The Marxist Lift.Honest Views please.

The Marxist Lift by Peter Musgrove

Idea of Marxist Lift. Set in Supermarket Car Park Lift. Random British town.

Various characters get in with shopping.

Lift always starts by saying “Ground Floor, going up “ and then gives various views from a Left wing , Marxist perspective.

Sketch One

Woman mid 20’s, shell suit, trainers, fag etc, gets into lift with 4 children under age of 10, screaming and messing about. She is obviously stressed to the point of breaking.

Lift: “Ground floor, Going up “.

Tracey continues to try to keep 4 young children and a trolley load of shopping in some kind of order.

Lift: “I admire the way you are trying to give the best to your children under very difficult circumstances. [slight pause]…I see some fruit in your trolley…you’re trying aren’t you …No partner around? “. Lift sighs at injustice of it all.

[Slight Pause]

Lift: “Wedge and Prosser in their Scottish children’s report suggest that kids from working class families are “Born to Fail “ at school because middle class parents monopolise all the best resources. Your children really have no chance and it’s really not your fault. Just the way society is structured. Capitalism demands that there has to be winners and losers. Second Floor. “

Lift door opens. Tracey struggles out with her 4 kids and shopping trolley.

Sketch Two

A middle aged couple enter the lift with a small bag of shopping each.

Lift: “Ground floor, going up “

Woman [in strong New York accent]: “Bob, we didn’t remember the wine for tonight already “. [‘already’ added on in a trying to sound New York Jewish kinda way]

Man [also strong New York accent]: “Hell Carol we are so disorganised here already. We’ll have to go back down [slight pause]….already”

Lift: “I can see you are both from the States….Would I be right in concluding East Coast?”

[Slight pause]

Lift: [obviously disapproving] “America, America, land of the free and the home of the brave eh “

[Slight pause]

Lift: “The great American Dream “.

[Slight pause]

Lift: “As long as you aren’t black or Muslim eh or happen to have something ‘they’ want “

[Slight pause]

Lift: “Oh and as long as you aren’t what your politicians lovingly call ‘trailer trash’ eh… Second floor”.

Doors open

American couple press ground floor button on lift to get the wine that they had forgotten.

Door remains open.

Lift: “Take the stairs you Imperialist bastards “

Sketch Three

Two well dressed [in a women’s Institute kind of way] women in their mid 50’s, enter the lift. One carrying a small potted plant, the other the Daily Mail.

Lift: “Ground floor, going up “

Woman One: [very upper middle class accent] “Felicity, What time should we pick you up for Mass later today? “

Woman Two: “At about four please Alice, you know Father Stone, he’s a stickler when it comes to punctuality “.

Both women have a little laugh to each other.

Lift: “Christianity eh….. [Slight pause]… Ah yes, Jesus, a truly great visionary “

[Slight pause]

Lift:” Have either of you read Pope Benedict XVI’s recent meditation about the cruelty of Capitalism and how it ultimately leads to the exploitation of the poor?... Second floor. “

Lift door opens. Two women begin to walk out.

Lift: “You carry on supporting the evil system”

Lift [under its breath] : “Couple of fecking half wits “

I liked it.

Can anyone hear the lift? Seemingly not.

Jude will like this too!

Any expression of true socialism is so discouraged nowadays. It was fashionable in the early 80's when Ben Elton used it to launch his career and then ditched it a.s.a.p. when it went out of vogue.

It needs to come back in some way. Comedy has become very tame. Bring back Spitting Image etc,

Marxist Lift could talk about a lot of stuff and get away with it simply by being an unthreatening lift.

I read through these three sketches a few times Kent Pete.

I really enjoyed them and reckon there`s a lot of mileage, political and otherwise, in that sussed out lift of yours.

Any idea where I could send them Jude ?.

Tony Benn, God bless him, is getting on a bit and might take the whole thing literally , leading him to hunt the length and breadth of Britain for the said lift. And I wouldn't want to do that to him would I.

Bless his wee Pipe.

Sorry no Kent Pete, someone else might though, although a scatter-gun indie approach could be good.

Just a thought, does this lift have a hidden chameleon-like persuasion at all, or is it always totally Marxist?

Oh Marxist to the core Jude. As I say there is a big gap in the market for this kind of stuff. It seems politically OK to come out with right wing stuff now but Marxism has lost it's appeal.

It would tend to attack people from Middle England. i.e The Daily Mail reading, catholics in Sketch 3.

I could possibly be brave and have some Jewish visitors in the lift who I question on Palestininan rights to a home land. As long as I can keep it comical it would possible work though can't really see anyone running with it in this climate.

I was thinking about this and you beat me to it lol!

Sorry the first bit, not the second. I`m slowing down now.

Cool Idea! Liked this.

The first sketch is genius pete. The other two don't work so well.

Why not have the parking permit machine really right wing, so that they shout at each other every time the lift is on that level:

Lift: You ineffectual, establishment stooge!

Permit machine: C**t!

Lift: Piss off!

Permit Machine: Trotskyite!

Ricky Gervais could do the voice of the permit machine.

Interesting and funny concept Pete... and easy to shoot too, on a budget. I'd like to see these made into real sketches.

I'm not sure about bringing back the whole Marxism thing... I hated most of the early 80s ranting that went on... it just seemed so... grubby! LOL! But that's just personal preference of course.

Another thing to bear in mind is that you might not find an audience for this sort of material anymore. It needs people to be actually interested in politics... which they aren't so much these days... and if you're talking an 'out-moded' form of politics... it'll be even more difficult.

The first sketch is the funniest in my opinion but the second sketch may get more laughs because of America's national and foreign policies being hi-lighted in the news more recently, with the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina etc.

I’m not sure about the third sketch… it gets into that ‘ranting’ I mention above… so not really my cup of tea.

Overall they’re really good though… this is something definitely worth developing… and as I say, it could easily be produced with minimal budget… you could simply have each sketch as seen from the lift’s security camera (oh, the irony!) as each set of passengers enters and leaves.

Very interesting, liked all of them. What do you call a whole series of sketches that have something in common as with the lift and passengers in your case? I'd been doing something similar (completely different subject) and don't really know whether to assemble the whole lot together into (say) 25 minute chunks, or just insert one story here and there in a mix with other shortish stuff.
Oh, I keep meaning to ask ... why the "double quotes"?

Why not have the parking permit machine really right wing, so that they shout at each other every time the lift is on that level:

Love that idea Godot taxi's. Very good.

Interesting and funny concept Pete... and easy to shoot too, on a budget. I'd like to see these made into real sketches.

Thanks, there has been some interest in it. Hopefully will get to shooting phase soonish. But this game is full of disappointments isn't it. Like United in Europe I suppose.