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Cast

Joe Blacket

Tim Blacket

Lord Byron

Sir Ralph Milbanke

RC Dallas

SJ Pratt

Fletcher

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SCENE 1

 

1808, London - workshop of the Blacket brothers, makers of Ladies Shoes

 

T: Joe - at your lasts!! Get thou head out of Eusebius's ‘Ecclesiastical History’ and Foxe’s ‘Martyrs’ 

J: I will (sighs) - forsooth, they are but left-over pie-wrappings (gazes longingly at books)

T: It's The Season in town - all the ladies will be wanting at least 10 pair of dancing slippers per week - tiny, pretty yokes (holds up lace and ribbons) - aye, with all the most expensive of trappings

J: We should be rich some day - considering they only last a single throttling of a prolonged Waltzing party

T: Heh! - right thou art brother! (high fives) - now, Joe where do ye be getting words like ‘prolonged'? - stay at your trade and you will live content and hearty - like all tradesmen of the early 19th century - else you end up in the poor house or a penitentiary

J(sighs): ‘Twas Josephus started me off - on the wagon down from up North - and, to be sure, if I don't scribble my thoughts - I fear I‘ll go mad

T: Mad! Tradesmen don't go mad! we're too busy - here, hold this last - lord above! we don't have twinkling little toes like these in Yorkshire (holds up tiny satin shoes) imagine - in a pair of these - trying to catch a rutting sow or kicking a libidinous squire!

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Enter a customer

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C: Here - you - shoemaker!

T: Aye my Lord?

C: I'm not a Lord - as yet - however, I have many milliners to provide for. I desire you to come now to my principal residence to have them all fitted for The Paphians Ball

T: Yes, Sir!! (T gathers lasts and follows)

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J ignores his lasts and gets to scribbling - attempts dramatic verse

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J: I must to William Merchant - a beneficent printer - to beg charity, for I must have a second income to support my infant daughter - sweet Mary! (looks at baby playing with ribbons in the fire basket) - I will be a poet - society ladies and doughty parliamentarians I shall bewitch - and wake up one day famous and rich!

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SCENE 2

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The drawing room of Samuel Jackson Pratt - aka Courtney Melmoth - writer of Puff & Doggerel and patron of affordable talent

 

SJP: Well done Mr. Blacket, I am impressed - to the point of considering you my proprietary genius - with the scribbles Mr. Merchant has sent me. I shall be able to patronise you - improve your health and living conditions for a pittance - which will, yet, make me look good at literary evenings

Dallas: For an apprentice to the trade of shoe-making, quite as good as Chatterton, eh Pratt?

SJP: Or Harry White, perchance

J: Oh! Mr. Pratt - I  have many many more scribbles - enough to fill a Posthumous edition!

SJP: Astounding - I shall look forward to that, you would make a divine subject for subscription and biography - indeed, I shall make it my mission! - now - for introductions - this is Mr. Dallas, another patron of the arts with a keen eye for a gratis copyright, and Sir Ralph Milbanke - his daughter - “the dear little Marianne" they name her (shrugs) - is very ‘blue' (winks) and much in need of a poetic project

J: I am but overwhelmed with your kindness to me (hesitates) - tell me good sirs - could I put my little Mary through finishing school with my sales?

 

Eyebrows are raised

 

Dallas: er, lad - how old are you? - but 22 I believe - there's no money to be had in scribbling - but with our combined patronage - you shall eat, be clothed and your little Mary will have jam for her tea - in truth, Mr. Blacket - that is quite sufficient accolade

J(coughs and snivels): Aye, ‘tis good enough - else I live in poverty and want - even in the dancing slippers trade 

RM: Young Blacket, the inhalation of horse glue at your lasts perchance has made you ill - take a cottage on my estate, where yourself and Mary - who will grow to a shoe-making Sappho, by George! - can be lectured by my own Sapphic child (sighs) - who is currently wandering betwixt villages, hunting down sensitive poets (gasps) - not that my seraph flirts! - god forbid, but who would be willing to hang off the hem of her skirts 

Dallas: The bracing misery of our Northern coasts will work marvels on your weak constitution - now! - off  with our subscriptions in your pocket

SJP: Be assured, Blacket, I shall be supercilious in acquiring dedications for your first volume - ‘To the Duchess of So Much, the Right Honble. So-and-so, and Mrs. and Miss Somebody, these volumes are,’ &c. &c. - at least six families of distinction will share your plumes

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Joe waves goodbye, flush with pennies and hope

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SCENE 3
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1811, Dorants Hotel, Albemarle Street - Byron has returned from The East

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B(reading the Courier): I see your and Pratt’s protégé Blacket the Cobbler is gone but left his all - I suppose we’ll find his relics in a stall

Dallas: Humph! In spite of his rhymes, it is probably one of the instances where death has saved a man from damnation 

B: You were the ruin of that poor fellow amongst you - had it not been for his patrons, he might now have been in very good plight, in shoe-making - not verse (frowns over paper) - but you have made him immortal with a vengeance and made him the laughing stock of purgatory - indeed, your patronage was the poor man's curse!

Dallas(breezily): ‘Twas Pratt and Miss Milbanke in truth - they have spoilt some excellent shoemakers and been accessory to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor

B: How devilishly cruel - to ruin a man at his calling! - why, any lowling at Newstead with notions - Old Joe sets to with a ladle - or - oft times - a cradle

Dallas: But still to business he held fast - and stuck to Phobus to the last - as for character, he did not lack it - and if he did, ‘twere shame to Black it

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Fletcher enters with a book - B peruses

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B: Oons - my, this is neat - well stitch’d, and Morocco bound - mmm, just who is this eminent palgrave?

F: Sent expressly my Lord - ‘tis fresh from the Stationers’ Hall

B(opens book): “The Remains of Joseph Blacket" - Pratt!! - the ghoul! and Blacket barely cold in his subterranean enclave!

 

B reads the volume

 

B: God's teeth! - the tragedies are as rickety as if they had been the offspring of an Earl (closes book) - to recap, the publication - 'twould appear - is to provide for little Mary Blacket - and there's a dedication to a Miss Milbanke (to Dallas) - you can tell Pratt to send the girl to her grace, the volume to the grocer, and his dedication to the devil!

Dallas: The devil I will, Byron!! Sir Ralph's marketable daughter - who brought blue woollen stockings and sermons to the ailing bard - will be wroth and seek you out - (stands over B threateningly) - and begin to hunt for another impoverished poet (glares) in need of a ministering angel (panics) My lord! - the irreligious - aye, lucrative - farings of the Childe will n'er see the light of day

B: pfft! - unlike poor Blacket, I am exceptionally well-shod, have habitations of my own, and poverty is as vital an accessory to a young Gentleman as 20 pair of nankeens - Miss Millstone, and her ‘Cottage of Friendship', can waddle on her merry way!

D: Forsooth you are right, a Unitarian blue-stocking - isolated in the Northern wild - will certainly not desire to keep carnal - or any other type of companie - with a libertine as irredeemable as The Childe! (both snicker) - now, your portmanteau for Murray!

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D exits - B frets - thinks back on his grand tour and knocks on wood - twice -  just to be sure

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END

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