Situation Tragedy

think that’s one of the most important ingredients in a really exciting show. Let’s put our troubles behind us and look forward to the success The Strutters is inevitably going to be!

With the warmest good wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Peter

Peter Lipscombe

Producer The Strutters

When Bob Tomlinson arrived at the Paddington Jewish Boys’ Club Hall for the next read-through the following Wednesday and found Willy and Sam Tennison holding court, he said he was going out for a sandwich and would come back in half an hour, by which time everyone had better be ready to start work.

The atmosphere of the second read-through had cleared, and everyone seemed a lot more cheerful. Rod Tisdale’s death, apart from shattering Charles Paris’s murder theories, had not had much effect. He had been such an unobtrusive person to have around that his absence was hardly remarked at all.

And any void he might have left was more than filled by Willy and Sam Tennison. They were a roly-poly little pair of writers, a married couple who that day affected patchwork shirts and matching yellow jeans. They were awfully affectionate and flirtatious with each other all the time, and talked in a manner very similar to the scripts of their sit coms. Since most of their success had been based on a series of interchangeable shows which dramatised the small happenings of their own lives, this was hardly surprising.

The viewing public knew everything about them. Their student lives in adjacent flats had hit the screen in the hilarious form of Flat Spin. The early days of their marriage had been chronicled in the series Daisy and Jonathan. The wacky tribulations of having children took comic form as Your Turn, Darling and the increasing affluence these scripts brought them provided the basis for Oh, What a Pair of Au Pairs! Their revolutionary attempt to do something different with Oh, Crumbs! had been weakened by the fact that the catering college where the series was set was run by a couple called Rob and Mona Partridge, who bore a remarkable similarity to all their other couples.

The Tennisons also had a disconcerting habit of always talking as if they were being interviewed and volunteering information that no one had ever asked for.

Peter Lipscombe thought they were wonderful. He laughed constantly at their shared monologue.

‘Well, I don’t know, darling,’ said Willy Tennison.

‘Don’t know what, darling?’ asked Sam Tennison.

‘How we’re going to get six scripts together in time, darling.’

‘Oh, we’ll manage somehow, darling. Lots of midnight oil.’

‘But is it going to be worth it with the price oil is these days?’

‘Oh, I’ve got a friend who’s a sheik.’

‘I thought your friend was the milkman.’

‘Well, this guy’s a kind of milk sheik.’

‘You know people always ask us how we manage to work together all the time, you know, as man and wife. Don’t they, darling?’

‘They do, darling.’

‘And I always say that there are four of us. There’s a husband and a wife and a writer and another writer.’

‘And never the twain and the twain shall meet.’

‘Yes. Or at least one twain never meets the other twain.’

‘Otherwise, darling, there’d be a twain crash.’

‘Oh, lovely, darling. I’ll write that one down.’

While her husband committed the gem to paper, Sam Tennison continued, ‘Willy always uses a blue notebook, while I like pink ones. We never go anywhere without our notebooks, do we, darling?’

‘Never, darling. Never know when the Muse will strike.’

‘As one pussy cat shop steward said to the other.’

‘Oh, darling, that’s another one for the book.’

Charles prayed for the return of Bob Tomlinson. He also mentally fabricated a new series which would chronicle the remainder of Willy and Sam Tennison’s lives if he had his way. There’d be Mum’s The Word! for when their tongues were cut out, There’s a Funny Thong! for when they were garrotted, and, to cover their funerals, We’re Only Here for the Bier!

Eventually, Bob Tomlinson and belligerent sanity returned.

‘Hello, Bob, I’m Sam. .’

‘And I’m Willy. .’

‘Shut up.’

‘We’re your new writers.’

‘Are you? Well, I don’t want you round my rehearsal rooms. Send your scripts in by post. You’ve already wasted enough time this morning. We’ve got a tight schedule. We’re losing two days’ rehearsal with the filming we’ve got to pick up. Incidentally, everyone, the overnight shoot for Ep. Six is fixed for Thursday fortnight. 5th July. Okay, read!’

‘But, Sam and I had hoped — ’

‘But, Willy and I had hoped — ’

‘Didn’t you hear me? Piss off.’

He was a good man, that Bob Tomlinson, thought Charle.

The overnight filming Bob had mentioned was for an insert into the last Strutters script Rod Tisdale wrote. In fact, it was the last full script of any sort that he wrote, but anyone who searched through its fabric for some final message from the writer to the world would have been disappointed. All he would have found was a predictable plot, dressed up with sixty-seven familiar jokes, fifty-two of which were destined to receive laughs from the studio audience and the remaining fifteen to have artificial ones imposed in the dubbing suite. Not a great memorial to a human being (which is what Rod Tisdale must have been, though he never gave any sign of it).

Charles had found out as much as he could about the writer’s death, but there was not a lot. His relaxed rehearsal schedule (given a pragmatist like Bob Tomlinson as director, fourteen lines and two moves didn’t take long to perfect) allowed him time to go to the inquest, but information seemed to be scarce.

Rod Tisdale had lived in a block of flats in a quiet road in Maida Vale. At nine o’clock on the previous Friday evening, 15th June, he had left the block and started out across the road, where he had been knocked over and killed by a vehicle travelling at considerable speed.

There had been no witnesses of the accident, though people in other flats had heard the impact. By the time they looked out of their windows, only parked cars were visible.

Rod Tisdale had lived alone, and had apparently spent the day in his flat working. Investigations so far suggested that he had not spoken to anyone on the telephone except for his agent, and had not then mentioned any plans to go out. There was nothing in his diary to indicate why he set out at nine o’clock. He might have been walking towards Maida Vale tube station. He might have been going to the local pub (though he was very rarely seen in there). He might just have been going out for a walk.

Police investigations would continue to try to track down the errant vehicle which had killed him, so an adjournment was requested. The coroner granted it in a voice that did not expect much more to be discovered and commented on the alarming increase in hit and run accidents.

There was no one Charles Paris recognised at the inquest, so he left little the wiser. The death could just have been an accident. On the other hand, if the potential murderer were someone Rod Tisdale knew, the murder would have been fairly easy to set up. He had only to ring the writer, fix a meeting-place which would involve his crossing the road, and sit and wait for him to come out.

So, just another death, and apparently an accidental one. Every attempt at a pattern Charles started was soon frustrated. He had been on very promising lines with Bernard Walton cast as villain, but that approach had