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Series 1, Episode 5: Police Raid
The cast:
YOUNG MAN Eric Idle
POLICEMAN Graham Chapman
FEMALE VOICE OVER Carol Cleveland
MALE VOICE OVER John Cleese
PEPPERPOT Eric Idle
FEMALE JOURNALIST Terry Jones
BOXER Eric Idle
SCOTSMAN Michael Palin
STOCKBROKER John Cleese
BOY Michael Palin
The sketch:
(We a young man playing chess with another young man. They are in an ordinary flat. Them is a tremendous battering, banging, hammering and clattering at the door.)
Young Man: Door’s open.
Policeman: Oh. Yes.
(he enters)
All right. All right, all fight, all right. My name’s Police Constable Henry Thatcher, and this is a raid. I have reason to believe that there are certain substances on the premises.
Young Man: Well what sort of substances, officer?
Policeman: Er… certain substances.
Young Man: Well, what sort of certain substances?
Policeman: Er, certain substances of an illicit nature.
Young Man: Er, could you be more specific?
Policeman: I beg your pardon?
Young Man: Could you be ‘clearer’.
Policeman: Oh, oh … yes, er … certain substances on the premises. To be removed for clinical tests.
Young Man: Have you got anything particular in mind?
Policeman: Well what have you got?
Young Man: Nothing, officer.
Policeman: You are Sandy Camp the actor?
Young Man: Yes.
Policeman: I must warn you, sir, that outside I have police dog Josephine, who is not only armed, and trained to sniff out certain substances, but is also a junkie.
Young Man: What are you after … ?
Policeman:
(pulling a brown paper package from out of his pocket, very badly and obviously) Oo! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! Here is a brown paper bag I have found on the premises. I must confiscate this, sir, and take it with me for clinical examination.
Young Man: Wait a minute. You just got that out of your pocket.
Policeman: What?
Young Man:
(takes it) Well what’s in it anyway?
(opens it) Sandwiches.
Policeman: Sandwiches? Blimey. Whatever did I give the wife?
(Cut to viewer’s letter in handwriting, read in voice over.)
Female VO: Dear BBC, East Grinstead, Friday. I feel I really must write and protest about that sketch. My husband, in common with a lot of people of his age, is fifty. For how long are we to put up with these things. Yours sincerely, E. B. Debenham (Mrs).
(Cut to another letter.)
Male VO: Dear Freddy Grisewood, Bagshot, Surrey. As a prolific letter-writer, I feel I must protest about the previous letter. I am nearly sixty and am quite mad, but I do enjoy listening to the BBC Home Service. If this continues to go on unabated …Dunkirk… dark days of the war… backs to the wall… Alvar Liddell … Berlin air lift … moral upheaval of Profumo case … young hippies roaming the streets, raping, looting and killing. Yours etc., Brigadier Arthur Gormanstrop (Mrs).
(Cut to vox pops film.)
Pepperpot: Well I think they should attack things, like that – with satire. I mean Ned Sherrin. Fair’s fair. I think people should be able to make up their own minds for me.
Female Journalist: Well I think they should attack the fuddy-duddy attitudes of the lower middle classes which permit the establishment to survive and keep the mores of the whole country back where they were in the nineteenth century and the ghastly days of the pre-sexual revolution.
(A boxer runs up and knocks her out.)
Scotsman: Well that’s, er, very interesting, because, er, I am, in fact, made entirely of wood.
Stockbroker: Well I think they should attack the lower classes, er, first with bombs, and rockets destroying their homes, and then when they run helpless into the streets, er, mowing them down with machine guns. Er, and then of course releasing the vultures. I know these views aren’t popular, but I have never courted popularity.
(A boy scout on his knees. Next to him is a scout master, seen only from the knees down.)
Boy: I think there should be more race prejudice.
(He is nudged.)
Voice: Less.
Boy: Less race prejudice.