The Three Doctors

The Three Doctors

With:

Doctor Kenneth TUPPER

Doctor Sidney MANGE

Doctor Reginald ROUGHROD

Two or three EXTRAS

TITLES:

GRAMS:

Some sort of cheap, upbeat brass combo, dripping 1970s, (a la ‘Terry and June’ or ‘On the Buses’) with plenty of mouth trumpet and badly tuned trombone. Swanee whistle to underline comic beats essential. If composer unavailable then cut and paste some ‘Carry On’ themes from the internet in a random fashion. For added impact get one of those cheap hip hop beat box artist that are ten a penny on high streets adding ‘oh yeah’, ‘baby’, ‘ugh ugh’ and coughing up fart noises.

GRAPHICS:

A mixture of live action, freeze frame and title cards with cartoon drawings. Use a series of freeze frames depicting actors costumed in scrubs, pointing at medical implements, wobbling jellies or fruits that resemble sexual organs in mock outrage / concern / horror – delete as appropriate. Captions could include: ‘that’s a big one’, ‘chase me’, ‘You don't get anything for a pair, not in this game’, ‘didn’t he do well’, ‘well, what a pair of wobbling melons’.

CUT TO:

  INT.  OPERATING THEATRE. DAY. 1972    

Establishing shot of a calendar denoting the 1970s and an operating theatre of some description.  TUPPER and MANGE are unpacking their doctor’s bags, scrubbing up and so forth. MANGE pulls out what is obviously a lunch box with ‘lunch box’ written on it in felt tip pen, empty save for a large ordinary looking aubergine. Which he holds up to the light. It has a post-it note stuck to it.

TUPPER:

Oh, goodness gracious me. What have you got there, Sid?

            MANGE:

Cor, blimey. It’s a rude vegetable that Mrs Mange put in my lunchbox, Kenneth.

            TUPPER:

                        Oh, I say. What sort of vegetable?

            MANGE:

A gigantic aubergine in the shape of a stool bucket that’s recently been used by an incontinent patient caught short.

TUPPER:

Oo, what a lark! I like a rude vegetable, I do. I say, how do you know?

            MANGE:

                        Know what?

            TUPPER:

                        That it’s a stool bucket.

MANGE:

It’s written on the note here. ‘Dear Mange. I thought if you found this rude vegetable shaped like a used stool bucket in your lunch box, it might cheer you up. Signed, Mrs Mange.’

            TUPPER:

                        What a card that woman is.

           

            MANGE:

She’d be even more of a card if I ever found some lunch in my box. A har har.

           

The door to the surgery is flung open. And we hear an EXTRA. Two postcards are flung on the operating table.

            EXTRA (O.S):

                        Newspapers!

            MANGE:

                        (tapping watch and shouting after him)

Half an hour late! Cor, blimey, these aren’t even newspapers.

           

            TUPPER:

                        Oh…what are they, Sid?

            MANGE:

                        Cards.

            TUPPER:

                        Did Mrs Mange send them?

MANGE:

Yak, yak, yak. No.  They’re saucy seaside postcards, from the seaside. From Doctor Hopperby. He’s on holiday. By the seaside. Lucky bleeder.

TUPPER:

Is he? Ooooo. Holiday, eh? Get away.

MANGE:

Yes, that’s right. A ha ha harr.

TUPPER:

(To camera, raising a glass of champagne)

                        And a merry Christmas to all you at home.

MANGE holds the saucy postcard to camera so it is clearly visible. It depicts a humorous scene of a junior doctor with forceps. He has removed the sleeping patient’s penis by accident and is being shouted at by his senior colleague.

           

           

            TUPPER:

                        Ooo! What does it say, Sid?

MANGE:

Cor, blimey. I don’t get it, Kenneth, I just don’t get it. Even I just don’t get it.

            TUPPER:

Oooo. Don’t get it? Neither do I.

            MANGE:

Yak yak yak. No, no that, this. I mean what’s it all about? Look.  A brightly coloured mock-up of an operating theatre…

            TUPPER

Oooo yes, just like the one we work in, us being fully qualified surgeons that perform…operations…on certain parts of the male body…

MANGE:

Why do you keep interrupting me by stating the bleeding obvious, Kenneth?

            TUPPER:

                        Bleeding? But we haven’t even started yet.

            MANGE:

Yak, yak, yak. Now see here Kenneth, these three surgeons…standing…

            TUPPER:

                        Like us…

            MANGE:

Shut yer trap, Kenneth. Listen. This senior surgeon looks cross and is shouting at the junior surgeon, who is sweating and holding his forceps above the patient’s dongler. ‘The caption reads: ‘You blithering idiot, I ordered you to remove his spectacles.’ What’s saucy about that? Has he got it in for spectacles?

            TUPPER:

                        Snort. Get it in. Saucy.

            MANGE:

                        What does yours say?

            TUPPER:

Er...‘She’s got acute angina. Blimey. She hasn't got a bad pair of boobs either.’. I don’t get it either, Sid.

MANGE:

            Get away.

(tosses postcard aside)

What a bleeding tosser. Yak, yak, yak.

TUPPER:

                        Oh, I say!

(To camera, raising a glass of champagne)

                        And a merry Christmas to all you at home.

The door to the operating theatre is now flung open and Reginald ROUGHROD abruptly enters.

He is not in the best of moods, being late for the impending operation.

He chucks a stethoscope at a hat stand where it misses and catches TUPPER in the eye.

ROUGHROD:

11 minutes late. Defective hip hop artist at Effingham Junction.

MANGE:

Great.

            TUPPER:

Super.

            ROUGHROD:

It was neither great nor super. The hip hop artist was doing some improvised beatboxing - breakdancing on a large piece of cardboard which he’d nailed to the tracks in front of a crowd of rush hour commuters on their way to the January Sales, blocking the points at Shagingham Halt. There was a great deal of beatingham and 12 rounds of boxingham by the time they caught him.

            MANGE:      

                        Too good for him, I say. Yak, yak, yak.

           

           

Whilst the conversation continues, the three DOCTORS are scrubbing up, putting on plastic gloves and the like, as they do…

           

           

TUPPER:

Oh, I say. But wasn’t it National Hip Hop Day?

           

            ROUGHROD:

Well, possibly. As they tossed him in front of the locomotive, he kept shouting, ‘I’m Lance, I’m Lance! Remember the X Factor? I could be the next Susan Boyle.’

            MANGE:

Yak, yak, yak. Shame. There just aren’t enough boils to lance these days.

TUPPER:

Oo yes. Here, Sid,  have you noticed it’s always National Something Day, these days? National Dolphin Day, National Sprouts Day, National Bin Bag Day…

MANGE:

Well, he couldn’t any expect special consideration, just because somebody who makes greetings cards decided it was Hip Hop Day…yak, yak, yak.

           

            ROUGHROD:

Quite so. It was International Overlook Your Fork Day yesterday. I put one on my chair, overlooked it, sat down and bang – there was my fork, straight, smack, plumb up my arse.

            MANGE:

Get away. Forking painful. You won’t fork-get that in a hurry. A ha ha ha.

TUPPER:

Oh, Fork day, was it? Oh, I say. No wonder I had trouble with road junctions yesterday. And I thought it was Check All Testicles for Lumps day, you see? There I was, out and about, putting my fingers up the trousers of the queue outside Boots, passing out cough drops willy nilly….

            MANGE:

                        Ding Dong.

            TUPPER:

                        Precisely.

            ROUGHROD:

Shut up the pair of you. You sound like a couple of bad actors auditioning for Carry On Willies….

TUPPER:

                        Oh, I say!

(To camera, raising a glass of champagne)

                        And a merry Christmas to all you at home.

           

            ROUGHROD:

(phone rings)

Excuse me, I’d better take this…

(answers)

Yes CJ…certainly CJ… no I know you didn’t get where you are today by walking around with a fork up your arse CJ…yes I know that neither Mrs CJ or you have ever stuck forks up your arses, CJ…Yes, I know it’s no way to pay tribute to the People’s Princess, CJ… certainly CJ…afternoon would suit me best…

(finishes call)

Seeing CJ, 11.30 this morning.

MANGE:

Great.

            TUPPER:

Super.

            ROUGHROD:

                        Never mind all that. Where’s the patient?

           

The door to the theatre bursts open loudly and two EXTRAS enter carrying a corpse under a sheet. One is tall and dressed like a hotel manager, the other is smaller and could be Spanish. They are panting, covered in sweat / in panic mode. They dump the corpse on the operating table, The FIRST grabs the ear of the SECOND and thrusts the second’s face towards the operating table.

            EXTRA 1:

This hotel bedroom. This hotel bed. This smack on head.

            EXTRA 2:

                        I no want to work here anymore.

(They leave the way they entered.)

           

            ROUGHROD:

                        (consulting a clipboard)

Excellent. This must be the patient. Says here that he is due for penile surgery. Or, as we Doctors call it, penile surgery.  Now, has anybody got medical records?

            TUPPER:

Er…When You’re in love with a Beautiful Woman by Doctor Hook?

            MANGE:

                        A har har har.

            ROUGHROD:

                        Disgraceful.

(pulling back the sheet, checking for a pulse)

Strange. Seems to be dead. Why would a dead man want his penis removed?

            MANGE:

Perhaps he was feeling stiff. Yak. Yak. Yak.

            ROUGHROD:

                        Even worse.

(He notices something sticking out of the corpse’s jumper and extracts it. A kipper. He now holds this up.)

What’s the meaning of this? A mouldy kipper shoved up his jumper. And please…nobody say anything along the lines of ‘that’s a bit fishy’…

The door is flung open again and the two EXTRAS enter, seize the corpse and drag it out, banging the door behind them.

The door reopens, EXTRA 1 rushes in, snatches the kipper from ROUGHROD and pauses at the door.

            EXTRA:

                        Er…Kipper’s off. Sorry.

(He slams the door.)

            MANGE:

                        I could’ve told him that. Yak, yak, yak

           

            TUPPER:

Oh yes, the whole place whiffs of fish now. Reminds me of something. I just can’t put my finger on it…

MANGE:

You keep your filthy finger out of Mrs Mange’s knickers, Kenneth. Yak, yak, yak.

TUPPER:

                        Oh, I say!

(To camera, raising a glass of champagne)

                        And a merry Christmas to all you at home.

            ROUGHROD:

                        Why does he keep saying that, Mange?

            MANGE:

Gawd knows. Here, Kenneth, why do you keep saying that when it isn’t even bleeding Christmas, you twerp? Have you been sticking your balls up prematurely, again?

            ROUGHROD:

                        Baubles, Mange, baubles.

            MANGE:

                        And the same to you. A har har.

            TUPPER:

Oh, I say. Here, stop it. Who are we going to operate on now?

The door to the theatre opens yet again, this time more slowly and reveals an EXTRA, a short man with a flat cap in a camel hair coat with his back the DOCTORS.

            EXTRA:

                        (Speaking to someone unseen)

Easy does it Trigger, play it nice and cool, son, nice and cool, know what I mean?

The EXTRA falls through the door landing at the feet of the three DOCTORS. Before he can get up, the DOCTORS wrestle him to the operating table. The EXTRA all the time struggling and protesting in cod French phrases as he is secured with straps.

EXTRA:

Boeuf a la mode, pot pourri, mon dieu, crème de menthe, etc

ROUGHROD:

Now then, now then, of course you’re worried, it’s a perfectly normal reaction during penis removal. You won’t feel a thing…don’t struggle…it’ll soon be over…

           

They anaesthetise the struggling EXTRA, who appears to go under, then sits upright before finally succumbing

            EXTRA:

Even the sonic screwdriver won’t get me out of this one.

Cutaway to close ups of the three DOCTORS who examine the EXTRA’S goolies critically, now masked in a sinister fashion and holding implements somewhat menacingly.

            MANGE:

                        Cor blimey. That’s a tiddler, isn’t it?

            TUPPER:

Oh, I don’t know. If my pussy saw that it would give him the willies.

            ROUGHROD:

Quiet, the pair of you. Tupper? Proceed with the operation.

            TUPPER:

                        Oh, I say…well if you insist…          

We have a montage of sweating brows, ticking clocks, medical instruments being passed between the DOCTORS with stereotypical orders along the lines of ‘scalpel’, ‘forceps’, ‘rude aubergine’; set to music connoting drama and danger.

Eventually, the operation is over. TUPPER mops his brow and smirks. The camera pulls back and we see the forceps he is holding up in triumph. ROUGHROD double takes and his face gradually convulses in anger. He points a shaking finger. The scene ends as close to the saucy postcard from the start as is possible. We see now that there is a pair of spectacles in the forceps that TUPPER is holding.

            TUPPER:

                        What?

            ROUGHROD:

You blithering idiot. I ordered you to remove his testicles!

MANGE:

            Yak, yak, yak

EXTRA:

                        (Waking up and looking at TUPPER)

                       Blimey. You haven't got a bad pair of boobs, either.

ALL and EXTRA:

            (raising glasses of champagne to camera)

            And a merry Christmas to all you at home.

CUT