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Monte Python Rally Skit

Three distinguished older gentlemen (named A, B, and C in the script below) are sitting around a coffee table sipping drinks from brandy snifters. A uniquely shaped and dusty bottle is on the table. One is smoking a cigar. All speak with upper-crust ENGLISH accents.

The scene begins while the audience is still talking, as if the audience were somewhat part of the scene. The actors begin in a normal voice which gradually grows louder to a stage voice.

B: Ah, a good bottle of Chateau de Chassaly, what could be the better of this.

C: You're right there squire.

(boldly now in full stage voice)

A: Who would have thought, thirty years ago, we'd all be sitting here after the rally drinking Chateau de Chassily.

B,C: (agreement)

B: Them days we'd be glad to have the price of a mug of beer.

C: Right, a mug of warm beer

A: Without chips or pretzels

C: or beer!

B: In a cracked mug and all

C: OH, we never used to have a mug, we used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

A: The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

B: But you know we were happy in those days, although we were poor.

C: Because we were poor! My old navigator used to say to me, money doesn't bring you happiness.

A: He was right. I was happier then and I had nothing. We used to rally in this tiny little broken down car with great big holes in the floor.

B: Car. You were lucky to have a car. We used to rally on a motorcycle with a sidecar, both of us huddled in the center for fear of tippin over.

C: You were lucky, you had a motor. We used to rally on a tandem bicycle.

A: OOOH, we used to dream of rallying on a bicycle. Would have been a chariot to us. After our engine exploded on the Far East rally, my navigator pushed us all the way through Tibet. Motorcyle, HA!

B: Well, when I say motorcycle, it was really just a tricycle with the motor from a lawn mower stuck on the front wheel, but it was a rally vehicle to us.

C: We had our tricycle repossessed. We had to rally on foot, with nothing but our sneekers between us and the road.

A: You were lucky to have sneekers. We used to do all night endurance rallies where all the competitors had to run the course barefoot.

B: Endurance Rally

A: Aye

B: You're lucky. We would run 800 mile National Trap rallies on foot, carrying 50 pound packs with the route instructions taped to the back of my navigator's head.

C: Luxury!! We used to have to get up at 2 O'Clock in the morning, put on blind folds, crawl across a 1400 mile gravel course on our hands and knees at high speed licking the road clean with our tongues. And when we got to the finish, the rallymaster would smash us over the head with a broken beer bottle.

A: Right!

(slight pause - everyone leans over to listen intently)

I used to get up in the morning at 10 o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, strap my navigator to my back, put on a blindfold, run a highly trapped pro rally from the Alaskan tundra to Brazil, and when we got to the finish, the rallymaster would kill us and dance around our graves singing Hallelujia!

B: And you try and tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you.

(all agree)

Email comments/questions to rally@goss.com