ON THE ROAD
AN ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BY
JAMIE DOBSON
CHARACTERS:
MARK COLEMAN
COLD, MOODY, WITH A GINGER BEARD AND BUSINESS-LIKE. MARK IS IN HIS LATE 20S, WAS BORN IN PRESTON, NORTH ENGLAND, GRADUATED IN MATHEMATICS BEFORE GETTING CAUGHT IN A JOB SO BAD THEY HAD TO PAY HIM VAST AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO DO IT. IN A QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS HE QUITS JOBS AND DECIDES TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE OUT AS A MANAGER AND RECORD PRODUCER. OVERCOMPENSATES HOMOSEXUAL FEARS BY WOMANISING.
STEPH GUY
DARK HAIRED. LATE 20S. PRECOCIOUS CHILD. MAJORED IN DRAMA AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER. MUM WON THE POOLS. DAD LIVES IN CARAVAN. TASTED FAME EARLY IN BRITISH SOPA OPERAS AS A STREET CROOK AND HIPPY. WEARS ONLY ANIMAL PRINTS AND PITCH BLACK. IS IN LOVE WITH DAVID BOWIE, CIRCA LABYRINTH.
SIGNE TOLLEFSEN
BORN IN HOLLAND BEFORE MOVING TO ENGLAND IN HER TEENAGE YEARS. LATE 20S. CLASSICALLY TRAINED SINGER. MAJORED IN PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL. LOVER OF SCHUYFF. SMOKES A VAPORISER. IS RESPONSIBLE AND SERIOUS HAVING BEEN RAISED IN THE TRADITIONS OF BATAVIA. DRIVES THE TOUR BUS.
PETER SCHUYFF
EARLY 50S. ARTIST. THICK MUSTACHE AND STUBBLE. TALL AND SLENDER LIKE A MERCENARY IN A WESTERN MOVIE WHO KILLS SOMEONE’S BROTHER IN A COLD HEARTED MANNER. LIVED IN THE CHELSEA HOTEL FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS. SWAPPED ALL HIS ANDY WARHOL PAINTINGS TO FUEL HIS HEROIN ADDICTION. RAISED IN VANCOUVER. DUTCH MOTHER. LOVER OF TOLLEFSEN. MARRIED TWO OR THREE TIMES. HE THINKS.
JAMIE DOBSON
EARLY 30S. LUDICROUSLY HANDSOME. CHARMING. HINTS OF SOCIOPATHY HIDDEN BY OVERDEVELOPED SENSE OF HUMOUR AND ESTEEM. EMBEDDED WRITER ON THE TOUR. BORN AND RAISED IN HULL, EAST YORKSHIRE. LIVES LIFE ACCORDING TO THE LITERARY MANTRA: ALL WRITERS ARE CUNTS.
PLOT:
THREE MUSICIANS AND THEIR MANAGER, WITH A WRITER TAGGING ALONG, TRAVEL THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE UNITED KINGDOM PROMOTING THEIR NEWEST ALBUMS.
EACH PROTAGONIST IS A HAS-BEEN. HAS BEEN A CHILD. HAS BEEN A LOVER. HAS BEEN FAMOUS. HAS BEEN INTOXICATED. THE FILM, THEN, STARTS THE MIDDLE. IN THE MIDDLE OF CAREERS. THE MIDDLE OF LIVES. THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. AS SOME CHAPTERS END OTHERS BEGIN. THIS IS A STORY OF BEGINNINGS.
THE STORY, THEN, FLASHES BACK AND FLASHES FORWARD. THE LANDSCAPE IS A REFLECTION OF THE DARK LYRICS OF THE ARTISTS, AND SO THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE JOURNEY ACROSS IT IS AN ALLEGORY FOR THE WHAT THEY ARE DOING AND WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO ACHIEVE.
EXAMPLE FADE IN:
OUTSIDE A BAR IN EDINBURGH. IT’S FREEZING COLD. ALL FIVE ARE SMOKING CIGARETTES. THEY STOMP THEIR FEET TO KEEP WARM. A HIPPY LOOKING BAG-LADY IS TALKING TO ANOTHER WOMAN.
DOBSON
Peter, don’t move.
SCHUYFF
(Looking up from his cigarette and speaking in his American drawl)
What?
DOBSON
Don’t make any eye contact. Look straight ahead.
SCHUYFF
Are you fucking serious, man?
DOBSON
I am. The gingers are everywhere. They are in it the with the Catholics. The last thing some people see in these parts are Mel Gibson leading a pack of gingers to the Klingon war cry, ‘Uraaagh! Qapla’.
(Everyone laughs. A man walks by with his dog.)
GUY
(In a North Western accent.)
Eh, look at him, he’s fit him.
TOLLEFSEN
(American English accent)
He is cute.
DOBSON
Do you know what’s under that flat cap?
(Everyone mumbles)
What? No?
DOBSON
A big fucking ginger affro.
COLEMAN
What’s she doing? (The lady has come over and grabbed Steph)
BAG-LADY
Am no a lesbian, but if a was, I-ad foak you!
(Everyone smiles or laughs.)
TOLLEFSEN
You are not a lesbian?
BAG-LADY
Na, a love coak, hard and fast, right in ma erse! (She spins around and points to her backside while looking over her shoulder at Tollefsen.)
DOBSON
(To Tollefsen)
That Dark Side of the Moon is rubbish. Like Faulkner. (Peter’s ears prick up).
TOLLEFSEN
The Wall is for uneducated arseholes.
SCHUYFF
Oh, man, you’re not still going on about Faulkner.
DOBSON
I am just saying, you fucking lot like stuff because culture tells you too. As I Lay Dying was rubbish.
COLEMAN
The problem, Dobson, is that you’re a cock.
GUY
You are a cock.
(The bag lady is back.)
BAG-LADY
(To Coleman)
I’ve felt her tits but av no seen you coak.
COLEMAN
Indeed.
FADE OUT
CAMERA SWEEPS UPWARDS LEAVING TRAILS OF SMOKE AND CIGARETTE DOTS IN THE EVENING EYE.
2 Comments
Scene 2 (day 8)
Fade to black,
Schuyff (loud, to no one in particular): hey turn turn the lights back on!
Credits start to roll (for Labyrinth, 1986, with David Bowie)
Schuyff: (specifically to Dobson): turn the fucking lights back on! This is not finished!
Steph (as if the lights hadn’t been turned off in the first place): you remind me of the babe!
Signe (following through with the quote from Labyrinth): what babe?
Steph: the babe with the power!
Signe: What power?
Steph: The power of voodoo!
Signe: Hoodoo?
Steph: You do!
Signe: Do what?
Steph: Remind me of the babe!
Schuyff (getting angry): ah fuck, not this dribble again!
Dobson (from under the sheets, mimics, in the same key as Schuyff): ah fuck, shut up!
Schuyff (ignoring Dobson): hoohoo booboo cootchie coo that’s not a fucking argument!
Steph: it’s fucking brilliant!
Schuyff (finding the light switch and turning it back on): one would expect, as the result of puberty, to have let go of these crusty little sentiments, you were seven years old! What the fuck did you know? You were wrong, trust me on this, it was a mistake, it’s trash!
Signe: that’s exactly why it’s sacred, we were seven years old!
Steph (dreamy, thinking of David Bowie): it was fucking brilliant!
Schuyff: it was a mistake.
Steph (snaps out of the dream for a minute): it was fucking brilliant! And He, doesn’t make mistakes. I know this. I wrote my dissertation about Him, I studied Him, you know. For years. I know all about Him, every detail and it’s fucking brilliant!
Schuyff: the haircuts alone keep me up at night.
Steph: what haircuts? I love the haircuts! There’s nothing wrong with the haircuts!
Signe: so does that mean you hate my music? I’m covering a song from labyrinth on my new album, you know, that last song is from Labyrinth.
Schuyff: I never said anything about hate and yes sure I’ll bet you’ve made something beautiful out of it, you could make the theme song from Gilligan’s Island sound good! But what do my opinions on haircuts have to do with your music?
Dobson: (hasn’t moved from under the sheets): turn off the light on your way out!
Schuyff: I’m not suggesting it should not have had relevance for you or that it’s not good to look back on those halcyon mid-eighties when you were seven and I was twenty-seven but I figure that in these intervening twenty some odd years you would have learned to recognize it for the fucking pap that it is.
Signe (puts her hands up to her ears) I don’t want to know about this, I don’t want you to take this away from me, why would you want to take this away from me? I’m not listening! (hands back to the ears and makes noise to drown out Schuyff)
Coleman (upstairs, giggles) tee-hee-hee.
Schuyff: I’m not trying to take anything away from anyone, I don’t see how recognizing that it was an almost suicidally tasteless career move for David Bowie could take away from it being a seminal moment in your childhood. You were seven, you didn’t know any better, you were a kid, you were wrong. It’s kind of cute when you think about it.
Steph (on her back, talking to the ceiling): you can’t talk about Him that way, he’s perfect, Him, I don’t think He’s capable of a bad moves except maybe moving to Switzerland and marrying that black bitch!
Schuyff: seriously, I was there, I was old and wise enough to recognize a sinking ship when I saw one.
Signe: you are boring, therefor your argument has no relevance.
Dobson: i think I’m with Peter on this, turn off the lights on your way out.
Schuyff: all’s I’m saying is here’s this brilliant guy who’s been important to me forever and suddenly he takes a year off to put on a stupid wig and dance around like a fucking clown. It’s embarrassing!
Steph (suddenly paying attention): that weren’t no wig!
Signe: well I think it was brilliant and I don’t care what you think!
Schuyff: well there you go, so whats the problem?
Signe: because it means a lot to me.
Schuyff: me too!
Steph (still to the ceiling, sultry, imagine a wolf whistle): me too!
Dobson: not me fuck turn off the lights on your way out.
Fade to Amsterdam.
DOBSON SITS ALONE AT THE KEYBOARD. HE STARES INTO SPACE. HIS EYES ARE DULL AND HIS POSTURE SLUMPED. ON HIS DESK IS A COPY OF HOGGART’S THE USES OF LITERACY.
Fade out…
THE END.
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