 By Warwick Evans
- Director:
- (to stage) Next please! (aside)
Oh God, why do I allow myself to be roped in to these insufferable poetry reading
competitions? None of them are any good.
- Assistant:
- Only one more before we break for lunch.
- Director:
- Oh thank God. (to stage) Well, come on! Yes, you
sir, get on with it! The sooner you start - the sooner we'll finish.
- Bard:
- Well, what I've brought with me can best be described as ... well it's a sort of ... How
can I put it? ... a kind of ... well I think it captures what it is that each of us ...
er, that is, society in general feels about the, er ...
- Director:
- (to stage) Oh for pity's sake, I'm not interested!
Nobody here is in the least bit interested. We all just want to get out of here. Now you
have something there on a piece of paper in front of you. So why don't you do yourself and
the whole world a favour and just read it! (aside) Please
God, let him finish quickly.
- Bard:
- What was that?
- Director:
- (to stage) Just read it!
- Bard:
- The time has come, Chris Patten said, to talk of many things.
To drop a democratic line - and see which way it swings.
But China says he's gone too far - and wants to clip his wings.
-
- The cadres say his package goes beyond the Basic Law.
The trouble is democracy - he wants to give us more.
The way Beijing attacks poor Chris is almost like a war.
-
- And when the market takes a dive, guess who's the one it blames.
Beijing sulks, and rants and raves, and calls Chris Patten names.
Then swiftly asks the right to stage its first Olympic games.
-
- So, what precisely China wants is never very clear.
The way it bashes Patten seems to worsen every year.
But how Beijing will miss him - when he is no longer here!
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