Plot
Following a lock-in in the lavatories of their local pub for the weekend, Richie and Eddie return to their flat. After an unsuccessful attempt to prepare breakfast the mail arrives, containing a letter and parcel for Richie. The letter is from the solicitors, which Eddie is left to dispose of, and the parcel contains a blow-up doll Richie has ordered without the knowledge of his flatmate. He bribes Eddie to leave the flat so he can be alone with his new friend Monica, unaware that Eddie has opened the solicitors letter and discovered that following his uncle’s death, Richie is now owed £15,000, which he wishes to claim for himself.
The second act opens with Richie having trouble with Monica, which culminates in him accidentally attaching himself to the doll with superglue. Eddie returns with the intent of killing him to claim the £15,000. He helps remove the blow-up doll then tries to poison Richie, albeit unsuccessfully. Not long after Richie himself reads the letter from the solicitor and discovers that the £15,000 is actually a debt owed by Richie that his uncle never paid during his lifetime. He resigns himself to suicide, but not before Eddie has tricked him into signing a marriage certificate (assuming that such a bond will entitle him to the money). The play ends with Eddie realising his mistake, and the two friends apparently electrocute themselves to avoid paying the debt, which they both now owe.
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Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
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Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
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“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)