Writers Block

A nice bit of comic dialogue which was broadcast on a BBC programme from the Cheltenham Literary Festival in 2001. The performing duo are The Nimmo Twins, a legendary act from Norfolk who have attained cult status in that county as well as having an illustrious career in TV , radio and on stage over the last 30 years. I was feeling a bit Haggard today and so relied upon this gem of a sketch. 

The tone of the piece requires an outrageous Cockney accent to be used.

Hello Mate, are you still studying literature?

Yes, all the great authors

How are things?

Oh, up and down. I was in the pub the other night with Evelyn for a Swift half, Byron get one free

Well, you’ve got to A S Byatt when it’s that cheap

Chelsea were playing on the TV, I’m shouting they weren’t Fowles, don’t make Emile Zola, 

We’re all having a laugh then I heard F Scott Fitzgerald

Does he? Lucky Gerald, Lucky Gerald.

Oh, by the way did William Makepeace with Thackeray?

He wasn’t going to. He says can I borrow a Tennyson. We all know what for, Gunther Grass her up. She was looking so stern then he E M Forster.

Hows Mark by the way?

He was having trouble with his J G Ballards- said he had trouble passing his Willie Golding. It takes him a long time in the Edgar Allan Poe. Looked a bit Greene,

Yeah, can’t do a thing with him he’s like that. His Amiss not very good either.

No, so I sent Bert in- he peeks over the top . I said, has it started to Flaubert. He says he can hear it as there’s a bit of an Umberto Eco in there. He was in there ages. Some of us shouted Mark, Twains leaving. Did I say I was seeing Evelyn?

Oh sure, sure

Well, you know Lawrence?

What Stern, Scott in his late Cervantes, always got a Lear on his face. Wasn’t he Faulkner?

Used to yes. Hemingway, to cut a long story short he says to me she’s an Updike, if you fancy her you must have beer googles on, says on his word….

His Wordsworth nothing

Called her a Trollope

That’s a load of Bellocs

I said if you say that about my girl, its Waugh. I’m gonna teach you and lesson and knock your Nabukov .

I know it’s a bit hardy and Wilde but sometimes I could Carouac him.

I said Camus and say that to me. He said I’m not your enemy, she’s Defoe around here. 

You could Roddy Doyle the police.

Yeah, no point in bearing the Bronte of his behaviour.

It doesn’t Proust anything

I said you’ve got two Chaucers- put up or shut up!

He’s a coward, always Browning his trousers

Yeah, we left him there. He’s a git, Theroux and Theroux.

So did you gate a lift after in Jane’s Austen.

No we were in a Rushdie so went in Ford Madox Ford. Stopped off at a Kafka and Virginia Woolf’d down a cream slice but she said it was a bit stale.

I had a Rudyard Kipling the other day too.