{"id":486,"date":"2009-02-20T09:23:45","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T16:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wwwold.sketchwar.org\/?p=486"},"modified":"2009-02-20T09:23:45","modified_gmt":"2009-02-20T16:23:45","slug":"grosvenor-square","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/?p=486","title":{"rendered":"Grosvenor Square"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sketch War
\nA Bit of Fry and Spiner Edition
\n“Grosvenor Square”<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

FADE IN:\u00a0<\/p>\n

INT. CONSUL-GENERAL’S OFFICE – DAY<\/p>\n

The signs of moving -- half-empty boxes, a filing cabinet on a furniture dolly, a few paintings leaned against the walls -- fill a spacious office.<\/p>\n

Even with all the clutter, the place looks expensive: big wooden door, big wooden desk, heavy ugly curtains.<\/p>\n

BRENT WAGNER (50s, American, pricey suit) picks a Don Quixote figurine out of a moving box.<\/p>\n

He puts it on his desk next to his phone and a family snapshot, accidentally knocking a signed baseball off the desk and into the box-pile.<\/p>\n

As Brent fishes around for it --<\/p>\n

STEPHEN (O.S.)<\/p>\n

“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

Yeah, Yeats knew a thing or two about government work.<\/p>\n

Brent looks up to see --<\/p>\n

STEPHEN WHITCOMBE (50s, British, pricier suit) setting a coat and a red scarf on a pile of boxes.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

Stephen Whitcombe. The ministry’s liaison to the American consulate.<\/p>\n

Stephen holds out a hand, but Brent doesn’t see it -- he’s fishing around in the boxes for something.<\/p>\n

Stephen awkwardly retrieves his hand.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

You are the consul-general, yes?<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

As of today. Brent Wagner, at your service.<\/p>\n

He fishes out a file, hands it to Stephen.<\/p>\n

Stephen flips through it, stops on a photo of LINDA HASSAN (30s, professional, Middle Eastern descent).<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

This would be the ‘favor’ you had mentioned?<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

Linda Hassan. U. S. national. Picked up near one of the Dungeness plants in Kent --<\/p>\n

Stephen continues rifling through the file.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

-- under the Terrorism Act, yes.<\/p>\n

Brent resumes looking for his baseball.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

I need her out of police custody --<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

That’s not possible --<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

-- quickly.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

Mr. Wagner. Your first day as a chief diplomat is not an auspicious time to ‘cowboy up’ and lay down demands. Now, your predecessor understood discretion and --<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

Handler knew how to do two things: make money off of oil pipelines, and donate two million dollars to a presidential campaign without getting thrown in jail.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

The fact remains, she is a suspected --<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

She’s not a suspected anything!<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

With respect, Mr. Wagner, how can you know that?<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

Because she’s my chief of staff! Only I don’t have a staff yet, because Linda’s in a cell somewhere.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

Ah.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

We’ve background checked her out the wazoo, Stephen, so unless what you’ve got on her is scarier than “snapshotting a nuke plant while beige,” I’d let this one slide.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

This isn’t racial profiling, because racial profiling doesn’t work. And we do this sort of thing eminently well, Mr. Wagner, because England has fought domestic terrorism for longer than Americans have sold processed cheese.<\/p>\n

Brent closes the door.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

Check the end of the file.<\/p>\n

Stephen does so.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

Mr. Bajaeen at The Guardian is already putting together a piece about Linda.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

How speedy.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

Human-interest, wronged by injustice, whole nine yards. I give him all our intel on it, the story’ll have legs.<\/p>\n

Brent nearly trips over something.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

Ha!<\/p>\n

He plucks his baseball off the floor.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

You could have a scandal on your hands.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

You won’t divulge anything, Mr. Wagner --<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

I will do --<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

-- because the ministry has already talked to your boss about the need to rein in her rather demanding new consul.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

(“you’re kidding”)<\/p>\n

My boss is the U. S. Secretary of State.<\/p>\n

Stephen smiles.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

I do hope you’ll replace these curtains. Handler picked a color so bilious it clashes with itself.<\/p>\n

He gathers up his coat.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

And, Brent, “scandal” is a poor threat. For a British politician, a scandal is a bit like --<\/p>\n

He retrieves his scarf.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

Like a colorful scarf. Perhaps it could choke one to death -- but instead it just lends a splash of color to our rather dowdy lives.<\/p>\n

The phone starts ringing.<\/p>\n

A little red light on the phone starts blinking.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

Ah. That would be her.<\/p>\n

BRENT<\/p>\n

“Her” as in the Secretary of --<\/p>\n

Stephen nods.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

That’s what the little red light means.<\/p>\n

Stephen shakes Brent’s hand.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN<\/p>\n

I’ll leave you to it.<\/p>\n

Stephen exits.<\/p>\n

The phone keeps ringing.<\/p>\n

Brent sighs, absently drops the baseball.<\/p>\n

FADE OUT.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My entry for the “Brent Spiner and Stephen Fry” edition of Sketch War. Mr. Spiner plays the U. S. consul-general in London; Mr. Fry plays his liaison in the Foreign Ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sketches","tag-fry-and-spiner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}