How we used to live
From episode 4 of Stephen Fry’s Saturday Night Fry radio show, first broadcast in 1988. It’s a fascinating satirical insight into those times and it’s amazing just how our cultural landscape has changed since then…
Presenter: And as the overture to Wagner’s Tannheuser fades away, it’s time for ‘Face The People’. I’m Gladvin Price. Every week we invite a prominent journalist to face a panel of people to explain their profession and what they do. Our pressganged guest this week is the tabloid editor Sandy Ratcreep. But first our panel.
From the world of publishing and self-promotion, We welcome Hecate Carbide.
Hecate: Good evening.
Presenter: From the twin worlds of sodomy and knitting, the author and virgin, Trim Kite. Good evening, Trim.
Trim: Hello.
Presenter: That’s our panel, now let’s meet our press man. Sandy Ratcreep started as a cub reporter on the Daily Graphic, though occasionally you were allowed to report on scout meetings and brownie events, I understand.
Sandy: That’s right, yes.
Presenter: From the Graphic you moved quickly to the Sunday Star and thence to the News of the Week and the Daily Sun. For the Daily Sun you specialise in raking up secrets about the famous and writing leaders. You’re 25, married with two children.
Sandy: Correct.
Presenter: Right. Well, there’s your press man. Panel?
Hecate: Sandy, hello. I suppose the first question I must ask – you must get this all the time – is, how do you sleep at nights?
Sandy: How do you mean?
Hecate: Well, I’m just thinking, putting myself in your shoes really, you spend your days making people immensely unhappy, writing vulgar and disgusting prose and demeaning this country and it’s population. I was wondering if this made sleep difficult at all?
Sandy: Wait, wait, wait. Who do I make unhappy?
Hecate: Well, I would have thought the people you tell lies about, the people you tell unhappy truths about, their children, friends and loved ones. And those who simply have a higher regard for humanity than you do. You certainly make me very unhappy.
Trim: Me too.
Presenter: And me.
Sandy: No, look, it’s my readers I’m concerned about. The odd rich celebrity can take a bit of knocking from time to time. I like my readers to have a laugh though.
Presenter: So it’s all pretty harmless stuff?
Sandy: Of course, of course, yes.
Presenter: Harmless, Trim?
Trim: Yes, interesting. It may be harmless. I don’t think it is actually. But it’s really you I’m worried about – your immortal soul.
Sandy: That’s typically patronising.
Trim: Yes, I know. I’m awfully sorry but I really am curious. You see, I don’t know anybody, human being, that is, or indeed animal, who could dedicate their life to something as sordid, disreputable, vicious and cruel as you do. I was just interested. I was hoping that perhaps you were from another planet. Is that it?
Sandy: I don’t have to take this.
Trim: No, no, of course you don’t.
Sandy: I’m doing a job. Somebody’s got to do it.
Presenter: No, I don’t think so.
Sandy: Well, plenty would take my place if I didn’t.
Presenter: Is that a happy thought, I wonder?
Sandy: We’re here to sell papers, and if that’s what sells them, you know, then that’s fine.
Hecate: Oh, I see.
Trim: Right, right.
Sandy: Look, my editor tells me what to do and I do it.
Presenter: Just sort of following orders, in fact.
Trim: That has a familiar ring to it that phrase, doesn’t it?
Presenter: It seems to me you’re a pretty sort of unhappy and ghastly man. Is that fair?
Hecate: You see, I can’t picture it, you know. Presumably once you were a happy little boy, with a mother and father, you liked ice cream and had a little bike; a hopeful little human being. And now…
Trim: A whole life thrown away.
Presenter: Wasted on envy, hatred, malice, cruelty and spite. It’s a pity.
Hecate: Your mother must wonder what she did to have given birth to something lower on the evolutionary scale than a dung beetle.
Presenter: Well, there you have it. A credit to his species. Next week, a guest not for the squeamish I’m afraid, as we descend one notch lower even than that and ask someone from the Daily Mail to ‘Face The People’. Until then, bye bye.
Posted on August 24th, 2007 at 2:58pm under Culture, media and sport
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• 1 Comment |
I’ve long been a fan of Stephen Fry, he is a fantastic comedian and satirist. This sketch is indeed as fitting now as it was then (and will undoubtedly remain so for some time), though I suspect he’ll always be preaching to the choir.