【有声英语文学名著】CHAPTER TWO（2）

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what a difference that  made. We’re going to banish² colour prejudice from the West Midlands, even if  we have to do it one child at a time.

There are four of  us in the cast. Kwame is the Noble Slave and despite us playing mistress and 

servant we actually get along alright (though I asked him to get me a packet of crisps in this café the 

other  day  and  he  looked  at  me  like  I  was  OPPRESSING  him  or  something).  But  he’s  nice  and 

serious about the work, though he did cry a lot in rehearsals³, which I thought was a bit much. He’s a 

bit of a weeper, if you know what I mean. In the play there’s meant to be this powerful sexual tension 

between us, but once again life is failing to imitate art.

 

Then there’s Sid, who plays my wicked father Obadiah. I know your whole childhood was spent 

playing French cricket on a bloody⁴ great chamomile lawn and you never did anything as déclassé as 

watch the telly, but Sid used to be quite famous, on this cop show called  City Beat and his disgust at 

being reduced to THIS shines through. He flatly refuses to mime⁵, like it’s beneath him to be seen with 

an object that isn’t really there, and every other sentence begins ‘when I was on telly’ which is his 

way  of  saying  ‘when  I  was  happy’.  Sid  pees  in  washbasins  and  has  these  scary  polyester  trousers 

which you WIPE DOWN instead of washing and subsists⁶ on service station minced⁷ beef pasties, and 

me and Kwame think he’s secretly really racist⁸, but apart from that he’s a lovely man, a lovely, lovely 

man.

And  then  there’s  Candy,  ah  Candy.  You’d  like  Candy,  she’s  exactly  what  she sounds  like.  She 

plays  Cheeky  Maid,  a  Plantation  Owner  and  Sir  William  Wilberforce,  and  is  very  beautiful  and 

spiritual and even though I don’t approve of the word, a complete bitch. She keeps asking me how old 

I am  really  and telling me I look tired or that if I got contact lenses I could actually be quite pretty, 

which  I  ADORE  of  course.  She’s  very  keen  to  make  it  clear  that  she’s  only  doing  this  to  get  her 

Equity⁹ card and bide¹⁰ her time until she’s spotted¹¹ by some Hollywood producer who presumably just 

happens to be passing through Dudley on a wet Tuesday afternoon on the lookout¹² for hot  TIE  talent. 

Acting¹³  is  rubbish,  isn’t  it? 

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