Listen to the Episode
Recording Script
EPISODE 8: OUTSIDE EUROPE
SFX A CD-ROM is placed in a CD-ROM drive.
SFX Quid Pro Euro 96 launch music.
GUIDE: Would you like to start a NEW GAME or LOAD an existing game?
SFX Mouse Click.
GUIDE: You have
SFX CD Whirr
GUIDE: ONE.
SFX CD Whirr
GUIDE: Saved games!
SFX Mouse click.
SFX Loading.
SFX Exciting music.
ATMOS The cockpit of a sea-plane
Guide [over comms]: We’re in a sea-plane! Wow, I had no idea this boat could grow wings!
SFX Map rustle And look, there’s an atlas, and that chain of islands below, that looks like… this one. That means we’re going… that direction. Gasp. We’re going home! See, the landmass is called Home.
Hey, look, there’s a person on a raft in the sea waving up at us. And here they are in the atlas. We’re on course. Hello!
I’m worried about our fuel consumption. We have very little of the sail left to burn. Let’s keep focused on - hey look at those dolphins!
Hello! They’re looking at us. Hello! Wait, no, not at us. They’re looking at… oh my word. Look up, further, right up, in the sky, do you see? More dolphins! Upside down. In fact… there’s a whole ocean... in the sky. It must be a reflection.
No.. There’s a big, well it’s more than an island. Is it a continent? It’s only above us, not below, do you see? Just there.
SFX Fuel sputter
Oh no! The fuel gage is red. We have to land soon. Are you ready to land a sea-plane?
SFX Click Yes
Control the sea-plane with the past tense of was: W, A, S, D.
SFX The player flies the plane a bit
That’s it! You’ve got the hang of it. But the land is above us. Turn the sea-plane upside down with the space-bar.
SFX Space-bar
SFX Sea-plane goes through 180 degrees
Wooooaaaah! That was incredible! Do it again!
SFX Again
Hahahaaaa! No, we’re going to land in the ocean, do it again!
SFX Again
Ahaaaa so much fun and now we’re going to craaaaaash!
SFX CD Whirr
SFX crash landing. The land increasingly turns to paper until we are ripping through a giant sheet of paper and the engine finally dies.
We reached the land-mass.
Are you alright?
I’m not sure land-mass is the right word. Look at how it gathers round the cockpit. Up in big white sheets. They look
Torn
Like paper.
Paper-mass.
And it’s white. Look, everywhere. White. With big blue lines at regular intervals. A great big sheet of lined paper. So bright. Good thing this sea-plane has sunglasses. They’re shaped like little sea-planes.
The paper has a gentle curve. I could almost believe we’d landed on a notebook. It would have to be a very big notebook. Or maybe we’re very small. Just a couple of scribbles dancing across the pages of a big notebook in a sky-ocean. Do you dance?
SFX Click No
Just an idea. I like dancing. Shall we look at the giant notebook?
SFX Click yes
SFX CD Whirr
SFX Seaplane door closes
ATMOS A vast still horizon haunted by a waltz
It’s very sturdy paper. Hang on…
SFX He tears at the ground a little
There’s another sheet beneath it. Page.
Gosh, don’t you just love the smell of a fresh notebook? So full of possibilities. That’s us. Just a couple of maybes.
SFX Pencil on paper
Hey, there are lines appearing on the page. It’s like a pencil sketch. Little rectangles.
Floorboards. And now… a big curving line, more rectangles getting smaller… Oh! It’s a staircase, do you see? A big one, sweeping away … but in two dimensions. And there… those are instruments and more rectangles and lines... it’s a bandstand. We’re standing on a drawing of a dance hall. In a notebook.
Because I asked you about dancing?
Hello? Hello? I can dance if you like. It was just an idea though.
SFX Rubber - the waltz ends
It got rubbed out. Like the rubber was below the page.
Thank you though!
The paper reacts to our ideas. Do you see? Hmm. … A tree!
SFX pencil
That’s a drawing of a tree. Heeheehee! More detail!
SFX Shading
More!
SFX Paper rustle to one side
Ahh!
It grew out of the page. It’s made of paper. Wow. Look, look at the way the it’s scrunched up - it looks like bark lines- oh!
SFX Same paper rustle backwards
It’s gone back into the page. It didn’t last very long. Shall we try again? What do you want to see?
SFX typing.
A horse, good idea!
SFX Paper rustle, different place. Papery horse noises.
Hello. Aren’t you lovely. You’re all sleek and strong and
SFX Paper rustle backwards
-gone. It unmade itself fast.
ATMOS Ghostly underscoring starts.
You know, I heard that if you go far enough, you leave behind the present and wind up in the … well not the past so much as the perhaps. Or the perhaps not. A place for all your little hopes and fancies to go away.
Maybe we shouldn’t hang around. Maybe we can imagine some fuel to burn for the sea-plane.
SFX A big papery scrunch starts behind us
The sea-plane! The sea-plane is made of paper! No that’s not right, why is it... All scrunched up. And all sorts of paper: A4, A2, A1 and the secret size: A5.
Hey look, the gardennequin is waving at us from the cockpit. Also made of paper. Hello!
SFX Paper rustle as...
It’s flattening into the ground. Stop. Stop! Think about the sea-plane! Imagine it! We need it!
SFX The sea-plane fights to exist but..
It’s just pencil lines! Gardennequin, get out. Get out! Sea-plane! Sea-plane! Sea-plane!
SFX Rubber
It’s gone.
Beat.
So! What do you want to do? I can see: the horizon.
SFX Click
Alright, let’s go further inland. Or inbook!
SFX CD Whirr
A long valley going that way… and behind us. This must be the centre of the notebook.
Look, above us, the sky. The other ocean. The real one. I think it’s rotating. See how that island is curving past? If only there was a way to catch. I know: I’ll jump. One, two, three!
Missed it.
But look! Look, look, look what’s coming towards us up there. That’s land. Not just islands either. Do you recognise the outline? See those crinkly coasts? Oh my. It’s -
The narrator’s voice booms out of the sky. It’s a segment the opening credits to Series 1. The narrator bits fade in and out as if heard through a dream. Above us in the sky, Europe appears and disappears as if a giant documentary were being constructed in real life over our heads.
Narrator: - of the European Union! Or Qui -
Hello? Hello? We’re over here! Hello? Did you hear a voice? It was so loud. I’m sure I heard a voice suddenly. Hello!
Narrator: Today: Life.
There it is! Look, the land has stopped rotating and… and… is it getting closer? No, it’s expanding. Is that a city? Ah, buildings!
Narrator: The liveliest place in the European Union is Minirome, a self-governing city-state and golf course next to St Peter’s Square -
I can see everything! The whole continent! There’s fjords and gothic buildings and concerts and planes and the other kind of planes
Narrator: - a permanent population of 850 fairway managers -
and Alps and seas and so many offices, it’s beautiful! I feel like I could just reach out and be a part of it. Look, it’s, it’s fading in and out.
Narrator: - the chief golfer knows exactly how to time his stroke so it goes through the windmill and into the gorilla’s mouth.
The buildings and mountains are rippling… wait, the ripple, it’s not random. See how it crosses from one edge of the continent to the other? It’s almost over us!
SFX The biggest ever QPE WHOOSH.
NB // marks overlap as narrator fades in
Now what are we looking at it? // It’s a house or what?
Narrator: - selling the leafblower // paid for the services of this Spanish flautist. Knock ‘em dead, Paloma! The musical assassin packs her heaviest // flute -
The // adrenaline! Can you feel the rush? Can you feel how wonderful it is to be part of something so vast and peaceful and, and, and coalful and steelful. It’s like a great // big hug.
Narrator: They’re not just // gardeners, oh no. They’re: gardener pardoners, the judges of the gardening world. The Trial of // the Rhododendrons has started -
All the colours // are so bright. Bless my boots I’m warm from the inside. I feel like I’ve just stepped out of a soup and I’m ready to make my way in life as an independent vegetable.
SFX The episode in the sky gets even more muffled, fading away
Narrator: - but Silver Fox doesn’t need a unicycle … anymore -
Wait, something’s happening.. it’s pulling away.
Narrator: The under-secretary of the council of unicyclists wheels sadly back down the motorway, and is flattened // by a Heavy Goods Vehicle
// It’s getting smaller, come back! Come back! No, bad clouds, go away!
Narrator: In Denmark -
There is no Denmark!
Narrator: - spanakopita.
Wait, clouds, look at the clouds, they’re paper. They’re just a sketch on the ceiling. There’s a ceiling.
Narrator: To live without the European Union -
It’s all... just paper. Just a sketch inside a big ball of paper. The ravine, look, it’s flattening. The horizon is all white and
SFX Narrator is suddenly crystal clear, coming from all directions
Narrator: - is to live alone. Nobody to know you. Nobody to dream of you. To remember you or imagine you. Nobody will know you mattered. Or that you existed. You’ll sacrifice your past and future. Just another oh dear. An idea without a brain. Untenable. Unmemorable. Unbelievable.
Was it worth it?
SFX We start to fade out again
In the twenty-first century-
SFX The paper sky rubs out anything left. We are alone again.
Hello?
Hello?
Come back.
I wish we had a way to get out of here.
SFX Big paper crinkle
Oh!. Everything’s suddenly crinkled. Like we’re in a scrunched up ball of paper.
SFX Paper crinkle
Well at least we’ve got each other. And our stories. Maybe nobody else will remember us but so long as we’re alive we can remember each other for them.
I thought I’d get my amnesia cured. Not… this.
Remember the enginnequin? And the sea-pane? That was good.
Sorry, that’s not what it was called.
The see-vane! The Bee-pane! The me … rain…
SFX It starts raining paper
It’s raining paper.
What was... wings?
It doesn’t matter.
…
What do you think this place is? All… is it paper?
SFX Paper crinkle
Oh! My arms are paper
SFX Again
My feet are paper. So are yours!
SFX Pencil
No they’re not. They’re drawings on the paper. So are my legs.
Oh hello, who are you? I think I’ve got amnesia. I used to be a tour guide. So I’ll be your guide on...
SFX Paper and pencil
… perhaps not. There goes my chest! I’m just a head, a head made of paper.
SFX Pencil
I’m a face! A drawing of a face! 2B or not 2B? Hahaha! So are you ! Hahahaha. Would you like to Save your game? To Save press
SFX And the guide is rubbed out.
SFX beat
SFX The player is rubbed out.
SFX Power down music, CD eject.