Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi - Phil Willmott

JO AS YOUNG ALICE: Well you’re going to now or I’m going to tell the police
what I saw last night.
THOMPSON: And are you going to tell them how you lay awake gazing at me?
I saw you.
JO AS YOUNG ALICE: You big ‘ead –
THOMPSON: No, it was lovely. No one’s ever looked at me like that before. I
pretended to be asleep. Didn’t want to break the spell. The moment when
you brushed my cheek –
JO AS YOUNG ALICE: That’s it! You’re in trouble mister.
THOMPSON: I was going to come and find you later.
JO AS YOUNG ALICE: You’re a mess up who’s let down every single person
that’s ever cared about or believed in him.
THOMPSON: No, Alice.
JO AS YOUNG ALICE: You’re going to get yourself back on the straight and
narrow and you are going to make us all proud. I’ve got you a job. At the
Adelphi, you start tomorrow.
THOMPSON: (HOPEFULLY) Doing the books?
JO AS YOUNG ALICE: You must be joking. Think I’m going to trust you with
the company’s money? No way. You’ve got to prove yourself, prove you’re
serious about this, and prove you’re not afraid of hard work.
THOMPSON: What do I have to do?
JO AS YOUNG ALICE: In the hotel there are dining rooms. Magnificent food,
beautiful surroundings (UNDERSCORE STARTS) but that’s not you, beneath
that are the service stations where the food arrives to be served by
immaculate waiters in black and white. Not you. Beneath this are the
kitchens where the chefs are gods ruling over an army of chopping, slicing,
mixing, making magic. Not you. Beneath that amidst the steam of the ovens
in the heat and the dark are the kitchen lads, Irish mostly, but poles and
frenchies and even Germans sweating away washing pots and heaving crates
and the like from dawn till dusk. That’s where you’re working ‘till you can
prove you can be trusted.
(UNDERSCORE OUT)
THOMPSON: I can’t be a kitchen porter.
JO AS YOUNG ALICE: Take your choice. It’s that or the police. I’m doing all
this for your own good, don’t you see.
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