The Beggars Opera

Grand Finale

Friends all, look, the cast are assembled on our stage, the final push, the tying of the knots, the last arias, we might whistle them on our way home. The fog’s lifting too.

Jogging on his way from the scene, Barney runs slap bang into Mally still standing by the open door of his van. The poor lad’s glass jaw stopping Barney’s fist before he knew it. He drops, out cold before he hits the floor

“Is he all right sergeant?” Asks a passing councillor on his way to a meeting with the Commissioner.
“Oh yes, Officer Mally here’s just had a bit too much. Can’t hold the liquor, see he’s pissed himself as well. I better get him back to the station, there’s a party tonight and he wouldn’t want to miss it.”
And with that, Barney heaves him over his shoulder and into the van


In Ryan’s bar our knights and their squires are busy moving the furniture.
For now as they look, the outline of a trap door is revealed, its edges fast with years of grime and spilled beer.

“What does it look like, this Guinness Grail?”
“A tricorn. The three horn-ed helmet of the Pasha of Valencia, captured in Moorish times. Like a Viking’s, but with an extra cow horn sticking out the front.”
“A hat? A tin hat with horns?”
“Yes, used upturned like a cauldron to brew the first ever Guinness Stout! And as a drinking vessel to be passed round many comrades in times of jubilation after bold deed and victory in combat against a fearsome foe…”
“No shit.”
“Its stuck! The fucking thing’s stuck.”
“Try this” says the stranger (who has watched and listened all the long night), passing over a bottle of black liquid.
Gorilla Bananas turns the 12 inch shore battery of his gaze on the newcomer.
“I was wondering when you’d join us, Eater of the Foot, Clearer of the Path.”
“He’s been looking at my neck all night.”
“Fuckbag!”
“No I wasn’t and its Foot Eater actually. Look be careful with that stuff, its corrosive, there’s Pepsi Max in it.”
“Yes you were, you were sitting over there. Staring at it all night.”

The liquid fizzles round the trapdoor’s rim, dissolving the grime.
With a creak the door gives way.
“Bring light!!”



“Cut the lights! That’s a wrap. We’ve got enough here I think to keep us going.”
Back in the house the girls have finished with their porn star for the evening and have some very tasteful shots of the drugged up sergeant "blowing his whistle", "polishing his truncheon" etc etc.
“Now where’s Barney?”
“That sounds like him now.”
“Did we go too far with that rats head d’yi think?”
“Nah”
They both start laughing.


Back at Ryan's,
Watching the antics, Ryan wonders why they want to go down the old coal hatch? No ones been down there these past five years since we put in the gas.

“Can you see anything Ayres?”
“Yes I think. No…Wait a minute…no………what’s this…I can feel something…No…yeuch!…Jesus what WAS that?…Klank!…My God it’s here! Bananas!…I’ve got it!”
Through a storm of cheers and backslaps, back out he comes, emerging, blinking like a miner, in his trembling hands, the Guinness Grail!
Now what do they want with that old coal scuttle? thinks Ryan


Back at the house,
The two semi concious policement have been bundled into the police van as they are coming round.Barney drives the van onto his neighbour's new seeded lawn, does a handbrake turn or two on it and then turns on the blue light and siren before trotting over to the girls waiting in the backup vehicle. But not before he pours the bottle of Jagermeister over the two naked men in the back, struggling with their dazed confusion...and the bondage straps...and the handcuffs...

“Sergeant, how did we get here? Like this?”
“Wha’? CRACK…Oh god!…don’t move…Me neck!…Wait…Mally is that you?”
“Yes sergeant”
“Well would you mind taking your dick out my fucking ear?”

Back at Ryan's, Barney raps the bar (they've just arrived you see)
“Three Jagermeisters! doubles! we’re celebratin’ and looks like were not the only ones. Lively crowd in the corner tonight Ryan.”
Ryan looks over.
Holding two beer mugs to his chest like a glass bra, and with the horned helmet stuck on his head, Ayres is on the table singing:
“One black one,
One white one…….”
Ryan’s patience already razor thin, snaps. Throwing down his towel he storms over.

“… And the hair on her Dickey Di-do, went down to…”

“Right. That is IT ! The show’s over!”

A punne, The show's not over 'til the.....