Here is the first scene of my failed Sitcom Trials entry. I like it and want to finish a full length episode to send off elsewhere for further rejection and then eventually give up and film for You Tube, so I would appreciate all and any constructive criticism. Many thanks.
Actually, after some useful advice I have decided to be braver and post the whole thing.
TITLE - PERSONAL SPACE
SCENE 1 – INTERIOR SPACE SHIP WALL VOID
SIGN ON THE WALL READS 'WALL VOID 17' - HMSS SPACE ARK.
WE SEE TWO MEN, TIM AND MATT, WHO ARE LATE 20'S ISH.
MATT, WHO IS FAIRLY CHUNKY, IS SLUMPED IN ONE CHAIR WITH HIS FEET UP ON ANOTHER. HIS HEAD LOLLS BACK, AS HE SNORES AND DROOLS.
TIM IS ANXIOUSLY PRESSING HIS EAR AND HANDS TO THE WALL.
TIM
Oh my God Matt! (RUNNING OVER AND SHAKING MATT'S ARM) Wake up we're moving!
MATT
What d'you do that for? D'you know how long it took me to get to sleep on these bloody uncomfortable chairs?
TIM
(INDIGNANT) Oh well I'm sorry, they were the best I could do under the circumstances. Unfortunately, I'd already used up all my ingenuity and shit-your-pants daring when I managed to sneak us aboard amid the toughest security since Peter Andre's state funeral.
MATT
Yeah, well that don't make me no more comfy.
THEY GLARE AT EACH OTHER FOR A MOMENT, THEN SUDDENLY TIM SCREWS HIS FACE UP IN DISGUST.
TIM
Eugh, have you just farted? We are in an enclosed space that is just downright inconsiderate.
MATT
Can't help it, you know I get travel trumps. At least they're not as bad as on that school trip to the Isle of Wight that time.
TIM
The one where you farted on a scout?
MATT
He shouldn't have been wearing camouflage.
TIM
Khaki in the jungle is camouflage, khaki on a P&O ferry is generally considered just clothing.
MATT
Yeah well he was sat very still.
TIM
He certainly was after you sat on him (BEAT) until the vomiting started.
Look if this turns into more than just bad wind please remember that we don't have any of the usual conveniences here, i.e. you're going to have to make it to the bucket in wall void 18 (BEAT) and aim carefully.
MATT
I'm not going in a bucket if I get the travel squits.
TIM
Well you're not going in here!
MATT
What d'you think I am an animal? I'll just stick my arse through that access panel down there and do it over the canteen sink.
TIM GASPS HORRIFIED
MATT
What? I'll run the tap.
TIM
Oh you'll run the tap, well that's alright then, go ahead defecate in a food preparation area, that's not a sure way to get our stowaway status discovered.
MATT
Don't freak out Timmy-Tim, even if it doesn't fully wash away, who's to know it wasn't done by one of the people what is supposed to be on board?
TIM
(INCREDULOUS) Let's see, who on a space ship carrying the most brilliant minds of our time, selected specifically for what they could contribute to a new society on Mars, who could it be that shat in the canteen sink? Maybe it was Dame Kirstie Allsopp, no, no I know, Sir Stephen Fry?
MATT
There's kitchen staff.
TIM
Chosen from 5 star restaurants where I suspect there has not actually been a long-standing tradition of shitting into the washing up.
MATT
Calm down man, I don't actually need to go right now (BEAT) or do I (LIFTS A CHEEK) no it's just another fart.
TIM SHAKES HIS HEAD IN DISGUST AND SIGHS CLEARLY UNHAPPY.
MATT
Oh I see what this is about, you didn't want me to follow you on board did you? You didn't forget to tell me about it at all, you was deliberately gonna leave me behind to get squished by that meteorite, I knew it.
TIM
No-wer. (GUILTILY) God you're so paranoid. (STUMBLING) Would I have navigated us through that yard of Alsatians and barbed wire if I didn't want you here?
MATT
You didn't even know I was behind you til we was on board.
TIM
Yeah, I'd been meaning to ask, how did you even get into the compound? It's at least 3 kilometres of open air from the perimeter fence, and it's patrolled by helicopters. I had to steal a pass from one of the directors at work just to get on the transfer bus.
MATT
(SHRUGS) Hid in the toilet stairwell.
TIM
On my bus?! What if someone had needed the toilet during the journey?
MATT
No-one did. (HURT) You still haven't said how comes you never asked me to go wiv you?
TIM
Obviously, I knew you that you would follow me, obviously. You hid on my bus just hoping that no-one would spot you, how do you do that? How do you do everything you do without weighing up any of the risks?
MATT
(SHRUGS) Still if you knew I was following you then why did you scream like a girl when you saw me?
TIM
I was just pleased we'd both made it, y'know (WAVES HANDS FROM ELBOWS EXCITEDLY AND SHRIEKS LIKE AN EXCITED GIRL).
MATT
Oh ok then, only I'd remembered it more like (JUMPS CLUTCHES HIS CHEST SHRIEKING IN HORROR).
TIM
No it was definitely celebratory (DOES ANOTHER LESS ENTHUSIASTIC MINI VERSION OF THE EXCITED SHRIEKING).
MATT
Alright then so how comes you didn't even tell me you was gonna try and get on board? How comes I only knew about it coz I overheard you in the Rose & Crown whispering to your big mate Martin the Mong about it?
TIM GASPS AND HIS EYES WIDEN GUILTILY.
TIM
Whispering? I don't know what you mean?
MATT
You didn't ask me. Me, Mr Been-best-mates-since-nursery and always had your back. No, you asks Mr Bean. Mr wears-his-jumper-over-his-shoulder, plays Pictionary, I've-got-an-house-in-the-suburbs.
TIM
No, no, no, (THINKS HARD) No, obviously I wanted you to overhear, I simply wanted to make sure that if we got caught you could say that you knew nothing about it. So really if you think about it, I was actually protecting you.
MATT
So why take the risk of asking that boring nurk? What if he'd said yes?
TIM
(RESENTFUL) Well, he didn't did he?
MATT
Do you love Martin? Do you wish he loved you too? Only I always thought you had a thing for that barmaid in the Rose&Crown, the one with the big…
TIM
Of course I don't love Martin, it's just that sometimes it is nice to have a conversation that doesn't revolve around binge-drinking or meercats.
MATT
Oh sorry Mr La-di-da what do you wanna talk about then? Caviar and Corgis?
TIM
Why would anyone want to talk about Caviar and Corgis that makes no sense?
MATT
I'll tell you what makes no sense, we went to the same school, lived on the same street, had the same mates, but you talks like that and I talks like this. You're always trying to be some-fin you're not Tim.
TIM
What's wrong with talking properly? And exactly how am I trying to be something I'm not? Is it my fantastic temp job at the call centre? Is it the dingy flat I share with you? Maybe it's my yellow Cinque-cento with the maroon door and wing?
MATT
Nah, it's your attitude. Always sucking up to Martin-types, please sir, be mates with me sir, I'll shine your boots Sir. Like that time at his birthday when you was after that Eleanor bird, she was like a barrister or somefink and so clearly out of your league mate.
TIM
She certainly was after you threw up into her Louis Vitton. (BEAT) It's a bag.
MATT
She's here you know, on board. Married some scientist to get her ticket.
TIM
(FEIGNING SURPRISE) Really? I didn't know that.
MATT
Yeah you did.
SCENE 2 – INTERIOR SPACE SHIP WALL VOID
TIM IS SAT ON HIS CHAIR HUDDLED UNDER A COAT. MATT WALKS BACK TO HIS CHAIR PULLING GUILTY FACES.
MATT
Bucket's full.
TIM
(JUMPING UPRIGHT) What?! We've only been here a few hours.
MATT
(SHRUGS) Drank a lot of Tizer.
TIM
That was supposed to last us til it got dark, when I was going to sneak out and dispose of it.
MATT
Isn't space always dark?
TIM
No… oh yeah, I suppose it is really. Ok, well I suppose I could see if it's safe to sneak out now then.
MATT
Or, I could just open that access panel and tip it down the canteen sink. (PULLS A FACE) But it is quite full, sooooo…
TIM
You can't just lean through! What if someone is in there preparing Salmon-en-croute? What's going to happen when they turn round to see you pouring a bucket of your Tizer-piss into their sink?
MATT
(SHRUGS) No-one was in there when I stole the Tizer.
TIM
You stole that! I assumed you brought it with you.
MATT
Oh yeah, coz I always carries round a 2 litre bottle of Tizer on the off chance.
TIM
Well, you do quite often have a large bottle of fizzy drink upon your person.
MATT
Oh yeah fair enough, but not this time, this time I'd nicked it.
TIM
Did you get anything else while you were there? I'm starving.
MATT
Crunchie?
TIM
Great!
MATT
But I ate it.
TIM
(DISAPPOINTED) Oh. (CONFUSED) Wait, what kind of elite space ark has a kitchen stocked with Tizer and Crunchies? What else did you see in there?
MATT
Some kind of shit organic biscuits and a dead posh bird.
TIM
A dead posh bird? (BEAT) So that's what happened to Lady Peaches Geldolf-Windsor? (NARROWS EYES) I didn't think they'd let her on alive.
MATT
Not that kind of bird you numpty, a bird-bird (FLAPS HIS ARMS). One of them with the long tails on 'em like on the whisky bottles.
TIM
Grouse or pheasant or something like that?
MATT
Yeah that type of thing.
TIM
Hmmm, do you still have the Crunchie wrapper?
MATT
Yeah, but I already licked it clean mate sorry. (HOLDS THE WRAPPER OUT IN HIS PALM SLIGHTLY ASHAMED).
TIM
(ROLLING HIS EYES) I don't want to lick it (TAKING IT) I'm not quite that desperate yet. I want to read it. (LOOKS CLOSELY) Oh God, just as I thought, by appointment to his majesty King Harry, just like the Tizer. Matt do you realise what this means?
MATT
I've got the same taste in snacks as the ginger king?
TIM
Worse, it means that you have just stolen the royal snacks from the King's private canteen. I knew his quarters were somewhere on this ship but I didn't realise we were actually squatting in them.
MATT
Squatting ha-ha (LAUGHS AND NODS THEN FACE FALLS) …coz of the bucket.
TIM
You seem to be missing the point, on a ship full of the cream of Britain, who would steal the King's private snacks?
MATT
(HOPEFUL) Jackdaws?
TIM
Try again.
MATT
(LOOKS DOWN ASHAMED) Stowaways?
TIM
Yep. We are, what I believe is generally termed, 'Royally screwed'. It's only a matter of time now before we're discovered, thanks Matt, thanks a bunch.
MATT
Wait. (THINKING HARD, EYES FLICKING WILDLY FROM SIDE TO SIDE). One Crunchie could easily have been dropped, or lost, and really what's in the bucket is still mostly Tizer, so we could…
TIM
I beg you not to finish that sentence if, as I suspect, at some point you are about to mention the word funnel.
MATT
But…
TIM
But nothing, stealing the king's Tizer is one thing, replacing it with your own piss is a step too far in anyone's book.
MATT
Only if he notices.
TIM
Only if he notices? I can smell that bucket from here, and we're currently in a separate room, so I'm guessing that once he raises the glass to his mouth…
MATT
Yeah, s'pose you're right. So what are we gonna do?
TIM
Nothing we can do, it was always going to end this way from the minute you followed me on board. (SIGHS HEAVILY) Oh well, may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
MATT
In English?
TIM
Eat our body weight in Crunchies and Tizer so that at least we're happily high on additives when they find us and fire us out into space to die.
MATT
(GETS UP AND RUBS HIS HANDS TOGETHER) Now you're talking my language! Hey, what about the pheasant?
TIM
(SHAKES HEAD IN DESPAIR) Just leave it.
SCENE 3 – INTERIOR SPACE SHIP WALL VOID
TIM AND MATT ARE SLUMPED IN THEIR CHAIRS WITH CHOCOLATE SMEARED ALL AROUND THEIR FACES.
MATT
Feel a bit sick now.
TIM
I'm not ready to die, this is the first exciting thing I've ever done and now it'll be my last. I've never bungee jumped, never travelled further than Majorca, (BITTER) never tried sorbet.
MATT
Sorbet's shit if that puts your mind at rest.
TIM
You'd think it would, but we are probably going to die in the next 48 hours so not-so-much.
MATT
This don't have to be it y'know. There's probably loads of other stowaways somewhere on board what could've nicked that Tizer.
TIM
Yeah but they didn't did they? You did. (SUDDENLY EXCITED) Wait, I see what you're saying. It's like that thing about lions, you don't have to outrun the lion just the person running next to you. (LAUGHS, THEN LOOKS POINTEDLY AT MATT).
MATT
I don't think they'll be chasing us with lions mate, if anything I'd of thought they'd use sniffer dogs?
TIM
(PINCHES BRIDGE OF NOSE) Yeah you're probably right.
A LOUD CREAK IS AUDIBLE.
MATT
(LAUGHING) Ooh scuse me.
TIM
It's not funny, what the hell was that? Shit is that footsteps?
FOOTSTEPS ARE CLEARLY HEARD
MATT
Nah it's just me tapping me feet.
TIM
No, it was a loud creak like an access panel being pulled open and then definite footsteps.
MATT
Nah it was just some random noise then me stamping, look. (STAMPS FEET).
TIM GRABS MATT AND TRIES TO PHYSICALLY RESTRAIN HIM.
MATT
Get off me!
TIM
Shhhhhhh!!!
MATT
I tolds you, it was nothin', there's no-one there. Look, (SINGS OUT A LA LIONEL RICHIE) Hello, is it me you're looking for?
A FIGURE IN A SECURITY GUARD TYPE OUTFIT APPEARS AT THE EDGE OF THE STAGE IN FRONT OF MATT AND TIM, SHINING A TORCH LIGHT INTO THEIR FACES. THEY GASP IN HORROR AND RAISE THEIR ARMS TO SHIELD THEIR EYES FROM THE LIGHT.
STRANGER
It is you I'm looking for, as a matter of fact.
END OF PART 1
FINALE
SCENE 1 – INTERIOR SPACE SHIP WALL VOID
TIM AND MATT ARE BACK IN POSITION SHIELDING THEIR EYES FROM THE SECURITY GUARDS TORCH AND HE IS STILL STOOD IN FRONT OF THEM MENACINGLY.
THE SECURITY GUARD LOWERS THE TORCH
TIM
Martin? What the hell are you doing here?
MARTIN
I sneaked on board dressed as a security guard.
TIM
No, I meant because when I asked you to sneak on board with me, you said that you couldn't bear to leave the dogs.
MARTIN
Erm (THINKS) well I wanted to surprise you …obviously.
TIM
Obviously yeah, although I did tell you that I was going to hide out in wall void 17 so why has it taken you over 5 hours to find me?
MARTIN
The thing is, it wasn't quite that simple Tim. I mean I came here with several other stowaways, my gang if you like, but anyway the empty suite we were hiding in wasn't as empty as we'd assumed and (BITES LIP) poor Jacinta, Wills, Anthony, Maurice, Chloe, Chloe, Chloe and Chloe they all well, (LOOKS AWAY MELODRAMATICALLY) they didn't all make it.
MATT
Is Anthony, Anthony what thinks a tent wiv names on it is art?
TIM
(WHISPERING) Yes, shhh!
MATT
(PUNCHING THE AIR BUT QUIETLY) Yessss!
TIM
Oh God Martin, I'm so sorry. Did they…
MARTIN
Fire them out into space? Yes I'm afraid as threatened they did. Such a dreadful waste, they were quite literally my 8 best friends. So then after that I thought it would be best to come and find you (HIS EYES WIDEN GUILITY) as I had always intended to do at some point, obviously.
TIM
So Martin if you lost your 8 best friends that would make me…
MARTIN
Well obviously you're my 9th best friend, but I mean that's no bad thing, my other best friends were of a very high calibre. Maurice was an interior designer, and he won 'Come Dine With Me' …well, he came second.
TIM PULLS AN 'OH WELL LA-DI-DA' TYPE FACE
ANOTHER LOUD CREAK IS SUDDENLY AUDIBLE
MATT
Shit that one wasn't me!
TIM
(THINKS, THEN STANDS CAUTIOUSLY AND GRABS MATT'S ARM) Yes it was Matt, come on let's get you to that bucket in Wall Void 18. Quickly now, we don't want any accidents. (PULLS A WORRIED FACE AND MIMES DIARRHOEA TO MARTIN).
MATT STANDS SLIGHTLY CONFUSED BUT TRUSTING TIM HE MOVES WITH HIM.
FOOTSTEPS ARE CLEARLY AUDIBLE NOW.
MARTIN
Good lord is that footsteps?
TIM
No, that's just us stamping our feet. (STAMPS FEET) Look clumsy us stamp-stamp (THEY WALK QUICKLY THEN RUN OFF STAGE).
A BRIGHT LIGHT SHINES ON MARTIN'S FACE, HE SHIELDS HIS EYES WITH AN ARM.
SCENE 2 – INTERIOR SPACE SHIP WALL VOID
MATT IS SAT BACK ON THE CHAIRS WHILST TIM PACES.
TIM
That was so close, I can't believe they came back and checked in here again. Martin must have dobbed us in. I can't believe he'd do that, I mean would you do that to your 9th best friend?
MATT
Dunno I've only got one best friend, but he just let his other mate get caught and fired out into space.
TIM
(GUILTILY) Poor Martin.
MATT
Poor Martin my bollocks, good riddance to bad rubbish, pretentious twat.
TIM
A man has been fired out into space, you should really show a little more respect (BEAT) even if he was a pretentious twat. (SIGHS) You know, I wish I could be more like you sometimes.
MATT
What fat? (RUBS HIS OWN BELLY LOVINGLY)
TIM
No, in the way you don't care what anybody thinks about you, you just say and do what you please and damn the consequences.
MATT
But Tim mate, I is you.
TIM
What?
MATT
I (POINTS AT HIMSELF) do not actually exist, I is just a manifestation of your inner psychic-ness.
TIM
You mean psyche.
MATT
Do I? (THINKS) Yeah.
TIM
So you're saying that you aren't real, you're just a different aspect of my personality? Another part of me?
MATT
Yes mate, you is Tyler Durden.
MATT THEN PUNCHES TIM HARD ON THE ARM, FARTS LOUDLY AND FALLS ABOUT LAUGHING.
TIM
There's no way that stench is part of my inner-psyche!
