The Grass Is Greener |
| INTERVIEWER Mervin, how long have you been in show business? |
| MERVIN Ever since I was seventeen. Eight years. (looking very much older) |
| INTERVIEWER Eight years. |
| MERVIN Nearly eight years. |
| INTERVIEWER And what position are you holding at the moment? |
| MERVIN Sort of like upright but relaxed like yourself. |
| INTERVIEWER No, I meant in show business. |
| MERVIN (mumbles) |
| INTERVIEWER I beg your pardon? |
| MERVIN I'm a chorus boy. |
| INTERVIEWER How did you start? |
| MERVIN Well, you see, it all started for me down in Bournemouth. When, unbeknownst to myself, my then fiance took a snapshot of me while I was at the water's edge, having a paddle. She sent the snap up to the town hall. The next thing I knew I'd been entered for the knobly knees contest. Well I didn't want to let my fiance down so I went through with it, but I can't tell you how I felt, stood up there in front of all those ogling women with my kneecaps... completely naked. After the competition, which incidentally I won (laughing to himself), there was a party and that was my downfall. Yes, I tasted the sweet life. I tasted the Docchi Vita of Boscombe and Poole. |
| INTERVIEWER Is there any truth in the rumour that there's a certain amount of cheating in the knobly knees contest? |
| MERVIN It's a shame to have to tell you this but, some of the men wear falsies. |
| INTERVIEWER Falsies? |
| MERVIN Flesh-coloured plastic kneecaps. It's gotten to the stage where, before every competition, a nurse goes around with a little hammer, tapping them and testing them. I can't tell you how embarrassing it is when one of them drops off. It's getting to be like cattle market now. It's no wonder I joined the Men's Liberation Movement. |
| INTERVIEWER You did rather well and you found yourself in several touring plays. I believe you played leads. |
| MERVIN Yes I did. And Manchester and Birmingham and all over. Oh yes, I was a bit of a hell-raiser in those days. They used to call us the Rat Pack. Not just me, there was Athini Sila, Edith Evans, Kathlene Harrison, Robert Morley, all are drinkers you know. Oh, after the show every night we'd go into the Queen's Arms there, and many a nights I've downed as many as seven pints of shanty straight off. |
| INTERVIEWER You lived life with a big 'L'. |
| MERVIN And sometimes I suffered pain with a big 'P'. Like when I met this terrible agent. This lady producer, she said, "I'm having this surprise party." I got the surprise when I got there, I can tell you. Carrying on like that. It was disgraceful, like that film about Gomorro and that other place, you know. A tower of babell there, it was full of beatniks with long sideboards full of drink. No, I mean the side... they had sideboards, it was full of drink. Some of the men was just as bad. I tell you, there, I tell you there was witches there, they were practicing witchcraft. Not just lady witches but men witches, they had men witches there. |
| INTERVIEWER Warlocks. |
| MERVIN It's true, I tell you. There... there was men witches there. |
| INTERVIEWER Warlocks. Male witches. |
| MERVIN Oh, I see, yes. They said to me... they said, "She's waiting for you in her den." So, of course, I went straight in. |
| INTERVIEWER You're really taking an awful chance. I mean you're really very attractive. |
| MERVIN (smugly) I know. Well I thought I'd be all right, because everyone said she was a Lebanese. When I got in there she was all dressed up in this like leather gear, you know. And she said, "Here, put that on," and she give me a Russian army officer's uniform, and give me a copy of the TV times and said, "Hit me with it." |
| INTERVIEWER She was a masochist! |
| MERVIN Well she spoke fluent English, I tell you. Well I come out of there and these like witch people, they was all like stood around, you know, and they said there was kind of a symbolic sacrifice. They was gonna go out and get an eighteen-year-old virgin. |
| INTERVIEWER Where was this? |
| MERVIN Chelsea. |
| INTERVIEWER Ah. |
| MERVIN That's what I thought, some hope, you know. Anyway, then they all started looking at me. |
| INTERVIEWER And what steps did you take? |
| MERVIN Bloody long ones, I tell you. I was out of there like a shot. |
| INTERVIEWER What plans have you for the future? |
| MERVIN Well I hope to get into a nice show with some decent people. I've been on with this part in Oh Calcutta, you see. |
| INTERVIEWER Oh Calcutta? |
| MERVIN Yes. Well it will be full of Indians, won't it? You know. And I've seen them on the television in the documentaries, when the bath in the Ganges they don't even take their nightshirts off, so there won't be any nudity or anything like that, you know. |
| INTERVIEWER Mervin Cruddy, thank you. |
| MERVIN (muffled by audience applauding) It's all right. Do you really find me attractive? |
| INTERVIEWER Ssh. |
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