I Am The Doctor

By
Susan Byron

Email: susanbyron956@gmail.com
 Cast of Characters
Keith: 18-30 male
Jon: 18-30 male
 ACT I
Scene 1
Jon and Keith are at home, unwillingly sharing the
same space. Maybe they’ve had a couple of drinks.

They exchange brief, wary looks, separately then

simultaneously. One folds his arms, the other
folds his legs, one unfolds his arms and then
crosses his ankles. They just can’t get
comfortable.
It begins to look like some kind of mime when -
JON
Have you ever gone into Boots, or Sainsbury’s and...
for a second you have to remind yourself what you’ve
gone in for and why you’re there?
KEITH
Yeah.

JON
And maybe you don’t know the store, so you look for
signs to work out where you need to go -
KEITH
Yeah.

JON
And you’re aware that your purpose - buying things - is
eating up the minutes and hours. They’re already gone.
KEITH
(an aside)
I hope he’ll leave it at that, that these are throwaway
comments, not a search for some deeper meaning, and
that he will leave me in peace.

JON
That’s how we spend so much of our time, just buying
things.
I was in this exact position yesterday.

And then I noticed - with sudden, illuminating clarity

- there is too much stuff to choose from.
Keith exhales audibly.
There are too many sandwiches, to start with.

(MORE)
(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 2.

JON (cont’d)
And it sparked something - as I walked away it was
almost an out-of-body experience - I was watching
myself stride out the door and into the street.

That impulse was rebellion. Protest.

KEITH
(aside continued)
He’s used the word ’rebellion’ and that’s not a good
sign.

JON
It’s how we have to be now. We have to protest,
sometimes quietly, sometimes silently -
KEITH
(aside continued)
We’ve been here before. We were here this time last
week - and earlier this week.
JON
(overlapping slightly with Keith’s last
remark)
- And sometimes loudly. We must roar - against the
system.
KEITH
Against sandwiches.
JON
Which are products of the capitalist system. It is
these products that play a part in making slaves of us
- the workers.

KEITH
(aside continued)
He’s only sharing his thoughts I suppose, but I’ve got
enough of my own without worrying about someone else’s.
That’s why it’s efficient not to listen.

JON
Are you listening to me?
KEITH
Yes.

JON
We should not be asking ourselves ’when’, but ’how’.
KEITH
It wasn’t a protest.

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 3.

JON
But don’t ask ’why’ - that takes too long.
KEITH
You walked out of a store, for Christ’s sake.

JON
What else is a boycott?
KEITH
It’s not a boycott if no-one else knows you’re doing
it.
JON
I’m telling you so you know I’m doing it.
So then I’m walking down the road.

The shops display are displaying their wares to me in a

kind of commercial red-light Amsterdam, and I can see
there are too many calendars, and - and - toys - and
shoes.

Whatever you think of, there is too much of. Rows and
rows of things - they’re the same things they just look
slightly different but they all sit posing on the
shelves - buy me! Buy me! Buy me!
I might do except I’m working all day to buy the stuff
in the first place.
KEITH
So you work and buy. That’s not a punishment. It’s
agency.

JON
It’s not agency. Agency implies choice. I - the worker
- do not have a choice.
KEITH
You just said you were choosing what to buy.
JON
I didn’t choose to choose!
It’s not the finest expression and Jon pulls a
face at Keith.
KEITH
(an aside)
Jon is approaching the quagmire. His discontent becomes
my discontent - that’s what happens when you live with
someone.

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 4.

(to Jon)
We’re all working. Show me someone who isn’t ’a worker’
of some variety.
JON
There is work and there’s work. How hard did I have to
work to get work? And how much do I get for my work?
A pause.
KEITH
I remember Christmas Eve -
JON
Why are we talking about last month? You’re always
clinging to the past. We need protest, not presents.

KEITH
Let me finish. Bloody impatient.
It was cloudy, still - it looked very ordinary, but
there is no other day like it.

I noticed all the people who were not shopping or

travelling, but taking a break, in paint-covered
overalls or high-vis clothing or a shop uniform. I
wondered when they would go home. How they’d relax,
what TV they’d watch.

JON
Our work is a commitment. It’s repetition. Grafting.
Sweat. Maybe a metaphorical sweat.
KEITH
I’ve worked the Eve most other years. But - a day’s
work for a day’s pay. I wasn’t hard done by.
JON
You were lucky. What about...you’ve read about it -
zero hours, minimum wage jobs, the ever-escalating
price of food.
KEITH
You’ve taken on a country’s concerns as your own -
JON
Judgements about how you look and sound, assumptions
about what you understand -
KEITH
I’m sorry, I can’t quite - make you out - under the
cloak of victimhood.

(MORE)
(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 5.

KEITH (cont’d)
You can’t do anything about those things. What’s the
point of wallowing?

JON
I think I’d quite like to wallow. It sounds indulgent.
Relaxing. I imagine a big fat hippo, sloshing about.

Hippos are happy. I bet they don’t have a class divide

- I bet they don’t argue about who’s got the better bit
of mud.
KEITH
That’s your biggest concern? The class divide? I call
that posturing.
JON
It is a concern. It’s your concern, too -
KEITH
I think if you were not so bored, if you were not on
the Guardian website at every opportunity -
JON
(under his breath)
It’s like once a day...

KEITH
If you had more money to spend, and were spending more
money and having more fun, the problems that are here
and have always been here throughout all time - would
not bother you.

JON
It’s called class consciousness.
KEITH
If your life felt great, you wouldn’t care.
JON
That’s exactly what we’re talking about.
KEITH
You don’t have to be a pain in the arse about it.
JON
I’m not a pain in my arse. By definition, it’s your
problem.

KEITH
We’re in the same boat. The same field. The same
confined space...

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 6.

A pause. They seem to have reached an impasse.

You need the help of a doctor.
JON
That’s a bit severe, isn’t it?

KEITH
I don’t mean a real one. Do you think a real doctor
would have time for this?
That’s why we have fictional doctors.

Doctor Who, Doctor Watson - although he’s not that

useful - Doctor Scully, Doctor Strange. All providing a
valuable service to society.
JON
You’re not serious.
KEITH
I’ve never been more serious.
Jon, you are not just a friend, you’re a flatmate, and
that’s why I’m going to invent a new doctor, a doctor
with the intellect, passion, intellect -
JON
- you said that one -

KEITH
- to cure this particular and curious ailment, class
consciousness.
(with a new authority)
The remedy that is needed - the prescription required -

JON
Oh, you’re the doctor?
KEITH
I am the doctor! And I say what we need is more - vice.
No - not just one vice - plural - vices.
Drinking, gambling, fighting and other bad things, like
men used to do.
JON
What have I said about living in the past? The old ways
don’t work anymore. Besides, how do you know that
taking up drinking - for instance - would be effective?
How do you know it was ever effective in the past, when
you were not there?

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 7.

KEITH
I wasn’t around in 1066, but I know things happened
that year.
When was the last fight you had that didn’t involve a
keyboard?
JON
I am a civilised gentleman.
KEITH
And when was the last time you gambled?
JON
Does voting on the X Factor count?
KEITH
And if we drink, it is responsibly. When did we start
doing what we were told?
JON
We’re puritans. Is that why I feel this
dissatisfaction - am I being too pure?

KEITH
That is our issue.
JON
And I thought I was a rebel. I was a fool!

But I don’t think drinking, gambling or fighting is the

answer. I want a second opinion.
KEITH
(deflated)
You can’t say I didn’t try.
JON
I need something, I just don’t know what it is.

A pause.
We don’t have the classless society that was promised.
KEITH
Was it a promise? Or a claim?

JON
I can’t remember now. But whatever, they failed, they
didn’t achieve it, or it wasn’t true.
And it glares like a glooming zit right in the middle
of a face. Their face.

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 8.

KEITH
(resignedly)
And they are?
JON
They - the established, well-connected, conventional,
other and elsewhere.
KEITH
Classless wouldn’t be my ideal. Does it mean we would
all be the same? It sounds a bit grey.

JON
What is wrong with grey? I have many grey things. Grey
socks serve me well. My pants are grey -
KEITH
They weren’t when you bought them.
JON
They do the job.
KEITH
I wrote a little poem about grey once.
JON
How did it go?
KEITH
I can’t remember it all that well.
JON
Well, have a go. I’ll feel deprived if you don’t.
KEITH
Okay, I’ll try. Here goes -
Gre-eeey....gre-eeey...that’s it - the vowel stretches
endlessly -

JON
Is that how it starts?
JON
(quick fire, almost rushed)
Yes - I’m saying it now! Grey pavements and grey skies
which go on forever.
Grey spreads by merging and blurring, so it
expands and invades. It is present, then a presence,

and presence is power, and people want power

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 9.

so they are all try to be grey.

Grey is bland and they blend in by blanding
and start climbing the ladder, stepping up

one rung at a time.

When not climbing they’re standing, by the river,
cafe or bar, drinks in hand, trying to be bland,
actively, studiously grey.
JON
Is there more?
KEITH
Not yet. I wrote it in my head on the District Line.
JON
It is marvellous. ’Climbing the ladder’...
We wanted more than our dads or grand-dads did, and our
expectations - whether grey or great - have not been
met.
KEITH
I do not want more than my dad - he was a grade A
greedy bastard alive.

I can picture him now in his big car, his latest

squeeze on the passenger side - riding down the
materialism motorway.
JON
In two decades we have really moved on. In technology,
social mores - we’re pioneers.
I’m like the Christopher Columbus of Tindr -
KEITH
In that you don’t know where you’re going?
JON
Or where I’ve been. It’s an adventure, that’s the
point.

KEITH
But it’s never enough is it? Five minutes ago you were
in the depths of despondency. Five minutes from now
you’ll be back in it.

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 10.

JON
Predicting the future? I’m impressed.
KEITH
Based on a pattern of behaviour. And I think I know
it’s source.

Society is going through immense change right now - you

can feel it in the air. It’s frightening -
JON
- I’m scared, too, Keith.
He’s joking.
KEITH
But also - exciting. We can’t accept old ideas if they
don’t fit in our new world.
The Victorians - they changed the way we travel, the
way we work, the things we eat - but at the same time
experienced this huge psychological conflict.

Theirs was a crisis of faith - for us, a crisis of

class.
A pause.
We don’t know what it means anymore.

JON
Yes we do.
KEITH
Define class, or a class - working, middle, upper.

JON
It’s like the judge in that court case said: ’I know it
when I see it’.
KEITH
He was talking about pornography.
JON
Perhaps there are comparisons to be made. No-one wants
to talk about it. When they do, you rather they
didn’t.

KEITH
It’s going to be hideously embarrassing. But you
haven’t answered my question.

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 11.

JON
Working class means working people. I’m working class.
KEITH
Are the middle classes not working?

JON
They have more leisure time - or they used to.
KEITH
What if you’re strugglng to find work? ’Down on your
luck’ as they used to say. Are you still working class?
JON
Yes. I don’t change class at the whim of an employer.
KEITH
Say you leave school at eighteen, A-Levels but no
degree, and get a customer service job in the local
bank. Working or middle class?
JON
Working.

KEITH
But then you stay there and ten years later you’re a
branch manager. A middle-class job, right?
JON
Er, yeah.
KEITH
So you’ve changed class - at the whim on an employer.
JON
No. Because you worked your way up, you’re still
working class. That’s how you started.
KEITH
Are you saying you can never change class? How or where
you started is all that matters -
JON
No - no. It’s just a bit depressing to say you’re stuck
with something about yourself and can’t change it.

KEITH
And being working class is something you should want to
change?
JON
No - what I mean is, you should want to progress.

(MORE)
(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 12.

JON (cont’d)
The politician John Prescott, now Lord Prescott.
Brought up in Yorkshire, grandson of a miner, was a
ship’s steward and waiter in the Merchant Navy. Forty
years later he’s deputy leader of the Labour Party and
deputy Prime Minister. Is he working class?
KEITH
Yes.
JON
But not exactly.
KEITH
’I yam what I yam’. Popeye.
JON
Is it the class, or the things he has, or the things
he’s achieved?
KEITH
Popeye or Prescott?

JON
I’m confused.
KEITH
Now I am too.

JON
I may be baffled, but on one thing I’m clear. It is
them and us.
KEITH
Are they going to stop you getting what you want?
Class is...it means...the thing to think about is...The
difference between me and the next man - another kind
of man is -
(gnomically but with confidence)

- is that we look at life from different ends of the

same telescope.
A pause.

JON
What does that mean?
Another pause.

(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED: 13.

KEITH
Anything you want it to.
KEITH
(final aside)
Last week it all ended in furious, eyes-averted
silence. Today it’s gone well. But we’ll talk about it
again. We always do.
THE END