man of about 55, his father. He has a copy of the Sun newspaper and a pack of prawn sandwiches, a yellow past the sell-by-date offer sticker, and a string bag of clementines. They acknowledge each other but don’t speak as DYLAN plays a shot. After the shot.

BOBBY: Do you want a prawn sandwich?

DYLAN gives him a look of contempt.

DYLAN: I don’t eat owt wi’ a brain.

BOBBY: They’re prawns, they’re not novelists.

DYLAN: Tony’s coming round.

BOBBY: I don’t like Tony.

DYLAN: Why don’t you like Tony?

BOBBY: ’cause he dun’t like me. Why dun’t he like me?

DYLAN: ’cause I told him you don’t like him.

BOBBY: I think Tony is total bastard. But that’s no reason for him not to like me.

DYLAN: It’s the way the world works, innit. Zen out, man.

BOBBY: What a dump. What a dump! What a dump. What a dump. What a dump. I mean … what … what … what … I mean … what a fucking dump. What a dump?! What kind of … I mean, look at that … if yer gonna … I mean, stands to reason, knowhatimean. I mean … what the fuck is … what a fucking dump. What a dump. Do you like it?

DYLAN: It’s perfect.

BOBBY: It’s not the Crucible, is it? What’s new?

DYLAN: Kittichat Wongsawat has pulled out.

BOBBY: Wahey!

DYLAN: Went home, to Bangkok. Stress.

BOBBY: You done that!

DYLAN: Yeah.

BOBBY: I went to Bangkok once. Kaw! Twenty hairy-arsed telecomms engineers on fifty quid a day spenders. First pub I went in there’s a lass sitting on the bar firing ping pong balls out of her fanny. Yeah! They’d be doing that in Worksop if they didn’t have television. You beat Wongsawat, eh? Must’ve felt good, eh?

DYLAN: Self-actualisation.

BOBBY: What’s that when it’s at home?

DYLAN: It’s the highest possible state of human happiness, when your mind and body are come together in, like, a beautiful symphony.

DYLAN plays a shot. BOBBY offers DYLAN an orange.

BOBBY: Do you want an orange? I don’t think they got brains. Got a bag full. £1.90 reduced. Was two pound forty, that’s a saving of er … £2.40 minus £1.90 is £2, no, er … £1 … fuck it, I saved a lot of money.

DYLAN: No, ta.

BOBBY: Do you know why there’s no orange ball in snooker?

DYLAN: You’re gonna tell me.

BOBBY: Back in 1875, when them army officers invented the game in India, they didn’t have orange. Oranges are the only thing in the natural world what’s orange. And they’d never seen one. Orange, the colour, didn’t exist.

DYLAN: Everyone’s always had orange, the colour.

BOBBY: No.

DYLAN: Bits of parrots.

BOBBY: Bits of parrots?

DYLAN: Yeah, and tigers, and lots of flowers, the inside of mangoes, and goldfish –

BOBBY: – alright! –

DYLAN: – and a whole section of the rainbow, and –

BOBBY: – alright! Someone in a pub told us, I didn’t think it through.

DYLAN: Lights.

BOBBY goes to the light meter.

BOBBY: 20p for eighteen minutes?! Do you want me to go and hit him for you?

DYLAN: No.

BOBBY: I was at school with that Gavin. If you threatened to punch him, he’d give you his milk.

DYLAN: I don’t want his milk. Close the door.

BOBBY goes to the door.

BOBBY: Ten quid the door doesn’t close properly.

DYLAN: I’m not betting on whether a door closes or not.

BOBBY: Bet on anything. Football – first throw in; cricket – broken windows; snooker – who’ll turn up with a black eye.

BOBBY closes the door, which doesn’t close properly.

You owe me ten quid!

DYLAN: I didn’t take the bet.

BOBBY: Alex Higgins turned up once, pissed, two black eyes, and obviously slept in a hedge. He was playing Steve Davis – sober, 20/20 vision, memory foam mattress.
Alex wiped the floor with him, 25 – 4. In his speech, Higgins tore the cheque in half, called the ref a cunt, fell over, cut his head on the trophy, and spent the night in A&E. Yeah, that’s what’s missing from the modern game, personalities.

DYLAN starts ironing the table, running it from baulk end to spot end in lines with a slight overlap. BOBBY reads his paper.

BOBBY: Brilliant! I love it. Fantastic!

DYLAN: What is it?

BOBBY: Robin Gibb’s died.

DYLAN: Who’s he?

BOBBY: One of the Bee Gees.

DYLAN: And why is that brilliant/fantastic?

BOBBY: Cheers me up every time a vegetarian dies of cancer.

DYLAN: Why do you find it so ridiculous that someone might choose to live by a set of principles?

BOBBY: Alex Higgins. He had a strict diet.

DYLAN: Vegetarian? The Hurricane? Bollocks!

BOBBY: He’d only eat raspberry jam sandwiches.

DYLAN: Why?

BOBBY: ’cause they’re the only thing that tastes just as good coming up as they do going down.

DYLAN: What did he believe in?

BOBBY: Booze, birds. My mate, Eddie Fredericks, brilliant amateur, he was a believer. Jesus Christ.

DYLAN: He was a Christian?

BOBBY: Christianity, yeah. It was like a fucking religion to him.

BOBBY is reading the paper.

Here, let me do that.

BOBBY takes over the ironing.

To be fair, it’s in good nick, for Manor Top. No puke on the baize, no skag needles in the pockets, and no one’s had a shit in the bin.

DYLAN: It’s not a bad table, as it happens.

BOBBY: Glad to be back home, are you? Your room alright?

DYLAN: Yeah, cool.

BOBBY: I don’t let out your room, you know. I could. Could get eighty quid a week if I put another student in there, but I don’t.

DYLAN: