It’s All for the Best
It’s All for the Best
Mr Gooch’s barrack-room wit serves him well
Irving Wardle, The Times
Adaptation of Voltaire’s Candide with over 60 characters, originally commissioned and produced by Peter Cheeseman for the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent. Inspired by the would-be wisdom of his mentor Pangloss, the young Candide roams the world from top to bottom, finds only disaster, but is never deflected from his optimism.
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Script Excerpt
Pangloss: Candide! (Candide recoils in horror at his dreadful appearance) Don’t you remember me, boy? Your old tutor, Pangloss?
Candide: Monsieur Pangloss? But why aren’t you still at the chateau? What’s happened to Miss Cunnigunda?
Pangloss: She’s dead, boy.
Candide: No. (He sits down)
Pangloss: Slit from navel to throat and raped by Bulgar soldiers. Monsieur le Baron tried to protect her but was run through. I narrowly escaped death myself. The soldiers left me for dead and then burned the entire chateau. Not a stone was left standing.
Candide: No wonder you’re in such a terrible state.
Pangloss: This wasn’t the war, boy. This was love.
Candide: But how could love do that to you?
Pangloss: Syphilis, boy. I got it from Paquette, the servant-girl at the chateau. She got it from the local vicar, who got it from an old countess, who got it from an army officer, who got it from a marchioness. She got it from her page-boy who got it from a Jesuit priest, who had it in direct line from one of the people who sailed with Christopher Columbus.
Candide: That’s terrible!
Pangloss: Not at all, boy, Cause and Effect. If it hadn’t been for Christopher Columbus discovering it, we shouldn’t have had cocaine to kill the pain of it, or chocolate to make you feel better about it. It’s only really caught on in Europe so far, thanks mainly to those brave young men to whom we owe our safety and freedom, the soldiers. But as soon as Our Lads bring progress to the Barbarians, it’ll soon catch on. Pre-established Harmony we call that.
Candide: I could listen to you for ever, Monsieur Pangloss …