CLAPPING AND MUSIC PLAY
CRACKLING
GUITAR PLAYS
ENGINE REVS
ENGINE STOPS
MOBILE PHONE RINGS
PHONE CONTINUES RINGING
Hi...
No. I haven't told anyone about Stephen the kids yet.
Stop ringing and asking.
Could you get off my case?
We've been through all this, Siobhain,
because too much time has elapsed.
I look mental now.
Yeah, yeah, well, Pig Man isn't going to tell anyone.
Stop shouting, Siobhain.
Can you stop shouting?
If you don't stop shouting, I'm hanging up.
Lin's got no idea what's in store for her.
Fiver she says her feet hurt.
And she keeps asking to use the toilet... And the water's too cold.
Won't like the attention either.
The locals are doing a really good job
on Faither's memorial, thanks to Lin.
They've finally got their confidence back
after the Straw Man Harvest Festival incident.
Can't blame us for that, Joy.
It were an abomination.
You said it looked like Michael Fabricant fell out of an airplane
into a hay bale and YOU set fire to it.
Faither's memorial.
Just what the world needs - another monument to a problematic man.
Should be making a Fred West water fountain next.
You should tell Linda the truth about Verderer.
Let her know that a memorial to him is difficult.
Nowt to explain - he were a bastard.
Oh, we're allowed to swear tonight, are we? Thank fuck for that!
Festival eve, Town Mouse. Say what we want.
Nice dress!
What, this old thing? Yeah!
Fiver, in a charity shop.
Not my sort of thing at all.
I'm just going to try it on, see what it looked like then
Tony said I was too old for it, which really annoyed me
and so I bought it.
I thought, "Well, Tony, you are too old for women's jeggings."
LAUGHTER Yeah!
My God, men telling women what to wear.
It is SO annoying.
My ex would only have sex with me if I was in waders.
My ex wouldn't have his picture taken next to me
if I was in heels, ever.
Not even on our wedding day?
Yes, so we were sat down in all of them.
My dad said that we look disabled.
You look like a high-end Russian prostitute.
Oh, thanks, Carm.
So you got it for Tony, then?
No, of course not. No, no, I'm just saying that what he said annoyed me.
Who'd you get it for, then? Must be a man involved. Mm-hm.
No!
Pig Man?
Jealous, Carm? Oh, my God.
Why does everyone think I'm bonking Pig Man?
It's so childish!
First my sister, and now you lot.
Oh, yeah. Everyone loved meeting your charming, polite sister,
especially the Verderer,
who she called "some fucking tree cheese gnome".
Whole town knows you've been hanging around down Pig Man's cave.
Yes! For his friendship and his frothy milk.
Well, as long as you're happy being the third, Linda,
after his porkers and Carm.
GASPING
Pig Man and Carmel?
Nice.
Well, not consummated unless you count him giving her
his first prize veggies every year. That's enough, Agnes.
Pig Man's sweet potatoes and what he does with them is up to him.
So, it was for Tony, then?
JOY LAUGHS Oh, my God!
I didn't buy it for a man, OK? I got it for myself.
All right.
Also, if I was a lesbian, which I'm not -
you wouldn't keep asking me what woman I bought it for, would you?
Yeah, I would. No, you wouldn't.
Would do. No, you absolutely wouldn't.
Yeah. No, you wouldn't.
Would. You wouldn't.
Would. No. We would.
I don't know how you can stand it. I really, really don't.
Everyone knowing your business all the time.
"Hold the front page!
"Woman who normally wears jeans and a T-shirt, wears a dress!
"Crisp packet blows out of a bin and lands on a dog's back."
Which dog? Which flavour crisps?
Did it stay on the dog's back or immediately blow off again?
Forget about the dog.
It didn't happen.
I made it up.
THEY EXCLAIM DISAPPOINTEDLY
We didn't mean to make you feel self-conscious, Town Mouse.
You look great. Own it.
Thanks.
I'll take that.
I think you're all really beautiful, by the way.
Not just tonight, because you've dressed up.
We know we're beautiful, Town Mouse, inside and out.
Don't need no-one telling us that.
Ooh! What?!
Nothing.
Weird. Hey, thanks for inviting me, by the way.
To your special night.
Don't normally enjoy parties.
DISTANT CHEERING AND LAUGHTER
HIGH–PITCHED RINGING THROUGHOUT
Help me with this, Linda.
Oh, God.
I'm rubbish at fiddly things like this and I hate pins.
It doesn't have to be perfect, Linda.
It's the love what goes into something what makes it special.
Oh. That's where the magic comes from.
Everything that at the Eel Festival has been made
with love by someone.
Mutton dressed as lamb.
What, me? No, what people call older women what dress young.
Hmm. I haven't had that in years.
Just pick something, first thing that catches your eye.
Right. Well, I used to pick this with my mum.
Perfect. Yeah?
OK.
I heard it shouted at my mum once.
On her birthday. No.
My mum only ever wore make-up on special occasions.
A little bit of lippy, a bit of blusher.
I used to love watching her putting it on.
I will never forget the look on her face for as long as I live.
Just four words.
She was utterly crushed.
Of course, she had to front it out because I was there.
"Just a bit of banter, eh? Just a bit of banter."
They will never know the trail of devastation that they left,
just a few seconds out of their lives.
She never got dressed up on her birthday again.
"Mutton dressed as lamb."
Another derogatory term just for women like, "gold digger",
"prick tease", "slut",
"ball breaker", "battle axe",
"harpy".
Is there an equivalent term for an older man who dresses young?
A cunt? Oh!
LAUGHTER That's the one!
Now get a pin...
...and just pin it on whatever you like.
NOT THERE! Oh, my God!
It's not funny!
You're a natural, Town Mouse.
Just go with your instinct.
You don't want too much of the same thing in the one place, though.
Or the same colour. Or size.
Oh, right. So it's not easy, then.
I do have to think about it.
Oh! I saw really good film at the Palace earlier.
Which one? OK, don't rush me.
FBI thing.
SHE CLEARS HER THROAT
Bloke with the smirky faces in it.
You know, big eyebrow.
He was in that shit baby film as well.
And the musical with the Australian woman.
Big quiff!
Him, not her.
Mark Kermode.
Who's that? Uncle Isaiah had a commode.
Was he in the OJ Simpson film?
I haven't seen it. Made of oak. He died on it.
He was also in that film with that woman who was in the other
film by the same director.
And in the other film, she wore a yellow jumpsuit.
Annika Rice! His bum slipped right down and they couldn't
get him out. Imagine that.
Trying to hoick a dead man out of a toilet.
Apparently, he still managed to look dignified. What was it...?
John Travolta.
John Travolta!
Film's called Face/Off.
Well done, Carm!
Oh!
I couldn't remember what a toe was called the other day.
I called it a foot finger.
The word for "plunger" escaped me.
I told my plumber that I used a shit sucker.
JOY LAUGHS
MEN CHEER IN THE DISTANCE
Oh. Oh, that was a nice idea of yours, Linda.
Getting the men to bake the Eel pie at the tree for the Verderer.
Just didn't seem fair him missing out.
You'd have been a good mum.
Never thought about it?
I just...
I haven't...
Why do women always have to explain why they haven't had kids?
We're just chatting, Lin, is all.
It's fine if you'd rather not talk about it.
One in three pregnancies ends in miscarriage.
Nothing to be ashamed of, Linda.
I got two buried out in the woods.
Planted trees on top of them.
So they live on.
I never got that far.
Endometriosis.
Joy's the only one who got one in the back of the net.
Oh.
I'm... I'm really sorry.
That's, that's really tough.
It's just that, you know, being a mother or not being a mother
is not how I define myself.
Never said it was.
Well, then...
Well, then, you know, I just didn't meet the right person, then.
Well, there you are, then.
MEN CHEER IN THE DISTANCE
The men got over the role reversal this year, then, Carm?
Thinking they're loving jumping over the fire?
LINDA GASPS
Is that what they're doing?
Tradition goes the Lady of the Flowers,
is which this year is the Man of the Flowers, throws midsummer
flowers and herbs on the fire, then jumps over it.
Oh! Scares the dragons away,
stops them from poisoning our springs and wells.
Well, good job, then.
MOBILE TEXT ALERT PINGS
Another dick pic, Lin?
Yeah.
Won't be a sec. Careful what you reply, Linda.
Once your vulva is up in the Cloud, God knows where it'll end up.
I'm a Catholic. Even I haven't seen my vulva yet!
I'm not about to put it on a Cloud.
LAUGHTER IN THE DISTANCE
VOICE NOTE PING Look, Siobhan, it is a boring lie.
It would be much more exciting if I'd killed someone
or if I was a paedophile.
But I haven't and I'm not.
Just got a husband and kids at home.
You know, a bit of support wouldn't go amiss.
Actually, a bit of compassion.
Like I showed you when Father William told Dad that you confessed
to him to liking it when dogs sniffed your private parts.
And I'm sorry, I don't want to have to bring that up again
but you've made me.
I'll tell them tonight.
OK, bye. VOICE NOTE PING
Would have been much easier if Faither had left
a plan for the festival. He didn't believe in writing nothing down.
A convenient belief system for Faither
being illiterate, and all.
Tradition went, he'd tell his son everything.
But he never had one, not a legitimate one in any case.
Tried passing you off as one didn't he, Carm?
Till you leaked on a pew.
Thanks for waiting for me.
About Faither's memorial.
It don't sit right with us.
He was a bad 'un, Linda.
Oh, no.
So sorry.
He wasn't...? A Jimmy Savile?
No. But you were a bastard.
Then left everything to Ryan, his illegitimate
and only son, when he turned 18.
But Ryan doesn't identify as male, and Faither was never a faither
to them, so they don't want anything to do with it.
Oh, my God. Ryan will be master of ceremonies tomorrow.
Eels don't have a gender neither, so... outfit's nice.
We meet Ryan for the first time tomorrow as our sibling.
Nervous, ain't we, Carm? We are.
Hmm.
Well, then we'll have a minute's silence and I'll deal with the rest.
OK?
Do people know that Faither was a bad 'un? No!
The community loved him.
It would absolutely break them to find out.
Anyways, he's dead now, so it's time to move on.
It's time for change. Hmm.
Who wears these?
The ten best behaved children.
Oh.
What about all the kids that aren't chosen?
Never did the Verderer no harm not being chosen.
Ten years on the trot.
Done right by them birds living up that tree.
He's a proper local hero.
Can't have been easy, him being scared of heights.
And the dark. And shitting in bags.
He's waited a long time to be an Eel child, but he's earned his place
alongside them kids.
Pig Man can keep watch over the tree
while the Verderer's at the festival.
They might have rumbled us on them bones,
but they've still got a way to go before they can start felling.
That won't stop them if that tree's left unmanned.
OWL HOOTS
Listen! The other one will reply in a minute.
Yeah, we know, Linda. We live in a wood.
OWL HOOTS
SHE GASPS Oh, I love it so much!
I never knew it was two owls talking.
More action than I've seen in a while.
Now we're talking!
When was the last time you had sex then, Linda?
Oh, I don't remember.
What about you lot?
Oh, lunchtime. This morning.
Menage a trois, with me, myself and I.
14th February.
Blimey, that's precise.
Must have been good. Yes, it was.
Well, must have travelled for that then, Joy.
No, I didn't even need to leave work.
No! What?!
It can't be...?
No.
No!
I won't believe it.
Tell me!
No!
The Verderer?!
So wrong, it's right, Joy.
Hmm.
His fans better not find out.
Joy's fans better not find out.
What's that? DISTANT SINGING
Men's night singing.
It's normally the womenfolk.
God, it's lovely.
Come and try this on for me, Linda.
What, me? Are you sure that's OK?
Need to pin it for height.
Is that Faither's? Yeah.
It's so beautiful.
Gonna have to try his horrible codpiece on as well, do I?
We've got other plans for Faither's codpiece.
Look, moon's out.
Amazing, innit?
Hold still, Linda.
There's one more pin.
Do you ever think, "I wonder how many more full moons I'll see?"
Nope.
All done.
MUSIC PLAYS - Oh! - Yes!
Come on, Joy.
MUSIC CONTINUES
Come on, girls.
TEXT MESSAGE ALERTS PING
WHOOPING
Come on, Joy.
If this was a film, we'd be naked.
LAUGHTER
LAUGHTER CONTINUES
Joy, what are you doing?
LAUGHTER
SNORES GENTLY
SHE SCREAMS
What are you doing?!
You're lucky I wasn't naked!
Get out! Best you come quiet, Linda.
I'm not coming anywhere.
You can't just come in here and rip the covers off me.
I've got tenant's rights!
Don't make me bash your head in and put you in a bucket.
Come on, Linda.
I need a wee.
We should do this again sometime.
Let go, Linda!
Just drag the bitch.
Quick! What are you doing?
Oh, this is ridiculous.
Pants are up my bum!
Stop! I've got a hernia.
There's no need for this.
Let go, Linda.
THUD
I'm too old for this shit.
Tell me why we're going. I might just...
♪ Oh, Sally, my dearest you, I'd be kissing
♪ Oh, Sally, my dear, it's you I'd be kissing
♪ She smiled and replied,
♪ "You don't know what you're missing."