SERIES ONE

The Wrestler's Tomb

Maddy: Hello? Superintendent? I'm researching a book about bungled police prosecutions over the la… Sorry? Well it's in connection with a Mrs Maureen Harker, who I understand rather tragically hanged herself last week while in police custody with some thick copper wire. I was wondering, to be honest, where she might have got hold of a …of a thick copper possibly.

Maddy: If it's more bad news, Barry, I don’t want to know.
Barry: 10,000 returns in Australia, Mad, I'm sorry.
Maddy: 10,000! What do they do? Print them on boomerangs?

Francesca: So you er… create all these fantastic illusions for Adam Klaus. So you must know all the secrets.
Jonathan: Well I've learned to keep my mouth shut. Ever since I told one of his girlfriends he had a hairpiece. She thought I said 'herpes'. Tried to circumcise him with a tin opener.

Jack In The Box

Jonathan: Do you know that is absolute crap that is if you actually try it. It is completely and totally impossible to slip on a banana skin. Seaweed no problem. Dog's mess. Piece of cake. You try skidding on a banana peel... Maybe if I took a run at it... Here goes.
Maddy: Well done. You've proved your point about the dog's mess. One more go with the banana peel?

Maddy: Such was the media’s obsession with the murder of Jennifer Holiday, that Mr Rokesmith here was virtually tried, convicted and sentenced by the tabloid press, who as usual proved themselves to be as inaccurate as they are illiterate.
Reporter: Can you spell that, please?

Maddy: I could have come in here and found you with your throat slit.
Jonathan: Yeah. I think I saw one of those little sewing kits in the bathroom for just such an emergency.

Maddy: You know Jack Holiday shot himself last week.
Jonathan: Yes. The only thing he’s done that made me laugh.
Maddy: Oh great. The poor man’s dead!
Jonathan: Well I don’t suppose that’ll stop him overacting.
Jonathan: And Trevor?
Maddy: Trevor and I were getting on each other's nerves in the end, so I did the mature thing and set fire to his underpants.

The Reconstituted Corpse

Jonathan: It's not my fault all this, come on.
Maddy: What?
Jonathan: This plan of yours to make me insanely jealous by turning up here tonight with some stunning hunk has all gone horribly wrong – thanks to the bastard son of Forrest Gump in there. You must have known it was a risk.
Maddy: That is the most unbelievably arrogant, egotistical thing I've ev…
Shelford: That was unfortunate. I completely misjudged the water pressure on those taps and, of course, it went everywhere. Fortunately it's not urine, so it won't stain.

Maddy: You are really enjoying this aren't you. Watching me squirm.
Jonathan: To a large extent. Where is it then?
Maddy: What?
Jonathan: The ten-year-old photo that he sent you, before he ballooned up to fifteen stone and started moulting.
Maddy: You've really got a nerve. Do you think I'm so shallow I'd only agree to meet someone if I had proof that they were young and good looking? I find that amazingly offensive.
Jonathan: Can I see it? Frightening. You know this could be unique. A rare example of the passport syndrome in reverse.

Shelford: Morning. It's the bad penny again. Actually it's my day off, so I don’t know how you're fixed. Oh, I bought you some underwear.
Maddy: Oh, Shelford, I think you'd better come in for a sec. Look, it's not that I don’t find you attractive.

Shelford: Oh, good.
Maddy: No, that's not true: it is that I don't find you attractive. It's no reflection on you as a person. You're very warm and kind and generous. It's just that I can't find it in myself to want to spend another second of my life in your company. Do you understand? It could never work. Not even as science fiction. You and me are a total no-no.

Shelford: Still, it's early days, isn't it?

Zola: Forgive the mess. I'm just having a new front put on.
Maddy: Old habits die hard.

Maddy: I'm not even hungry. A drop of chilli'll do me, with some rice, a spot of salad, some garlic bread, a jacket potato. Oh, and some crisps.

No Trace Of Tracy

Maddy: Do you do this sort of thing regularly then?
Polly Flowers: Since I met Jacob, eighteen years ago now. It's a really liberating experience.
Jacob Flowers: Especially for Polly, who grew up in east London.
Maddy: Really? Which part – Barking?

Maddy: Now, do you want to pick us out a bottle of something?
Jonathan: Any particular one? What's this?
Maddy: Oh, petrol.
Jonathan: Petrol!
Maddy: Well I'm not going to leave it in the car overnight. Things get nicked.
Jonathan: I'll put it out in the hall, shall I? With the canisters of napalm.

Jonathan: Is that supposed to be doing that?
Maddy: Two more minutes.

Jonathan: If she calls me Abracadabra once more I may go berserk with that emery board and file down her face till it resembles a hard-boiled egg.
Maddy: Don’t let her rattle you; it’s just Sheena’s way. I think she quite likes you actually.
Jonathan: I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed sharing the backseat with Mr Biceps, who expands like a gas to fill any available space. I could feel the pulse in his thigh right through my trousers.

Jonathan: I was just reminded of that quote by Robert Oppenheimer: ‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’.
Maddy: Overdid the croutons slightly. Don’t be funny.
Jonathan: Overdid the croutons slightly? It’s like Gandhi’s funeral pyre in here!

The House Of Monkeys

Maddy: You know, we came that close when we were at that house... to doing it. And then I got all bitchy and blew up again. Sorry about that.
Jonathan: 'S all right.
Maddy: What do you mean?
Jonathan: Sorry?
Maddy: You think I was bitchy? Is that what you were thinking – what an utter bitch? What is it with you? You can never say the right thing can you? Never!
Jonathan: I didn't mea… Can we start again?
Maddy: No. I've gone right off the boil now.
Jonathan: 110 lying down. You've got to get some exercise!

Jordan: How did this happen? Where did it happen? Not in this house?
Cathy: In this very house.
Jordan: Where?
Cathy: Can't you guess?
Jordan: No way, Cathy, you didn't.
Ingrid: Oh, for God's sake, does it matter?
Jordan: Not in the swivel chair.
Cathy: We set it to maximum tilt. The hydraulics were wonderful!

Ingrid: Someone you may know actually. Do you remember Dr Sally Creek, who was in practice with me in that grotty old portakabin in Harlow in the early '70s?
Jordan: I thought she emigrated.
Ingrid: She did. This is her son. I promised to give him a full MOT every couple of years – make sure he's still ticking over.
Cathy: Strange: Doesn't he get embarrassed stripping off in front of an old friend of his mother's?
Ingrid: Oh, yes!

Jordan: The Shining – did you ever see that film?
Jonathan: I'm afraid I did, yeah.
Jordan: Well I'll tell you something weird about it. The initials S. K. Stanley Kubrick, right, who directed it? Stephen King, who wrote the book… and South Kensington where I went to see it. The whole thing only struck me about a year ago. I kept thinking to myself: S. K. Why? And that night do you know what I discover? The film was being shown on Sky Television. S. K. Y. Can you explain it Jonathan? No-one can explain that.
Jonathan: Can I go to the toilet now?
Jordan: In that film, the Overlook Hotel is built on the site of an ancient Cherokee burial ground, which leads to a whole string of unexplained horrific deaths. And I think that's what's happening here in this house.
Jonathan: Not sure the Cherokees ever got as far as Amersham, actually, Jordan.

Cathy: I suppose you did shorthand?
Maddy: October 15th, at long last 'E' & I had fantastic socks. I imagine that's meant to say 'sex'.
Cathy: It does say sex.
Maddy: Actually it says socks, but we won't quibble.
Cathy: Oh, really? I did two years at secretarial. I think I know the difference between sex and socks. I would…
Maddy: Afterwards as we lay knackered next to each other…
Cathy: Naked, it says.
Maddy: I'm sorry, if we're being accurate it says knackered. For naked your outline'd be completely different.
Jordan: 'E' & 'I' had sex? Why is this such a crime?
Maddy: The 'I' doesn’t stand for Ingrid, Jordan.
Jordan: Doesn't stand…? You're making this up.
Ingrid: I wish she was.
Cathy: What? You knew? How?
Ingrid: I may be a wizened old bat in your eyes, Cathy, that doesn’t mean I'm as blind as one. Some other time I'll give you a lesson in subliminal bonding gestures. For God's sake, I'd seen it coming for months. I'd almost say he needed it to flush it out of his system. Afterwards when he told me and all the guilt came out, he threw himself on my mercy…
Cathy: You're lying! Elliot would never tell…
Ingrid: Kathy, you have the body of a woman and the brain of a sexually-stunted newt.

SERIES TWO

Danse Macabre
Jonathan: Whatever time did we get back last night? Last thing I remember we were in that nightclub watching a girl singing selections from Verdi's Nabucco while two men from the audience removed her G-string with their teeth. Thought you were never going to shake the old slapper off the way she was all over you like a rash the rest of the ni...

Jonathan: Do me a favour. I grew out of vanishing skeletons before I was into long trousers. If you're going to kill someone on Hallowe'en, you'd think they'd come up with something more original than that. He's probably not even a real vicar; he's probably wearing rubber underwear. Whatever you do, if he asks you to pray, don't kneel in front of him with your eyes closed.
Maddy: Right. Several intriguing features. I thought so.

Maddy: While I'm in the shower, if you fancy a nibble… Be my guest.

Time Waits for Norman

1st Waitress: No question. Thursday morning. This is the guy, he sent that cup of coffee flying.
2nd Waitress: I mean you can't go wrong, it's him. Definitely.
Jonathan: You're absolutely positive.
Both Waitresses: Mmm.
2nd Waitress: What – has he robbed a bank or something?
1st Waitress: Or chopped up an old lady? Look at those eyes. Well, I had my doubts when he first came in.
Jonathan: Interesting. This is a photo of Newt Gingrich: the Speaker of the American House of Representatives.
2nd Waitress: Brilliant!
1st Waitress: In our Wimpy?

Maddy: 9 o'clock too early?
Jonathan: Not for me.
Maddy: Let's say 8 then.
Jonathan: Twenty past ten! Thanks!
Maddy: It's a bad time of the month.
Jonathan: You said that 13 days ago.
Maddy: Yes, all right then, I overslept. Trust you to keep count!

Maddy: Didn't you get suspicious when you were running your fingers through her hair and she wasn’t even in the room?

Maddy: Yes, all right. You never see a transvestite before?

Jonathan:: Who makes all the chutney and mayonnaise round here? Your mother?
Rebecca: Yes… I’d leave that one! It’s bull semen.

The Scented Room

Maddy: You can't believe really a couple like that would ever stay together, considering there was actually no communication between them of any kind.
Jonathan: What I can't understand is his complete lack of any embarrassment about it. To turn up at Buckingham Palace with a dozen cage birds concealed about your person has got to be a major error, wouldn't you say?
Maddy: Cause that's the death of any relationship, wouldn’t you say, when people stop listening to each other?
Jonathan: I mean since when has the royal family been noted for its puckish sense of humour?
Maddy: Especially when there’s a child involved. There's no excuse.
Jonathan: You just know one of them's going to escape and you know exactly where it's going to go.
Maddy: That's why if we ever had a son, it would work out. We'd make sure it did.
Jonathan: So now it's going to be the first time in living memory the Queen's presented an MBE with a live canary up her skirt. Somehow, I don't think he'll be topping the bill at the Royal Command this year.

Maddy: That's right, it was coming from the bowl of pot pourri on the table.
Jonathan: What, you mean pot pourri? One of the biggest cons of the twentieth century? People pick it up in a shop. What's the first thing they always do? Mmm, smell this one, that's sensational. Oh, I'll have some of that. 'Course it is if you shove your face in it. Put some in a bowl in the middle of a room you can't smell a bloody thing! There should be a label on the packet: 'only effective when inserted up nostril'!

Sylvester LeFley: Edgar Flint’s latest effort at the Cottesloe, Upload, Download, is billed as "A Hilarious New Comedy". Of these four words only the first is accurate. While neither hilarious, new or comic, it is most certainly an indefinite article. Battling through maniacal laughter from the brainless hyenas around me only confirms my long held belief that quality theatre is too precious to be wasted on audiences.

The Problem at Gallow's Gate [Part One]

Maddy: Your what?
Jonathan: My badger watch.
Maddy: Is that like a Mickey Mouse watch?
Jonathan: My local natural history group. Couple of times a year after dark we put some food down, then we all go and sit in a hide and wait for the badgers to come out and feed.
Maddy: Why?
Jonathan: They’re very fascinating creatures. You should come along sometime. Check it out.
Jonathan: So it’s like… country stuff?
Jonathan: Right. country stuff. And on the other hand it does involve a lot of patience and the need to stay silent for a very long time, so it's probably not your scene.
Maddy: Meaning what?
Jonathan: Sorry?
Maddy: Meaning because I'm an intolerant gasbag who can’t keep her trap shut for more than five seconds at a time? No is the word you’re struggling for!

Jonathan:: I think we're jumping to a lot of conclusions. He might have been performing strangulation as an act of love to heighten her state of arousal. Some people are into all that stuff – restricted breathing and sex between consenting asthmatics. It's a well known fact.
Maddy: Will you quit gibbering? Where's your civic responsibility? Every second could be vital.
Kitty: What did he mean by that? To heighten her state of arousal?
Maddy: Ignore him, he's being sick.
Kitty: Oh, not on the Lupins!

Jonathan: What have you brought a camera for? You can put that away for a start.
Maddy: Why?
Jonathan: Because it's too dark
Maddy: It's got a flash.
Jonathan: A flash! Oh the badgers are gonna love that aren't they? What are they supposed to think – it's a very large glow-worm?

Hewie Harper: We have a table booked at the Bombay Brasserie for 11.00
Kitty: Oh, it's not Chinese food is it? If it is you'll have to count me out I'm afraid.
Adam: Well it's kind of Chinese.
Maddy: What do you mean? It’s nothing like Chinese. Indian food, Kitty. You like a curry, don't you?
Kitty: Curries I'm fine with. It’s all that Ho Chow Mein stuff. Always gives me the burps.

Kitty: Pop this under your tongue. It's rectal, but it's clean.

The Problem at Gallow's Gate [Part Two]

Maddy: Where do you keep your salt?
Jonathan: You see that cupboard just above you? Top shelf, right at the back. There's a leaflet from the hospital explaining why it's bad for your arteries.

Jonathan: Look, I need to go to the toilet.
Jonathan: But? You're not going to give him the key? You're not serious! You know what, this is bordering on date rape. Before you touch anything I demand to see your fingernails!

Maddy: Well, funnily enough Jonathan, I'm not trying to crack a cypher at this precise moment. I'm not actually cracking anything very much. I've got a murder here committed by a dead man in a house he couldn't have got out of, involving a girl "found horribly 'trangled with her 'hoe' and 'tocking' removed in the down'tair' cloakroom"!

Mother Redcap

Maddy: So what are you saying? Something appeared outside that window that frightened seven grown men to death? Why am I getting this image of George Formby on a ladder?

Maddy: Morning. Someone said you did the PM on that old lady they brought in last night. I just wondered if you could tell me what she died of.
Coroner: Not to you. That information's confidential.
Maddy: Shame. I suppose I'll just have to put these photographs in the post then. Sorry about that. 'Bye
Coroner: Just a minute. What photographs?
Maddy: Photographs, Mrs Climpson, that I think might be of considerable interest to your husband.
Maddy: So he's not really a Chelsea fan, then?
Jason: I know exactly what you're thinking at this minute?
Maddy: I suppose a fork's out of the question?
Jason: I beg your pardon?
Maddy: Sorry? Excuse me, could you get me something with prongs?

Jonathan: How is it?
Maddy: Bliss. Utter pure bliss. I've finally found something you are crap at. Food. Ugh. This is absolutely horrible. The worst Caesar Salad I have tasted in my life ever. Bar none. Ugh. Ugh.
Jonathan: Maybe I overdid the raw egg?
Maddy: Raw? You're supposed to wait until the chicken's laid it. Did no-one ever tell you – the first rule when preparing lettuce: take off the slugs.
Jonathan: What you talking about? Slugs – they’re anchovies.
Maddy: Look, get your coat, we'll go down the chippie.
Maddy: Mmmmm.

Maddy: What's that theory? That absolutely everything that happens in the world is somehow connected to everything else? I read an article once, that if a man breaks wind in Houslow, it can affect a hurricane in Java. In fact I think I know the man they're talking about; travels on the Circle Line.

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 1998

Black Canary

Gideon Pryke: I can smell guilt on a man like dung on a donkey.

Jonathan: Adam – he’s been rushed to hospital.
Maddy: Gallstones?
Jonathan: His bride to be tried to beat him to death with a poker.

Adam: Will I never learn, Jonathan, to read those signs?
Jonathan: What happened?
Adam: Our first prenuptial adventure. She steps out of the shower, naked before me for the very first time. And suddenly, do you know what I’m staring at?
Maddy: I think we’ve got a shrewd idea.
Adam: To find threaded through an intimate area of your fiancée’s body a ring is challenging enough. To find upon that ring a small nickel-plated swastika takes me somewhere I don’t want to go.
Jonathan: You’re not serious!
Adam: It appears the blonde, blue-eyed Elsa was of more conservative stock than I imagined. A Nazi. Suddenly all those black shirts were making sense. At that point things got ugly. Anti-fascist polemic does not make for great foreplay. Then she began sadistically beating me with fireside equipment.

Maddy: They kept that one quiet!
Jonathan: Well they're hardly going to put it in the programme notes are they? NB: Whilst miraculously escaping from a locked trunk tonight, Miss Carney will be assisted by her twin sister, Beryl! Anyway that was all before the accident of course.
Maddy: What accident?
Jonathan: It's a bit on the grizzly side, probably best not to discuss.
Maddy: What accident?
Jonathan: I don't know if you’ve got the stomach for it.
Maddy: I've got the stomach. Don’t give me that macho protective number.
Jonathan: Rehearsal one day for one of their big routines, her sister Beryl's tied to a bench with an electric buzz saw coming at her. Mechanism jammed, the thing just kept coming. She was literally sawn in half.
Maddy: Ohhhh! My God!
Jonathan: Lengthways.
Maddy: Oh my… Aaargh! Ugh!

Jonathan: Maddy's like a comfortable old sweatshirt that you are happy to put on day after day.

Jonathan: This is it now is it? Through the swirling fog of Victorian London, a young girl is slashed to ribbons by Toad of Toad Hall!

SERIES THREE

The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish

Jonathan: Well that was another evening of fun and frolics then. "This is my next door neighbour – he's in league with Lucifer." Followed by a private consultation in the kitchen about her most intimate marital problems. She asked me about keeping a cap in place – I though we were back to yarmulkes. I said, "Have you tried using a bit of toupée tape?" What did you have to tell her I was a doctor for?

Sangster: So, when you arrived with his breakfast, Miss Cretiss, at 8.15 in the morning, your exact words through the hotel room door were, let's be quite clear about this, "Good morning, room service".
Miss Cretiss: That's correct.
Sangster: Not "Good morning, I've come to commit an unnatural act with a grilled herring", but "Good morning, room service".
Miss Cretiss: Correct.
Sangster: Despite which, when he opened the door wearing, what you describe as "a nancy kimono bedjacket", he made what was to be the first of several improper suggestions.
Miss Cretiss: Yes, he pointed across the room.
Sangster: With his finger?
Miss Cretiss: At that stage just with his finger – and said "Let's have it over there on the table."
Sangster: Let's have it over there on the table. And as you crossed the room with the tray, you noticed he had now let his bedjacket fall open with, in your words, "his wedding tackle standing to attention".
Miss Cretiss: Bearing in mind it was over my shoulder at the time.
Sangster: Pardon me?
Miss Cretiss: Bearing in mind I was facing the other way, but I could see it over the shoulder in the mirror.

Sadie Bechtenstein: You'll be quite handy with a needle yourself Jonathan. Let me tell you, you're not the first gynaecologist to use that spoon, but it's always an honour.

Jonathan: My God, what the hell is all this?
Maddy: Odds and sods.
Jonathan: Odds and sods? It's like the relief effort to an earthquake zone. What are you planning? A prison breakout?
Maddy: So I know what goes with what. Now leave it or you'll upset my system. It's like a kind of Zen thing for me, washing. I have to be in the mood.
Jonathan: You think you’re going to shift this lot by seven?
Maddy: Are you mad? I thought you could finish it tomorrow.
Jonathan: Oh yes. I’ve got Widow Twankey here on work experience! It'll be no sweat.

The Eyes of Tiresias

Maddy: Yes? Who's that? Gino? Oh really, how are you both? What kind of ideal arrangement? I beg your… take it in turns to sleep with me? Am I hearing right?
Gino: What? No! We were just saying, sorry the other night was such a cock up. If you wanted to get together any time for a beer or whatever. No agenda.
Maddy:You have got some nerve the pair of you, asking me to share my body with two men on a rota basis… I’ll think about it. Promising nothing mind. OK. Bye.
Jonathan: You know there's a word for what you are.
Maddy: Predictable.

Jonathan: Quietly get on with things? I’m standing here in the middle of the D-Day landings. What the hell is going on?
Heidi: You were fine about it last night. When I said – our own mill had just fallen through and if I got straight on to the director and did some rescheduling would tomorrow be okay to knock off a few exteriors?
Jonathan: When did you say that?
Heidi: Last night. I said if you don’t mind us going upstairs and humping our gear about. You said no problem.
Jonathan: Yes, I obviously misheard you.

The Omega Man

Phillipa: It's like someone whispering inside a huge cave. And that's when I can feel him enter inside me.
Maddy: Shergar.
Phillipa: Sargor. Although he's from the constellation of Taurus, of course he speaks to me in English.
Maddy: Well it's always good to have a second language.

Maddy: What if they inject a truth drug into me?
Jonathan: It wouldn't stand a chance.

Ghost's Forge

Adam: OK, so if no-one has any problems.
Samantha: Just the one tiny problem Adam. I'd quite like to know why you did a runner from my bedroom last night, without so much as a by your leave.
Adam: Samantha! What a lovely surprise.
Samantha: When just a minute before you'd been telling me I was the most perfect creature you'd ever set eyes on. What can it have been I wonder that changed your mind? Next time I take my grandmother to the hospital, after she's just had a stroke, I'll make sure someone else looks after her teeth; it's obviously something you can't handle.
Adam: Listen, how about we go to my room and talk about this?
Samantha: No, that's fine. I only came by to say thank you, Adam. Thank you for showing me how little I really mean to you, and what a shallow set of values you live your life by. Can you believe he picked me up while he was ordering flowers for his girlfriend? This man has all the depth and sensitivity of a dog turd. That's Samantha Clarke, with an 'e'.

Maddy: Coffee? Mimi: I don't suppose you've got any iced tea?
Maddy: I'm afraid we just sucked the last bag.

Adam: Listen Mr Dawson - Duggie. That little outburst earlier on. I wouldn't take it too seriously. Samantha's a lovely girl, but prone to these irrational mood swings, you know? You talk to any of the women in my life who's got the measure of me, they'll tell you kind of guy I really am.
Duggie Dawson: I don't doubt it, Mr Klaus. Nice shirt by the way. Bought for you by a girlfriend?
Adam: Actually it was. Kind of sweet don't you think?
Duggie Dawson: Very. You speak much Japanese at all?
Adam: I can't say that I do.
Duggie Dawson: I was over there for seven years with Reuters; became quite fluent by the time I left.
Adam: Really?
Duggie Dawson: And yes, I think you're right. Any woman who brings you a shirt back with the words 'I am full of shit' on it, I'd say has got the measure of you very well indeed.

Maddy: Author's freebies. Writer of a book will usually get half a dozen copies on publication. In my case that's been known to double the print run.

Maddy: I mean this is absolutely beezer isn't it? Not only are we 18 months late, place has been completely emptied, decorators have moved in. What are we hoping? The killer's going to suddenly pop back and say. "I didn’t by any chance leave a knife behind?"

Miracle in Crooked Lane

Maddy: I dunno, the things people get off on. Did you read this tosh? "When making love a certain well-known MP could only achieve a climax if I dressed up as a traffic warden and stuck Fixed Penalty Notices to his glasses." Good thing he didn't ask to be clamped. It's like a bloke I went out with once. Got turned on by women in quicksand. I mean weird or what? Apparently it's a completely recognised fetish, with websites and everything. He actually had the nerve to ask me how I'd feel about getting fully dressed into a bath full of Ready Brek. Ha, I mean do me a favour. Oh, and listen to this: "On our first night together he warned me that he'd got a dicky heart. I don't know about dicky heart but he certainly had a hearty…"
Jonathan: Look, I can't do this if you're just gonna keep gabbling away there like Ena Sharples.

Maddy: Well, we finally did it.
Jonathan: Yep.
Maddy: We won’t be doing it again.
Jonathan: Probably not.
Maddy: It was like erm… making love to your favourite uncle.
Jonathan: Which is something you should never do.
Maddy: Not without consulting your auntie. Though… on the other hand we were both very tired.
Jonathan: We were.
Maddy: Mmm. Funnily enough, not now.
Jonathan: No? Well I suppo…

Rupert: At the last count I think it was running well into 30,000. From 1970 onward I have every major British title: Mayfair, Hustler, Carnival, Nugget and so on. All mint. American glamour is all on this wall here. This is an extremely rare Hot Jugs & Hooters from the American bible belt. Cancelled after one issue. Most copies were burned.
Maddy: Amazing. I won't ask what you keep on the top shelf.
Rupert: And then of course I have complete runs of all the '50s and '60s collectibles: Snip, Snap, Swank, Spanky, Tip Top, Hot Spot, Nylon Jungle…

Jacqui Jordan: So I suppose you haven't heard what they're all calling me round here, since I sold my story to the papers.
Kathleen Gilmore: Cheesy flake?

The Three Gamblers

Jonathan: Help me get her on her back.
Magician: No, that's the worst thing you can do. She could've broken her neck. You could paralyse her for life.
Lizzie Gillespie: She's probably just fainted.
Adam: She's not exactly underweight. I tell you this is classic cardio-vascular stuff. Her face has gone blue.
Jonathan: What, under the blue lights you mean? I'm gonna turn her over.
Magician: Brilliant. So now she's a cabbage.
Jonathan: You know how to do this?
Adam: Just a question of firm rhythmical pressure on the breastbone.
Lizzie Gillespie: No you don't press it there, you press it here with both hands.
Maddy: Oh yes, yes. All right. Thank you. I think we've established the cantaloupe's nice and fresh. Wouldn't last five minutes with you lot faffing around me. You useless articles.
Magician: Oh great, so you were just…
Maddy: Trying to scare the shit out of everyone. Yeah. Hysterical wasn't it?

CHRISTMAS 2001

Satan's Chimney

Carla: Is this the woman you…
Jonathan: Correct.
Carla: So where is she no...
Jonathan: Texas. Some publishing junket.
Carla: And…
Jonathan: Just the once in a hotel room, which we realised was probably a mistake.
Carla: Do you know, you can be so…
Jonathan: Pre-emptive? Yeah, well that was the problem.

Adam: Well you said on the 'phone you'd been living for the last two years in Norway.
Kenny: Er… In a doorway.

Jonathan: You see, this is what happens when you encourage a person with no talent. Not only have you completely screwed up this guy's life – reduced him to the level of a cave dweller. Now I've got to pretend to work with him to repair the damage. I mean the man's barely got two brain cells to rub to… Kenny! How you doing? Finding your way round okay?
Kenny: Listen, I've got a great new bit for the TV series. You know how those guillotine tricks always suck on the telly? Like you never really believe the blade actually goes through. So how about this? We find some guy with a terminal illness, okay? Probably could do with a bob or two for his next of kin. And… we cut his head off!
Jonathan: It's a thought, isn't it, Adam? Prime-time euthanasia. Just what the BBC are looking for to spearhead the autumn schedule.

Bronson: Do you have the faintest idea how many streptococci are released in the average French kiss. Believe me it runs in the mi... Can you not break the seal please? It's meant to be sterile.
Vivian: It's a pity your father wasn't. I’m sorry but this man is the most immature, self obsessed, insensitive... and thoroughly charming individual I've ever worked with. A real professional and a gentleman.

SERIES FOUR

The Coonskin Cap

Brendan: Camera loves her, doesn’t it? But we might want to reconsider lip gloss. Multiple strangulations I’d go for more of a nut brown. Clinique No. 2 or Topaz Glow. Something more restful.

Gary Basto: And what can we do for you?
Jonathan: How about sticking your head down that pan while I flush? You don't come in here and talk to people like that, now bugger off!
Gary Basto: Who the hell are you?
Jonathan: I'm the man who’s telling you to bugger off.
Jonathan: Come on, as from now your showbiz career is over. People come to the Adam Klaus magic show, they do not suddenly expect to see a dick on stage. All right, I'll rephrase that: full frontal nudity is not admissible. Now hop it.
Gary Basto: You have no authority to fire me. I'm an integral part of that trick.
Jonathan: We'll recast. I'm sure Jan'll happily set up some auditions. How can you have a streaker's dressing room anyway? That’s an oxymoron surely.
Gary Basto: I can make big trouble for you and him. Don't think that I won't.
Jonathan: Oh, now you’re really scaring me. Give him his clothes.
Gary Basto: Big trouble! And poxy moron yourself!

Jonathan: Come on, what's the most common explanation you can think of for blood on a collar.
Carla: I don't know. Someone cutting someone's throat?
Jonathan: Oh, that's very common is it, down your road?

Jonathan: "Everything's about numbers now". Does he know how witless that sounds? "How was it for you, darling?" "Oh I won't know until the overnights come in but it must be okay because it appeals to a young demographic." Well so did the Hitler Youth!

Jonathan: Is the unit nurse in yet? No well get the unit pusher. Tell them it’s urgent. God you look like death.
Adam: Stringfellows. Boy you just had to go and open your big, fat mouth didn’t you?
Jonathan: What?
Adam: Oh will you close those tabs. Feels like I’m staring in a mirror.
Jonathan: Don’t tell me, the lovely Velda?
Adam: After she bit the head of that live lobster I thought there was nowhere we could go but up. So at two o’clock in the morning we get to the nightclub, where she insists on showing everyone the tattoo of Mr Bean on her stomach, combing his hair with her appendectomy scar. And that’s just for starters. I introduced her to Bryan Ferry. She just stands there giggling, picking her nose. Then she starts picking his nose. Then she comes over kind of green and dodges outside to the toilet. Ten minutes later I get a message saying she’s choked to death on her own vomit.
Jonathan: Oh don’t!
Adam: With several large chunks of crustacean lodged in her windpipe. Kind of brings it home to you, I guess. How important it is to chew your food.

Angel Hair

Carla: What is it? Is that…?
Brendan: The results of the tests.
Carla: My God, Brendan, what does it say?
Brendan: It says… 61% of viewers in the key 18 to 29 age bracket found the show sustained their interest, but the numbers for Jonathan were very low among core A, Bs and C1s and C2s.
Carla: I thought we were talking about your prostate.

Henry Houseman: I've always said the human race is broadly divided into angels and trolls. And believe me the angels don't always get the best of it, because when beautiful people fall in love with each other, they'd better be sure it's not because they're beautiful people. When the late Mrs Houseman and I fell in love in 1953, we were both pretty ugly customers – and that's how we knew it was real. Dudley's not a bad sod, but he does get very easily confused.

Brendan: You’re early, we said one.
Carla: I know, but Carol's off sick, so I didn’t get my pedicure, which of course meant I had to cancel the gynaecologist – toenail confidence very important there obviously. Can't have him refusing at the first fence.

Henry Houseman: Be careful with that one. George W. B. It's on order for Miramax.
Dudley: How come his mouth doesn't move?
Henry Houseman: Because he doesn’t talk through his mouth

The Tailor's Dummy

Louise: Well... maybe there was more going on in my lovely little head than he'd imagined. "Louise, bless her, may not be one of mankind's greatest thinkers, but her eternal elegance and quiet, youthful grace have made her the perfect 'repository' for my creations." My daughter: the talentless clothes horse. Well no more, daddy. No more being the tailor's dummy. For the first time in my life I think I've earned a little respect, don't you? For the sheer ingenuity of what I di... Why are you all looking me. As if I'm mad?

Carla: You know what's still not working is this kind of grunge thing we're trying to build into the character. Maybe if we break it down some more with some Fuller's Earth or something. Just make it look a bit more lived in basically.
Jonathan: Or... how about if I take off the duffel coat you got from Harrod's menswear department, and put on my own duffel coat?
Photographer: Works for me if Carla's happy.
Carla: Yes. All right then. I suppose we can buy that.

Donna Henry: Getting back to the success of Eyes and Ears – what would you call that show? A kind of docudrama I suppose.
Brendan: Well, it's more of a dramamentary.
Carla: Oh, Jonathan! How long do you think we’ve got before…?
Jonathan: Before that rope burns off around the steel safety cable? Seconds. Before the stage manager turns up tomorrow morning and lets us down? Probably 11 hours.

The Seer of the Sands

Carla: I can't believe what you're telling me. You and Alvin Turtelbaum?
Brendan: It was my first time in the States. I was young and impulsive. It was more a marriage of convenience.
Carla: Convenience!
Brendan: He was a major player with the studios. It opened a lot of doors. Of course to him I was just a trophy wife; someone to look good on his arm at parties.
Carla: I think I'm going to be sick in this drawer.
Brendan: Look, it was short and sweet.
Carla: What was?
Brendan: Six months we were together, if that. Quite touched he still remembers me.
Carla: So did you and he… have…?
Brendan: Oh, good God, no! A co-production deal? His lawyers would have eaten me alive.

Carla: How you can just glibly say it’s a trick. How could it be a trick, when it was right beneath her all the time? Answers to five questions she hadn’t even asked yet.
Jonathan: Yes, I’m sorry. It’s much more likely that the ghost of Justin Mallory foretold the future from the bottom of the sea and then sent her a message in a bottle that could only be located by a psychic gypsy woman.

Adam: Jonathan. I don't think you've met my new personal security advisor.
Jonathan: You've got to be jo… sef Chelyabinski! How do you do?
Josef: Hey, I know who I am. What's your story? Back off, okay, till I give you clearance to approach.
Jonathan: I beg your pardon?
Josef: You heard me. Hit the brickwork. Come on spread out. That goes for Little Miss Muffet as well. Yeah, what you losers looking at? It's not an eye test, granny. Come on, let's keep it moving!

Carla: He's fine. Quite fine.
Brendan: Good-oh.
Carla: Brendan, I sometimes wonder whether you…
Brendan: Hmm?
Carla: Well, whether it ever quite sank in, you know, that I was quite attracted to Jonathan at one time. I mean I never actually lowered the little drawbridge as my mum would say, but we had our moments.
Brendan: Hey, you can stop worrying.
Carla: I can?
Brendan: Life is full of lost liaisons – and when are we ever masters of our own hearts?
Carla: Well, that's right. We've got too much trust in each other to feel guilty about something so stupid. I mean the fact that I'm still friendly with an old boyfriend…
Brendan: Or that I was married to a man.
Carla: …happens. My God, it’s hardly a reason to… What did you just say?

Jonathan: Yes, bringing you back to the real world for a second. We've got a major crisis on our hands with the snake trick. To no-one's surprise, Health and Safety aren't too keen on the idea of us using a live python in the act as, in their view, "these creatures can be rather dangerous". Well, yes! That's sort of the point. What would they suggest? You perform a death-defying escape from the coils of a very large earthworm?

The Chequered Box

Carla: This is what you spent the last three nights glued to after supper? Yeuch!
Brendan: You mock me people, but listen to this. "We thought you would like to know that the endoscopy of your transverse colon was judged to be the perfect archetype of its kind and was first choice for inclusion in our reference library." Yes! "In addition, the panel were highly impressed by an earlier study of your fallopian tubes, which was also felt to be of exceptional… Fallopian tubes?"
Jonathan: Yes. This envelope. You don't think they could have got you mixed up with someone else or anything?
Carla: Oh great, so what are we saying now? This wasn't even your video in the first place?
Brendan: How in hell did that happen? Hang on, where did you get that tape from?
Carla: I don't know. It was on top of the TV wasn't it, where you left it?
Brendan:No, I left it on the table here… That is the video survey they did on our drain, where they feed the camera down the pipe and… I mean that's what you think my insides look like is it? With great tree roots poking through and all that sludge and…
Carla: Well, I don't know do I? I'm not an expert.
Brendan: Not an exper…! Never mind, come on or we'll be late for this do – to which you're more than welcome Jonathan, if it appeals, the ITV winter press launch.
Carla: Brendan's got four new primetime shows this year, about to be previewed.
Brendan: Unless of course you'd rather stay here and stare at the contents of a sewer…
Jonathan: No contest, Brendan.

Carla: If we could just raise our game for a moment and try and be sensible about this.
Jonathan: Yes, coming from someone who's looking for a lump of spearmint up a chicken’s bottom – that's sound advice.

Fell: The heads are on the wrong bodies.
Paramedic: How can you tell?
Fell: You've got a black guy and a white guy. Call it intuition.

Gorgon's Wood

Jonathan: Another ratings winner there, then. Mr Eric Blair, king of the reality format. What's next? Celebrity Suicides? Leaping to their death off Wigan Pier?
Jonathan: So. How's it, er… going here anyway?
Adam: You have no idea do you – what they're putting us through in the name of entertainment? I'm drinking pigs' milk, Jonathan.
Jonathan: I'm sure it's not that bad.
Adam: I'm drinking pigs' milk, straight from the pig!

Jonathan: So, you've made that all-important transition then. From crime coverage to popular callisthenics.
Carla: Assisted by our cross-promotional strategy with a leading cosmetics firm. With every video, a set of delicately scented face wipes, 'cause it may get a bit sticky once you’re up to speed. OK. Lots of luck with it then. Have fun.
Jonathan: You too can shed pounds with my triple whammy. Just follow me on screen and simply stretch, squeeze and shake it off?
Carla: What's your point?
Jonathan: Apart from a few dimwitted pumpers with more money than sense, who do you think mainly buys these things?
Carla: I haven't a clue what you’re insinuating.
Jonathan: All I'm saying is if you put a tape like this in the shops with a free box of tissues, it may not give off the signals you intend.