Strangers in the Night
(Cut to bedroom of a middle-aged, middle-class wealthy couple. It is dark. They are both lying fast asleep on their backs. The husband is a colonel type with a moustache. The wife has her hair in curlers and face cream on. Someone climbs in through the window and pads across to the wife. He is a dapper little Frenchman in a beret and carrying a fench loaf. He kisses her on the forehead. She wakes.)
Maurice (Eric Idle): Vera ... Vera ... darling! Wake up my little lemon. Come to my arms.
Vera (Terry Jones): Maurice! What are you doing here?
Maurice: I could not keep away from you. I must have you all the time.
Vera: Oh this is most inconvenient.
Maurice: Don't talk to me about convenience, love consumes my naughty mind, I'm delirious with desire.
(He kisses her hand repeatedly. The husband wakes up with a start, sits bolt upright and looks straight ahead.)
Husband (Michael Palin): What's that, Vera?
Vera: Oh nothing, dear. Just a trick of the light.
Husband: Righto. (he goes straight to sleep again)
Vera: Phew! That was close.
Maurice: Now then my little banana, my little fruit salad, I can wait for you no longer. You must be mine utterly.
Vera: Oh, Maurice!
(Suddenly beside them appears a young public-school man in a check suit with a pipe.)
Roger (John Cleese): Vera! How dare you!
Vera: Roger!
Roger: What's the meaning of this?
Vera: Oh I can explain everything, my darling!
Roger: Who is this?
Vera: This is Maurice Zatapathique ... Roger Thompson ... Roger Thompson ... Maurice Zatapathique.
Maurice: How do you do.
Roger: How do you do ... (kneeling) How could you do this to me Vera, after all we've been through? Dammit, I love you.
Maurice: Vera! Don't you understand, it's me that loves you.
(The husband wakes up again.)
Husband: What's happening, Vera?
Vera: Oh, nothing dear. Just a twig brushing against the window.
Husband: Righto. (he goes back to sleep)
Roger: Come to me Vera!
Vera: Oh, not now Roger.
Maurice: Vera, my little hedgehog! Don't turn me away!
Vera: Oh it cannot be, Maurice.
(Enter Biggles. He wears flying boots, jacket and helmet as for First World War. He has a notice round his neck: 'Biggles'.)
Biggles (Graham Chapman): Hands off, you filthy bally froggie! (kneels by the bed)
Vera: Oh Ken, Ken Biggles!
Biggles: Yes, Algy's here as well.
Vera: Algy Braithwaite?
(Into the light comes Algy. Team streaming down his face. He wears a notice round his neck which reads: Algy's here as well.)
Algy: That's right Vera. (he chokes back the tears) Oh God you know we both still bally love you.
Vera: Oh Biggles! Algy. Oh, but how wonderful!
(She starts to cry. Husband wakes up again.)
Husband: What's happening, Vera?
Vera: Oh, er, nothing dear. It's just the toilet filling up.
Husband: Righto. (he goes fast asleep again)
(By this stage all the men have pulled up chairs in a circle around Vera's side of the bed. They are all chatting amongst themselves. Biggles is holding her hand. Maurice has produced a bottle of vin ordinaire. At this moment four Mexican musicans appear on the husband's side of the bed. The leader of the band nudges the husband, who wakes.)
Mexican: (reading from a scruffy bit of paper) Scusey, you tell me where is Mrs Vera Jackson please?
Husband: Yes, right and right again.
Mexican: Muchas gracias.
Husband: Righto.
(He immediately goes back to sleep again. The Mexicans all troop round the bed and enter the group. The leader conducts them and they start up a little conga. Once they've started he turns and comes over to Vera with a naughty glint in his eye. They play a guitar, a trumpet and maracas.)
Mexican: Oh Vera, you remember Acapulco in the Springtime?
Vera: Oh. The Herman Rodrigues Four!
(Suddenly the husband wakes up.)
Husband: Vera! (there is immediate silence) I distinctly heard a Mexican rhythm combo.
Vera: Oh no dear, it was just the electric blanket switching off.
Husband: Hm. Well I'm going for a tinkle.
(He gets out of bed and disappears into the gloom.)
Vera: Oh no you can't do that. Here, we haven't finished the sketch yet!
Algy: Dash it all, there's only another bally page.
Roger: I say. There's no one to react to.
Maurice: Don't talk to the camera.
Roger: Oh sorry.
(Enter a huge man dressed as an Aztec god. He stretches arms open wide and is about to speak when owing to lack of money he is cut short by Vera.)
Vera: Here it's no good you coming in, he's gone and left the sketch.
Biggles: Yes, he went for a tinkle.
(Cut to close-up of husband and a dolly bird with a lavatory chain hanging between them. She is about to pull the chain when he stops her.)
Husband: Sh! I think my wife is beginning to suspect something...
(Cut to animation of various strange and wonderful creatures saying to the effect:)
Hartebeeste: I thought that ending was a bit predictable.
Crocodile: (eating it) Yes indeed there was a certain lack of originality.
Ostrich: (eating the crocodile) However it's not necessarily a good thing just to be different.
A Lady: (emerging from hatch in ostrich) No, quite, there is equal humor in the conventional.
Pig: (eating ostrich) But on the other hand, is it what the public wants? I mean with the new permissiveness, not to mention the balance of payments. It's an undeniable fact that...
Coelocanth: (eating the pig) I agree with that completely.
Rodent: That's it, I'm getting out of this show before it's too late. Too late!
Continue to the next sketch... Letters (Lavatorial Humor)