Gimlet and Finchley 11 - Gimlet and Finchley

“I can’t sleep,” said Finchley. The two puppets were alone in the carry-case where Ted had kept them for 43 years. “It’s the excitement of Ted’s funeral.”

“The excitement of performing again,” said Gimlet.

“They were good weren’t they. The kids."

“They were.”

“They hadn’t rehearsed at all.”

“Not with us at least,” said Gimlet.

“Well who else would they have rehearsed with – Sooty and Sweep?”

“They might have planned what to say, though it all seemed spontaneous.

"Spon-tan-e-ous?"

"It means suddenly.2

"It’s a long word for doing something suddenly. Takes about a minute to say it."

There was a pause.  For a moment Gimlet thought Finchley might have gone to sleep, but Finchley never went to sleep first.

“I don’t understand why people like Bobby Davro. His impressions all sound the same. He has to announce who he’s doing. ‘I’m John Major, I’m Keir Starmer, I’m Greta Thurnberg’, yet his voice doesn’t change.”

“There’s no accounting for taste.”

“But people like us too.”

“Ah, CHILDREN like us. Children are more discerning.”

“Discerning? You mean they fall down a lot.”

“They do that too.”

There is another pause, the way Ted sometimes used to use pauses in the act, when he only had nine minutes material for a ten minute slot.

“You think they could do it?” said Finchley.   “You know, on TV, on tour.”

“Of course they could,” said Gimlet. “We’re the stars after all. The big question isn’t could they, but will they.”