Off the Record
A One Act Comedy
- New Script - Only obtainable from the author
Characters
One Male
One Female
(Ages flexible, but should be reasonably close)
The Setting: A quiet corner of a bar
Running Time: 25 minutes
Synopsis
In a quiet corner of a bar, a couple are meeting on what appears to be a blind date. She’s got lots of questions, but all his answers have a certain something in common. When she asks what he’s drinking, his reply is “Red red wine” and this first date is all about “Knowing me, knowing you.”
In an early moment of awkwardness, she confesses to having forgotten his name. His reply of “Mr Blue Sky” is, he admits, “Just my imagination, running away with me.” When pushed for his real name, he says it’s “Fernando.”
He’s also forgotten her name, and after desperately guessing names like “Peggy Sue” or “Delilah,” before settling on “Lady Madonna,” it’s very obvious that he’s quoting classic pop song titles. As she continues to probe with increasingly tricky questions on blind date topics like occupations and favourite holiday destinations, his every reply is a chart hit.
What is going on? We’re discovering how a couple who are clearly not on a blind date, keep their extreme competitiveness sharp after having been barred from every pub quiz in town because they always win. To test each other, they’ve created a series of different scenarios with strict rules. In this one, he is limited to hit songs from the fifties onward, with nothing later than 1999, and every title must be 100% accurate. She cannot quote any song title, even accidentally. Not surprisingly, this results in disputed answers.
Unfortunately for her, in a heated exchange, she quotes a hit by the Beatles, making him the bragging winner. But there’s always the next round.
The next scenario is a job interview. She’s the applicant and her replies are confined to film titles.
Could be Titanic.
