Dick
Dick
Turpin is egotistical, childlike and extremely stupid, [yet is] pushed on to dizzy heights by a world determined to create heroes. Intelligent and stirring.
Naseem Khan, Evening Standard
First produced in 1973 at the Half Moon Theatre, Aldgate. Pantomime in which Turpin is satirically portrayed as the brutal half-wit he actually was.
Photos
Script Excerpt
(Turpin is slumped over the counter in his butcher’s shop.)
Wife: (Calling from offstage) Four loin chops, Richard! And take the fat off. Mr Smith the schoolmaster’s coming.
Turpin: (Quiet) Piss off.
Wife: (Off) Richard?
Turpin: (Yells) It’s Dick! Dick Turpin! (He picks up a chopper) Sensing the danger, our hero of the weak and downtrodden reched for his mighty chopper.
Wife: Not dropped off then?
(Alarmed, Turpin looks down to make sure it hasn’t.)
Wife: Not asleep on the job? Not day-dreaming again?
Turpin: The voice was familiar and loathsome to him. Steeling himself, he moved toward the door.
(He advances towards the door and raises the chopper as his Wife comes in.)
Wife: Buck up, dear. Anticipating the customer’s wishes is a sign of friendliness and efficiency. –– Even if you anticipate wrong.
Turpin: Presumptuous bag.
Wife: I beg your pardon!
Turpin: I’m sick of butchery! (Pause) Well this kind anyway. I shouldn’t be cooped up in here with an apron and clammy hands. I’m destined to liberate the poor and oppressed. I ought to be out there on the road with the greats. White gloves, silk neckerchief, pistols.
Wife: This is not time for sulking, Richard Turpin. You’re living in a great country in a great age.
Turpin: Dick!
Wife: Expansion, accumulation … Business at the heart of the Empire. Greasy Catholics defeated, heroic Protestants on the up. We’ve got Gibraltar and control of the Med, colonies from Virginia to Calcutta. Britannia Rules the Waves. And the Bank of England keeps the Crown afloat. Remember the South Sea Bubble.
Turpin: It burst.
Wife: But the principle was good. And what’s it all done on? Roast beef!