The Oberon Book of Modern Monologues for Men: Volume Two

Using our poltergeist powers turn off a light

On October the tenth, at ten o’clock precisely.

The tenth of the tenth at ten.

All the tens, you said.

Never gonna forget that, are we?

We spat in our hands and shook: I shook Welly’s hand,

Welly shook Rob’s hand, Rob shook Huw McArthur’s, Huw

McArthur shook yours, and then you shook mine

And shaking spit round the gang

Sealed our oath –

That for the rest of our lives, on the tenth of the tenth, at ten

We would all be looking out

For a message from the dead, in the dying of an electric light.

And then we all had to finish our chips eating with the wrong hands

Cos our right hands were covered in spit.

…

And yeah

That first year

On the tenth of the tenth, at ten

I was on the look-out.

LOVE STEALS US FROM LONELINESS

by Gary Owen

This play was commissioned and produced by the National Theatre Wales and its first performance was at Hobos, Bridgend on 7 October 2010.

Set in Bridgend in Wales, Love Steals Us from Loneliness focuses on the family and friends of a teenager (Lee) killed in a car accident. SCOTT was Lee’s best friend. He confessed love for Catrin, Lee’s girlfriend, and kissed her. Catrin told Lee and, consequently, Lee stormed off in his car. This excerpt occurs in the second half of the play when SCOTT remembers back to a time when he, Welly, Huw, Rob and Lee made a pact that whoever died first would send a message to the others (proving there was life after death). However, after Lee’s death, the message didn’t come at the agreed time.

SCOTT

We used to go for chips every dinner time.

We’d cross Merthyr Mawr Road, then cut in the back of the tennis club.

Then by the side of the river, into town.

There was a chip shop with a pool hall above.

It’s a rock club now.

You may know it.

We’d bomb down there and wander back

Stopping on the bridge, sitting on the stones in Newbridge

Fields for a bit

With chip cones steaming off vinegar in our hands.

One day you said

D’you think you go on after you die?

Or is that just it, once you’re gone you’re gone?

You said, it’d be handy to know either way.

But so far no-one in history had figured it out.

And you said

Well then boys.

Looks like it’s down to us.

We decided that whoever ghosted first should return and

worked. You could see its heart or whatever. And I started to think, you know, how much of a dog could you actually get rid of and it would still work.

I was looking it up on the internet and stuff. Like, what’s like actually inside a dog?

And there were pictures from like scientific experiments and stuff where there’s only, there’s not quite a whole dog. It’s like, some of it’s been cut away. Like when you’ve started eating a chicken and it’s in the fridge the next day.

So I did sketches of these like science dogs. And you could see their skulls or whatever. Their ribs with a heart. Shaped like a proper heart.

Anyway.

It was quite lucky that my mum started getting really ill, in a way, because no one was thinking about Shreds. So I could just… No one was like, where’s Shreds?

And then I read this thing about where you take the bark out. Like you can actually debark them, surgically. Or not necessarily exactly surgically exactly. But so then it’s just… Because it’s easier after that.

But I wouldn’t do that to you. Necessarily.

THE LOSS OF ALL THINGS

by Chris Goode

from SIXTY-SIX BOOKS: 21st-Century Writers Speak to the King James Bible

Sixty-Six Books: 21st-Century Writers Speak to the King James Bible was first performed at the Bush Theatre in London on 10 October 2011. On 14 and 28 October, the sixty-six texts were performed back-to-back in an all-night vigil at the Bush. On 28 October they were performed complete at Westminster Abbey.

Sixty-Six Books is a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. Sixty-six writers were commissioned to interpret a book from the KJV for the twenty-first century. They include playwrights, poets, novelists and songwriters differing in gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation and faith. The Loss of All Things is Chris Goode’s response to the ‘Philippians’. TIM is a thirteen-year-old boy in Year 9. His best friend is Paul, who is thinking about killing himself. Instead, TIM wants to keep Paul alive in a room at the back of the cellar to practise his experiments on, just like he did with the family dog.

TIM

…when I was younger, couple of years ago, and my mum was starting to get ill, my mum and my dad got me a dog. I’d wanted a dog for ages and they said I could have a dog as long as it was me that took care of it and everything. It was called Shreds. It was a lab retriever. Friendly. Good personality. There were two of them, Shreds and Patches. And they got split up because the owner couldn’t cope any more. She had a, um…nervous breakdown.

And it was fine, for a while, having Shreds around, and then I started thinking about how it would be interesting to have a dog that was like a ghost or something. Like it would still follow you around but it wouldn’t quite be alive exactly. So I got this notebook, you know, and I started doing drawings of ghost dogs and weird sort of not-quite dogs and dogs that were made out of rubbish and stuff.

And I drew this one that was like a skeleton dog. But it still