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Series 3, Episode 28: Trim-Jean’s Theatre
The cast:
GARY COOVER Eric Idle
JEAN WENNERSTORM Graham Chapman
MARK EDWARDS Michael Palin
PRIEST Graham Chapman
FIRST KNIGHT Eric Idle
SECOND KNIGHT Terry Jones
THIRD KNIGHT Michael Palin
FOURTH KNIGHT John Cleese
The sketch:
(Jolly showbiz music. A curtain goes up, revealing three actors in trim-jeans (which are heavily padded to make you sweat off weight) grouped like an advert. They all have slight Australian accents.)
CAPTION: ‘TRIM-JEANS THEATRE PRESENTS’
Gary: Good evening. This new series of ‘Trim-Jeans Theatre Presents’ will enable you to enjoy the poetry of T. S. Eliot whilst losing unsightly bulge. Jean.
CAPTION: ‘THESE THREE PEOPLE ARE REDUCING THEIR WAIST, THIGHS, HIPS AND ABDOMEN EVEN AS THEY RECOMMEND’
Jean: Wow, yes and the inches stay off. Mark.
Mark: Terrific! Thrill to Thomas a Becket’s Kierkegaardian moment of choice while making your physique tighter, firmer, neater.
(Cut to a cathedral interior. There are three priests, four knights and two women, all in trim-jeans. Thomas does not wear one.)
Priest: I am here. No traitor to the King.
First Knight: Absolve all those you have excommunicated.
Second Knight: Resign those powers you have abrogated.
Third Knight: Renew the obedience you have violated.
Fourth Knight: Lose inches off your hips, thighs, buttocks and abdomen.
(Cut back to Gary and the others.)
Gary: A terrific product.
All: Terrific.
Gary: And this comes complete with the most revolutionary guarantee in slenderizing history!
(Cut to a man in trim-jeans under a sign saying ‘Before’.)
Voice Over: This was Kevin Francis before last season’s ‘Trim-Jean Play of the Month’ production of ‘The Seagull’ by Anton Chekhov and the Sauna Belt Trim-Jean Company Limited. See Kevin has slipped into his slenderizing garment and is inflating it with the handy little pump provided. Three acts and a few special torso exercises later, Kevin, as Trigorin, the failed writer of sentimental romances, has lost over thirty-three inches.
(same shot but very skinny John Hughman has replaced Terry J)
Wow. What a difference. That Anton Chekhov can certainly write.
Gary: Terrific.
Mark: Terrific.
Gary: Yes, why not join us for a season of classic plays and rapid slenderizing. Enjoy Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson losing a total of fifteen inches in David Storey’s ‘Home’.
Mark: Enjoy the ‘The Trim Gentlemen of Verona’ and ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ while inches melt away.
Jean: Enjoy Glenda Jackson with a Constant Snug Fit and Solid Support in all four areas.
Gary: Other productions will include… ‘Treasure Island’ …
(Long John Silver in trim-jeans)
‘Swan Lake’
(cut to a photo of two ballet dancers in a ‘lift’ position, both wearing tights and trim-jeans)
‘The Life and Loves of Toulouse Lautrec’,
(cut to a photo of Toulouse Lautrec, his feet sticking out of the bottom of the trim-jeans)
and the Trim-Jeans version of ‘The Great Escape’, with a cast of thousands losing well over fifteen hundred inches.
(Cut to scrubland, barbed wire a la prison camp in the background. After a few seconds a head appears out of a hole in the ground. He looks around then gets out. He is wearing trim-jeans. He looks back. Satisfied he beckons. Others start appearing. Three German guards behind the wire muttering.)
SUPERIMPOSED CAPTION: ‘INCHES LOST SO FAR’
(A superimposed counter shows the numbers increasing.)
Guard: Achtungl Hait! Halt!
(A moment’s panic. Shooting starts and a siren goes. Men pour out of hole rapidly. Guards pursue them with tracker dogs in trim~jeans. The counter goes berserk.)