Comedy persona for Mr Steve Coogan

Male; Ronald Dollar, aged 46.
Ronald lives in Roehampton and has always liked to think of himself as a revolutionary, especially when he’s been drinking and/or smoking. The fact is, everyone that knows Ronald thinks he’s a lazy anarchist with delusions of grandeur, which is probably true.
Although he manages to steer clear of local trouble, of which there’s plenty, Ronald still sees himself as the voice of the people, even in a Greggs. He’s never shy of playful banter with local police, the authorities and cashiers at the Co-op.
With the coming election ever-present in his mind, Ronald has a dream (after watching ‘Gladiator’ on Christmas night alone in his little flat) in which he single-handedly topples the government and gives power back to the people and local councils.
He goes out and gets completely blitzed on Boxing night with his pal, Johnny, and they make up a song by the Gershwins (‘Let’s call the whole thing off’), using Obama and Osama as the two opposites in expression.
The landlord kicks Ronald out when he starts up about using a crossbow to destroy speed cameras with iron arrows, having had one pint too many to pull it off.
Next day, Ronald returns to meet Johnny in the pub but the landlord won’t serve him unless he says sorry for last night. Although he can’t remember what he said, he apologises anyway and has tomato juice followed by Guinness. After drinking only half a pint, he goes giddy and throws up over himself. Then, he goes home with his tail between his legs.
Johnny, meanwhile, tells his sons about the Obama/ Osama song and they love it.
Ronald, Johnny, Johnny’s sons and Dexter take out the words and reword the song (eg. ‘you say dollar and I say dinari, burger, Buddha, Borat, bidet, let’s call the whole thing off’).
Then they go to Dexter’s studio, which doubles up as an insulated skunk-growing council flat, record it and put it on Youtube.
The track generates instant exposure, and a record company offers Ronald and his posse a deal to remix it with proper rap artists.
Within weeks, Ronald’s life has changed forever. The track reaches Number One in the charts.
Video footage of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire is edited to show Obama as Fred and Ginger as Osama with a very South Park background.
Keen to keep the dream alive, Ronald sets up an apolitical party called NOPE (No Oppositon Party Elect) and goes out seeking support. He knocks on the doors of the rich and poor. Almost everyone has an axe to grind against the government.
He sees MPs as the biggest benefit cheats in the country and thinks that the Houses of Parliament should be converted into a swanky hotel/party venue for the world’s ultra-rich.
Soon enough, once the papers pick up on this ‘Dodgy Dave and Gormless Goliath’ story, Ronald is interviewed on Newsnight and gives his own slant on how the country should (not) be run.
‘What do we need them MPs for, anyway? Slobbering asleep over their leather seats, bolting upright ‘cos they dreamt that John Lewis were delivering another plasma while their illegal housemaid was out on another expenses-errand for the kitchen. Houses of Parliament, my scrotum. These pompous parasites eat free food, guzzle free drink, fart and have secretaries who do all their work for them.
If we got rid of MPs, messieurs et mesdames, we’d be saving the equivalent of Peru’s entire GNP, and that’s not to be sniffed at, believe you me.’
Paxman: ‘But surely if there are no MPs, there’d be no government.’
‘Right!’
Paxman: ‘Every country in the world has a government, Mr Dollar. Surely that counts for something.’
‘Yes, it does count for something; precisely nothing. Tell me, Jeremy. If everyone jumped about on one leg and lied through their teeth for a living, would you do the same thing? Or would you say, ‘To hell with that! I’m going to use both legs! And I don’t need to lie!’ (Ronald wiggles his legs in Paxman’s face and crew can be heard laughing.)
Paxman (half-laughing): ‘Well, put that way, I suppose I’d use both legs.’
‘Good. There you go, you see. We do think alike. But don’t get me wrong. Oh no, don’t do that. See, the thing is, I don’t want anything to do with running the country and all that. I’m not your Hitler or your Lenin. All I want is to give the country back to the people who run it anyway, and that’s all the local people of all the little bits of Britain. I don’t want anarchy. I just want some modern social realism, that’s all.’
Paxman: ‘What was that? Modern social realism? That’s a bit of a mouthful for you, wouldn’t you say?’
‘It’s not really a mouthful. There’s a lot to bite on, I admit, but modern, that’s now, social, that’s me and you, and realism, well, that’s reality, innit. Simple, no?
But, look, I’m a crap fighter and anyway I don’t see why we need to kill each other when all we’re trying to do is get shot of the disease.’
Paxman: ‘You say disease, Mr Dollar, but what is that disease exactly?’
‘The disease is the MPs. The MPs are the disease.. Ah, that’s nice because it rhymes. My record company’ll like that.’
Tittering from the crew can be heard.
‘Look, all I want is for the powers of the government to be given back to the Queen to uphold alongside one leader from each county in the country.
I’m not stupid, you know. I want my doctor there for when I get ill, my copper there for when things kick off and I want my butchers open for if I fancy a nice piece of meat. I wouldn’t mind if our young people had jobs to go to, but you might call me racist if I said something as radical as that?’
Paxman: ‘So what do you suggest all the MPs do once they realise they don’t have a job, Mr Dollar?’
‘I couldn’t give a monkeys what they do. I don’t know, work for a living, get a job in the big bad world they keep droning on about. Work for the oil industry or do speeches at business conferences. They’ll find their way, don’t you worry about that. Anyway, why are you so worried about MPs? What have they ever done for you? They haven’t delivered post to your door or cooked a meal in a restaurant for you, have they? They never checked your blood pressure or drove a bus or a taxi for anyone.
Listen, the real problem is that there are no real problems, just waves of difficulty sometimes. MPs don’t do things wrong for us, they do things wrong for themselves, so that they have to pay themselves more to put it right. Even when a system works, they still manage to mess it up. Governments couldn’t afford to change things in the old days. It cost too much. Innovation was constantly held back by technology. That’s all they do now, because MPs make money from change.
Once we’ve got shot of them, all I want is for the people and the Queen of England to agree on how to run things and then we stick to it and get on with life. The consumer age is dormant for a while so let’s just have a nice time.
As for war, I can’t see any value in that. I’d rather see the army go to countries and make roads and buildings and sanitation and things like that.
Obama, Osama, Osama, Obama, Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off.’ (He sings this and has a little sigh/laugh.)
That was Gershwin wrote that. Do you remember? Fred and Ginger sang it just before the second world war. Amazing, isn’t it? Seventy-three years on and it sounds more relevant than any of the pig’s ears we get.’
Paxman: ‘Ronald Dollar, it’s been a very quirky pleasure, but a pleasure all the same.’
Since that interview, Ronald has been kidnapped by two masked ex-SAS men, who let him go after three days’ solitary in a garden shed in Carshalton on the condition that he stops what he’s doing immediately.
Although Ronald agreed, he’s still out there plying his trade, but he doesn’t step outside Roehampton much now.
The election’s in a month and people keep on asking him if he’s going to put his party up. Everybody’s behind him.
David Cameron turns up on his doorstep one day, but it’s only a publicity stunt for the news. Ronald thinks that Cameron was behind the kidnapping, so he slams the door in his face, and feels like a sap.
Then, that night, Ronald watches Gladiator again and has a powerful dream.
In it, he’s been elected. Gordon Brown and David Cameron stand either side to congratulate him.
As he speaks to his followers, a party popper goes off and Ronald reels away, thinking it’s a bullet. He composes himself and delivers a heartfelt message to the nation.
In the morning, the dream is interrupted by a knock on the door. It’s the postman with a delivery.
Ronald goes to fetch it and it’s an invitation to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace. It’s ‘a matter of some urgency’, it says. He’s joyful.
He goes to meet the Queen and they hit it off. The Queen relays that she too watched Gladiator on Christmas night, and describes how much she loved it. After a ploughman’s lunch together, they sit down and talk about what they should do with the country.