You’ll need a big tub of popcorn this time because we have two versions of the script for your entertainment, and for the director’s perusal.
You have only yourselves to blame for encouraging me.
The first is the big-budget version.
The sky is the clear untroubled blue of a blackbird’s egg. The Meddle/Medal/Mettlesome Wife runs out into a sunlit, snowy landscape to greet an RAF helicopter which lands on the field behind the much improved country dwelling - there is no place for dodgy plumbing in this script. Her brow has been miraculously smoothed and her teeth twinkle more white and bright than the snow. She, like the house, has had a bit of a makeover (which is just as well, given the real situation with the plumbing). She is coiffed and polished like she has never been before.
The blades of the helicopter whisk up a flurry of snow as the handsome pilot/co-pilot steps out, all beaming crinkly smiles and pearly whites (fill in the gender and looks of your own fantasy here) and Our Handsome but Fragile Hero and the Meddle/Medal/Mettlesome Wife are helped into the helicopter and swathed in soft cashmere rugs (the last is taking us well over budget.)
Darkness gathers, the music swells, the heart beats faster.
But before you know it, they are landing on the roof of the hospital where the kindly doctors are waiting to do the magic treatment which Our Hero so badly needs.
Now for the second version – the British, budget, social-realist version. With grit.
Bah – you will have to wait until tomorrow for that one – version two of the script is not yet quite complete.
But I must confess that I don't like the direction it is taking ...
The Hell Hounds sleep. Our Hero sleeps. And the Meddle/Medal/Mettlesome Wife has worked wonders with buckets so at least our principal characters have something clean to wear in the next episode.
It is snowing again.
Oh, joy.
