GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCE
— A PLAY
Scene One
INTERIOR BUCKINGHAM PALACE. BALL ROOM.
Prince Charles and the Duke of Norfolk are standing at the French doors, looking into the garden. Prince Charles turns as two rather ugly women, Agatha and Jemima, enter the room.
Agatha: (Curtsies stiffly:) “Your Majesty …” (loud whisper from equerry, “YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS: YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS!” …
“Your Royal Highness …”
P Charles: (in strained voice) “Good evening, how do you do?”
Agatha: “Oh, Your Majesty, I mean Your Royal High – ness, we are so happy to be at your Palace … It’s so grand, hey?”
P Charles: (Impatiently) “Oh, Yes,” (he addresses the equerry). “Now I remember. You are the ladies from the East End? No? West End? No? I must say, I am getting to know a good cross-section of the people of London … Mummy so insists … Anyone else in your family?”
Jemima: Me, me too and our step-ma of course. But we lost her somewhere in those long passages. She’ll be along soon.
P. Charles: “How delightful! Three of you!”
Agatha: We’re actually four – our younger sister. But she’s really so close to home and hearth you know, Sir – to the fire … I mean … her name is Cinderella. I don’t think she’ll be coming!”
P. Charles: But my invitation had included all the ladies in the different families …”
Jemima: “Maybe next time, High ness … You know, she won’t really know how to talk to Royalty – no gift of the gab. She’s quite a simple soul – shy and ignorant, not full of beans like us!”
Scene Two:
The ballroom is full of dancing couples. Prince Charles is whirling someone across the floor. The two sisters and their stepmother, who has at last caught up with them are sitting dejectedly on a seat at a window. Suddenly the music stops and there is a faint gasp from the crowd as a beautiful girl enters the ballroom in a splendid Prada gown in a maroon velvet with two large diamante buttons on the left hip. Prince Charles leaves his partner in the middle of the floor and beckons to his equerry who escorts the girl to his side.
Agatha: (loudly and disappointedly) “Oh my! It’s her. How did she get here? I wonder where she got that dress! And just look at him! He’s holding her hand …!”
Jemima: “She’ll have some explaining to do. Coming here and spoiling everything for us!”
Prince Charles is speaking to Cinderella. The sisters and stepmother take their chance and scuttle off towards him and Cinderella.
Agatha: “Oh Your Royal (ugh) … Highness. I read somewhere that you speak to your plants. That’s so cute! We have a big tree in the front of our house and perhaps …”
Jemima: “Yes. They say you’re quite an oak!”
Agatha: “Shhh! … Mind your Peas and cu-cu … cucumbers!”
The music starts up. Prince Charles and Cinderella move away, deeply engrossed in each other. For the rest of the evening they have eyes only for each other. The sisters and stepmother who had sat for a while, watch them bitterly, consumed with wrath and jealousy, then get up surreptitiously and slink out and go back home.
Scene Three: opens with the hands of the ballroom clock at two minutes to twelve. The ballroom floor is filled with dancers including Prince Charles and Cinderella. The clock begins to strike. Cinderella moves away from Prince Charles, her eyes large and filled with fear. She rushes towards the french door leading to the garden. One of her shoes catches on the stairway … The Prince is overwrought at her sudden desperation to get away. He spots the shoe on the staircase, a Prada glass sandal. The wearer must have such a small and dainty foot!
Prince Charles rushes outside. Half-submerged in the fishpond lies the Prada gown. His equerry pulls it out.
Prince Charles: “Oh my! Let’s sprint over to the gates! I wonder if she’s here!”
(Whimpering is heard behind a rockery.)
Prince Charles: “Cinderella! Please come out, wherever you are!”
(Cinderella appears, bathed in moonlight. There stands the girl of his dreams in her Dior undergarments.)
“You’ll catch your death of cold! You’d better come back to the palace with us!”
Cinderella looks a mess. Her make-up is smeared, her hair unkempt. The sandal she’s wearing has a broken heel. She hurriedly pulls it off and limps painfully back to the palace holding firmly on to Prince Charles’ arm.”
(Sounds off stage) … Click, click, click, click …
Prince Charles: “Oh, I feel sick! The paparazzi have arrived! Tomorrow the papers will be full of this scene! Front Page Story … Almost nude beauty queen holding onto my arm at dead of night!”
He disentangles himself from Cinderella. “This will never do! Mummy will be furious with me again! Stay here, stay here …I’ll arrange for you to be driven home!”
Prince Charles walks off in an awful huff. He flings the sandal he found on the stairway over the treetops.
The headline in the London City Times a few hours later, above very suggestive photographs reads … “Prince Charles talking to his clinging vine.”