Scene 1

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1815, Piccadilly - the rain is bone-drenching and our Hero is not in the best of health

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P: I must say how appreciative The Chronicle is, my Lord - oh, my Lord! - ouch! (pokes) - is your eye swollen? - did Jackson remove the muffle and insult with a sharpish right cross? (B removes eye-patch) - ah! there you are! - like a rainbow that bruise is, my Lord (bows, quite absurdly) - for sometimes we must box without the muffle, yes?

B: Good day, Perry

P: Back to business, my Lord (ruffles papers) - we at The Chronicle are vastly appreciative that our top Bard has granted us an opportunity to test this latest innovation in the press - an “interview” as they call it in our late lost colony - why, ‘tis not every literary man who would consent to be both stripped of his mysterious allure and accept his poesy becoming butcher’s wrapping within 24 hours

B: I am only too delighted to be involved in something - anything - new (sulks) - moreover, Perry, it is exhausting to be pale and interesting all the time - (sulks further) - and look at where such pantomime has landed me! (grimaces at ‘Memories of Seaham’ by the Very Rev. J. Milbanke on his bookshelves) - my nerves are much in need of a simpler mode of life, and I mean to become a dull fellow - an anonymous aristocrat - about town

P: Anonymous, my Lord?! - well! - you will certainly have to shave your head for starters!! (thinks: mmm - if I perform the task myself, a handy profit could accrue from the selling of said locks)

B: Just so - and to increase my anonymity and decrease invitations to Melbourne or any other House, I shall gain considerable poundage by consuming as many mutton-fat puddings and lard pies as burst the buttons on my trowsers - I will lay out in Green Park and coarsen my alabaster complexion - compose risible romance-free satires on fishing, quadrilles and tea drinking - maybe have Jackson knock out a front tooth - ay me! - Perry - I am so tired of being so eminently desired - in sooth

P: But poor Mr. Murray! - think on his stores of fine Morocco!

B: Poor? - pfft! - the overstuffed pockets of that Admiralty stationer are not my concern! - (paces, earnestly) - what with the seventh Lord Byron about to be hatched - unlike my own risqué Papa, I need to set a pious parental example - I have already begun with Hebrew Melodies - shall I pen Paeans to Presbyterianism? Canticles for Calvinism? - either way - anything would be better than overly passionate pashas and pirates and thinly garbed oriental females with tinkling ankle bracelets (is momentarily distracted)

P: Fear not, my Lord - The Chronicle can be relied on to disappoint your more hysterical female and envious male readers, and win favour with your more adjustable Tories, clergy and other such adornments to the scandal-free way of life enjoyed by the majority of our aristocrats

B(hisses): I presume, Perry, that this ‘interview’ shall not be edited? - cut and slashed to suit your purposes? - I have had four years of Murray attempting same on my verse - Grub Street will surely - after this immense privilege I grant ye - do no worse?

P: That would depend on your answers, my Lord - even we cannot allow blasphemy - no matter how obtuse the saints or customs or deity be - nor criticism of the Regent, rating of Covent Garden bawds - or Germanic-origin four-letter words

B: Oh

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Scene 2

 

Perry opens his bulging portmanteau

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P: Now - finally - to the task at hand - and this should most certainly please you, my Lord - some time past, we advertised a ‘competition’ whereby our readers submitted questions they would like you to answer

B: Marvellous - I hope I’m not in for a savage grilling re. my grammar, misquoted bits of Catullus, conjectures re. the mechanics of undergarments of a fleecy nature..

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Fletcher brings in green tea and mutton chops

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B: Her ladyship is out at present, Fletcher - ironing Bibles for Brothels - you may consume those chops

F: Yes, my lord (Jenny the parrot flies down and steals chops)

P(poises quill): I should like to begin with a history of your reading so that our readers may follow the same path toward becoming an ornamental conversationalist - perhaps even a wit about town - a sought-after supper guest - or a literary figure of renown

B: Ah! reading! (sighs wistfully) - I never am long in the society even of her I love (jumps up and frantically scans room) - er, without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library…

P: Charming - now to…

B: Mind, Perry - at present, such are my many woes and travails and embarrassments - and violences at Drury Lane between competing braces of ballarinas - that I only wish I could settle to reading again (sighs, deeply) - life in this over-priced mansion - despite it neighbouring one of our capital’s most celebrated perverts… pray, do you know ‘Old Q’?

P: The Marquis of Queensbury? - most certainly - in fact, i…

B: You are acquainted with his Lordship?

P: Indeed, one of our more salacious editors, Billy Gouger, in truth little more than a Frenchman in his literary tastes, first suggested a dual ‘interview’ with both yourself and himself - my Lord - to illustrate how a happy marriage saves e’en yet the most unviable of reprobates - a saluatory tale, in fact, on how the divine estate would have saved old Q from his ignoble dotage - d’you know - drooling upon the bonnets of young maidens as they pass under his balcony and whatnot (B’s bad eye twitches) - now, to return to your reading habits, my Lord

B: Just so, Perry (clenches Grecian jaw) - my reading? - when not distracted by the wolf-whistles and obscene exultations of admiration from said Q wafting through my windows - I own, is monotonous, and yet desultory - I take up books, and fling them down again (sighs)

P: Oh how beastly! - (observes a pile of Morocco-bound volumes of great rarity thrown under the sopha) - I feel sure - my Lord - that our readers’ admiration of your talents and aspirations towards replicating same will help dispel such a funk (clears throat) - erm, to commence with your earliest memory of reading, my Lord..

B: Indeed (ponders) - I was never seen reading - in Aberdeen I had a fearsome reputation as a pear-thief and plate-biter to maintain - I was always idle and in mischief - or at play - but the truth is that I read eating, read in bed, read when no one else reads - had read all sorts of reading since I was five years old

P: Ah, yes - a small boy with no father within a bull’s roar would not want to be vulnerable to spratts of a common order

B: The very strategy exactly - my mother was dispatched to the lending library daily and was a diligent subscriber to political magazines - despite her descent from the Stuarts, she was a democrat

P: Good god!

B: A bold - albeit ear-mangling - woman in many ways

P: Your main area of interest as a child was, my Lord?

B: Ah! - the moment I could read – my grand passion was history - at present, however, my head is crammed with the most useless lumber - I could set my mind to read anything - but Novels

P: Not even Sir Walter Scott??

B: Don’t be absurd - why, I have read Tales of my Landlord just recently - for the fiftieth time - a great English poet – wonderful man! - how I long to get drunk with him (ponders) - my favourites though would be - mmm - The Monk - written by Lewis - d’you know him? - crony of mine - devil of a bore - how he wrote about nuns gettin…

P: THAT we certainly cannot advise young ladies to read!

B(smirks): Heh - perhaps not - no, if it is a comprehensive accounting you require, Perry - (scans bookshelves) - let me see - there’s Memoirs of Talleyrand - personally, I would have them confined to the flames - Lord Chatham’s Letters (blushes) - oh good god, don’t print that - they were er, lent to me by Scrope Davies - a facetious jester of outré literary tastes - (cranes neck) - mmm – Xenephon’s Expedition of Cyrus - a cracker, Perry - (P loudly ruffles papers and rattles watch-chain) - Coleridge’s Poems - overly fond of the Black Drop is our pond-dwelling friend - Walton’s Apologies for the Bible and Christianity – an outrageous volume, not of my purchase (glowers) - The Art of Tormenting - Hor…

P: That is ample, my Lord! - I thank you - we do not want to send the little dears running in fright to their watercolours - or their needlework boxes - in tears

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Fletcher brings in the humidor - the gentlemen choose their cigars

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Scene 3

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Perry is determined to focus B’s attention

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P: Now, shall we start with readers’ questions? - you shall be delighted to know they all come from young ladies of stolid upbringing

B: Young bluestockings, you say? - mmm - a breed one would usually avoid, except that Kashmiri butterfly of learning, Lady Charelm…

P: Right you are, my Lord (shuffles papers) - now, a Miss Adeline in the county of Norfolk, my lord, would like, and this was a popular question indeed, and may require some contemplation: What is your favourite colour?

B: What? - oh, er - eye colour is it? - or sunsets? - a wave as it glistens in varied glorious hues of blue? - does Miss Adeline specify as to which natural phenomena she requires an answer?

P: Just - d’you understand, my Lord (bites lip, racks brain, snaps quill) - ah! - what colour would most attract your eye at a soirée at Melbourne House?

B: Black - I imagine - how rare it is - how it moves so gracefully through a room of gaudy hues - like - er - the night - if that clears things up

P(to self: the city’s drapers will have a run on mourning wear - if I stocked up I could reap a tidy profit) - the nex…

B: You seem somewhat distracted, Perry

P: Next - Armida from Hampstead asks: What do you prefer on your morning toast, jam or marmalade?

B: I breakfast usually at three - alone - as was my Mama’s wont - there are no condiments or grain-related comestibles left after ten, so Fletcher informs me - tell your readers a raw egg coated in cayenne pepper will suffice to fire the brain into poesy

P: Well, this is going swimmingly - I was concerned, my lord, that you may be alarmed by the mawkish triviality of these girlish questions

B: Not at all, why, when I was a lad, I lost sleep wondering if Pope’s nightgown was cotton duck or silk charmeuse

P: Lucy from Much Little Flipperton St.Giles asks: I should like to be une poet too, vraiment I do - can I come round some day to show you my artless scribblings and petite ankles? You live in Piccadilly, am I right? Oui?

B: Does Miss Lucy - is she French? - or is she assuming an intriguing continental aspect to distinguish herself from her comrades? - lord save me, Perry, but I do admire a shameless, deceitful woman! - now, does Miss Lucy perchance include a miniature? - a lock of hair? - the circumference of her knee? - a facsimile of her family tree?

P: She does not, my Lord! - Miss ‘Lucy’ is not the daughter of a Bawd! - to the point, generally - as a rule - do you welcome unsolicited manuscripts or requests for rendezvous with strangers?

B: Alas! - no longer (glares at a pile of slide-rules and graph paper) - I would not for the world expose such tender feebleness to this house (whispers) - Perry, it is rife with tempestuous dangers!

P: On to weightier matters, my Lord - our readers would like a description of your desk - and its contents - and - er (flips through several pages) - er, a tour of your chamber, the off-duty hours of your household staff and where you keep a spare key to the front door

B: This way, Perry

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​​Scene 4

 

The celebrity tour of Byron’s desk

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P(is moved to tears): ‘Tis here the slender hand of genius doth scribble down his versicles! - oh, the lock would appear to be broken - my Lord, surely you are not plagued by thieving household staff with notions of purloined poetic glory?

B: Staff? - no, not staff (grinds teeth) - how’n’ever - this is where I keep my grey goose quills, Japan ink, whatever scraps come my way to launch verse upon - receipts from out-of-work actresses - Dr. le Mann’s prescriptions - and other such vastly impertinent intrusions into my mind-island (bites nails)

P: Er, another imposition, my lord, if I may ? - we offered as a prize to our contestants one of your quills..

B: Indeed? - do take this one - I used it this very morning to write to Mr. Coleridge - after which I used it to scratch my head

P: Oh, how thrilled our fortunate reader will be! (mmm - a tidy profit awaits such scrapings from the very skull of his Lordship) - I see your desk is prone - like we in Grub Street know only too well - to the spills and stains of an over-filled inkwell

B: This ink stain? - ‘twas whence I accidentally knocked over a housemaid as she was polishing my drawers

P: And these quite marked, deep scratches on the triple-locked box marked DO NOT OPEN IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - YEA - EVEN AT MY DECEASE! - that one there

B: Yes (eye twitches wildly) - attempts to ravage that box have been made on many occasions by a reluctantly intimate member of his household

P: Could one enquire as to whom?

B: No - shall we tour my chamber? (an almighty thump is heard above their heads and much muffling of voices) - the sooner - I wager - the better

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​Scene 5

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Onto B’s sumptuous chamber - Perry is frantically taking notes

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P: What an extraordinary rug, my Lord - is it an Astrakhan picked up on your travels through the wild, rugged mountain ranges of Albania?

B: Perry, that is my dog

P: I fear for this part of the tour, I am requested to record the smallest of details -perhaps a floor plan? - (consults list) - now (eye roves around room) - good god! - is that a rope ladder hanging from the window? - are those large pistols on yon mantle loaded? (P sits, in a sweat) - holy fires, are all those little bottles filled with laudanum?

B: Yes, they are, Perry - how do you suppose I keep sane? - do you imagine life is a basket of peaches living with this brain? (helpfully points to skull) - although ordinarily, my escape ladder would be tucked up under my bed (frowns, walks to open window)

P: My Lord - are these men your grooms? - why are they checking the hallmarks on your candlesticks?

B: Oh - they are my bailiffs - how do Tom, Frank! - they are here to strip me of my belongings - aren’t you lads?

T: That’s right, my lord - and sorry we are to have to do it

B: I wonder whether you would put aside my nankeens, cutaways and quilted waistcoats ‘til every other one of my household gods has been sacrificed - you will allow me at least the outward trappings of a gentleman, won't you?

T: They shall be the very last things we repossess, my Lord

B: Are they not decent chaps, Perry? - stripped Sheridan they did too - with all due decorum - do help yourselves to the brandy, lads

T: Well - we just had a box with your doctor there (B salutes Dr. le Mann, who is hiding in the corner) - why, he poured it all out the window before we could claim it!

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B pales and shakes at the notion - the bailiffs gesticulate colourfully at le Mann and storm out, with the family silver

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B: Now, Perry - you can see the horrors to which I am reduced - and out of which there is no escape other than selling atrocious poetry - living somewhere atrocious up North - reaping whatever rents can be gathered after my atrocious mother-in-law pops her clogs (weeps into ‘Murray’s Guide to the Voluptuous Wonders of Italy) - do you have any further questions for me?

P: Well, yes - I’m sure our readers would be curious to know as to how a peer of the realm and the most profitable poet of our day is in such a beastly amount of debt that his very candlesticks are under arrest?

B: Trinkets, bawds, brandy, gold chains for my strumpets - and the disprobation which occurs to a nobleman - in the main, from his publisher - if he partakes of commerce. Assure your readers that debt is misery - and although misery becomes me, it is also causing furrows in my brow, which I am not happy about

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Scene 6

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A knock on the door is heard - Fletcher enters in a panic

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F: My lord! - I could do nowt to stop him!

In barges a gaudily-dressed, soaking newspaperman

G: Hullo hullo!

P: Billy Gouger!

B: Who is this torpidly tweedy article, Perry? - and why is he standing on my dog?

G: Billy Gouger I am, my lord (does not bow) - and I have come to offer you a surefire way out of debt, marriage, environmental inclemency - the need to scoff troughs of lard pies - and the soul-sapping rituals of London’s high-life

B: How very good of you, Gouger - but my future has been arranged by my wife - and I am at peace with her decisions (sniffs window ledge for remnants of brandy)

G: I think not, my lord - our great poet cannot suffer to live under medical and moral surveillance! - heir or no! (B is wistful) - there are worlds beyond Piccadilly and the Northern provinces, my lord - and rhyming schemes more entertaining than those Augustans you so revere! - besides, you can assist me in the making of my career

P: Ha! - I have already conducted the interview - Gouger - there is nothing in this house for you!

G: Heh heh - James! James! - get in here! (in walks a thin man rapidly drawing on a sketch pad) - now, my Lord, prepare thyself for freedom - and scandal, exile, and true poetic immortality!

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An exhausted B is sanguine in his hopes

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G: Kitty! Nancy! - now!

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Said strumpets throw over B’s eiderdown, reveal themselves to be in a state of disgrace with Old Q, whose back has apparently been put out by hauling them up B’s ladder

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B: Good god, Old Q! - Cyprians in my marital bed? - and not one! - but two??

P: Good god, Gouger!! - is there anything you won’t do for a scoop?!

Kitty: Billy Gouger, you promised me and Nancy feathers, frocks and chicken soup!

Old Q: Don’t mind that now, Kitty my dear - get under the blanket or ye’ll catch the croup!

G: James, have you taken enough likenesses? (J nods) - well now, my lord - what pleaseth ye? - admirable yet exile-inducing scandal - or Perry’s ‘interview’ of reading lists and tepid tales, written to please stolid young females?

P: That is not his lordship’s decision to make, Gouger! (thinks: must pocket those snuffboxes on my way out, are they monogrammed?)

B: Indeed it is not, gentlemen - in truth, publication of either depends on the weather - and who wears a sturdier class of shoe leather

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The hardy Gouger and Perry scrabble in the door frame, burst out of 13, Piccadilly and towards the Chronicle’s printing presses

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B(sighs): So, Old Q - ‘twould appear my fate and honour rests with the Chronicle’s choice of blather

Old Q: In truth, my Lord - which would you rather?

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Kitty and Nancy are being treated for the croup by Dr. le Mann, Old Q is dozing, the step of Lady B is heard outside the door, upon which his Lordship’s good eye starts closing

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END