Monsters and Gods Doctors

"Her skin was that of the first pure dawn,

"her hair the flames of the burning tree of yore,

"her mien was beauteous.

"But set with the purpose of her destiny.

"Her destiny, to find the man of true heart,

"he who would hold the key to her desire,

"he who would know..."

What's up, bud?

Er, no, thanks.

What you reading?

Just the latest magnum opus from Blake Calverly.

Who?

He is the, er, self-appointed doyen of future world romances.

Barbara Cartland does Blade Runner?

That's a pretty fair assessment.

Why are you reading it?

He's the guest speaker at this conference I'm going to.

And I just needed to see

-if his writing is as tawdry as they say it is.

-And?

-Oh, it's very tawdry.

-Thought it was your day off?

Oh, I came in for some free coffee.

Monsters and Gods!

And good morning to you too.

No, it's a conference at the university.

They need us to provide a doctor for medical cover.

What's wrong with St John's Ambulance?

-I made an offer to the vice-chancellor.

-Politics?

So any offers?

Al's already going.

In my capacity as a private citizen and enthusiast.

Well, good, you can double up.

Let me just consult my Avatar.

Avatar says no.

Kevin?

No, no, no, I'm not hanging around

waiting for a load of freaks to get sick.

Why, thank you!

Well, someone's got to do it.

Or I can get Karen to check the rota.

Good idea, thank you.

Although I must express my disappointment

at the lack of cooperation.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

I often wonder that.

No, it's the novel they adapted Blade Runner from.

People in the know consider it to be a masterpiece.

And they are correct.

CROWD MURMURS

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

CROWD CLAMOURS

Thank you for coming, an absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much for coming.

A load of freaky people, talking about comics?

Erm, graphic novels. And it's a big conference, world-famous authors.

Yeah, but it's still about aliens and spacemen and stuff.

Niamh is going to hate it.

It's a good opportunity.

To be bored to death.

Howard wants to make a good impression with the vice-chancellor

and Niamh is really good with people.

Especially Oliver.

How do you mean?

I've seen the way he looks at her.

Yeah, right, look, can you just ask her?

What if she doesn't want to?

Well, then tell her Howard asked for her especially.

-So, who are you looking forward to seeing?

-What?

Sheila Duggan on Night Stalkers Of Gar

or Niles Malone on The Molecular Wars?

Weirdo.

It's the last time I come in costume.

Ladies, how are you?

Great to see you, looking fantastic,

you looking forward to the lecture today?

Yeah, but Howard thinks you're the best for the job.

'Really?'

Yeah, and he really wants to impress the vice-chancellor

so he's promised we're going to be on our A game.

-'So, he's sending me?'

-Absolutely.

And if it was me, I would jump at the chance.

'You would?'

Yeah, well, of course.

Yeah, you build relations with the university,

you score points with Howard. It's a win-win, really, isn't it?

-'OK, I suppose.'

-Brilliant.

-'When do I have to be there?'

-Er, now.

'I'll get going then.'

This conference with anorak-y people into sci-fi,

would Al happen to be going?

Jimmi Clay!

Up for the conference?

I'm not really here, you're talking to a hologram.

SHE LAUGHS

You're a card! Mind, my fault for asking.

Oh, I've been looking forward to this for months.

-Have you?

-Yeah, you bet your bottom dollar.

Course, right before we were leaving now,

Brenda went and broke an axle!

Ankle?

No, Brenda is my mate Teresa's transit, 1986.

If you ignore the rust, she's immaculate.

She hit a blummin' pothole on the way home

from a Native American pow-wow.

-In America?

-Talybont.

Annual thing, like a spiritual knowledge exchange,

we get tips on dream catching, they get bardic inspiration.

They're mostly from the Black Hills of South Dakota,

serious ancestral vibes, but they've found similar in the Brecon Beacons.

-Really?

-Yeah, I've had many an epiphany while ascending Pen y Fan.

The funny thing is though, right, back home they mostly earn their

living from casinos, but I think fair play, chwarae teg,

we've all got to earn a crust. I get mine from making jewellery.

I'm not really an expert.

I try to get an ancestral connection when I'm making 'em.

From the materials?

Well, they're actually made from parts

from scrapped South Korean scooters.

So somebody else's scooter-driving ancestors?

Maybe.

Maybe, you might be on to something there.

Anyway cut a long one short.

Luckily, Teresa's cousin Rocky was coming up here

to a gig by a Motorhead tribute band.

I have got a little bit of backache after riding pillion for four hours,

but needs must.

So, what is it you do?

What?

Oh, I'm a doctor, GP.

Never.

-Yeah.

-Never.

No, I am.

It's really funny you should say that,

because I had my palm read by Teresa's partner's auntie,

while Rocky was putting oil in the chopper and she said

I was going to have a very important encounter with a healer.

-Never.

-Yeah, those very words.

Did she say he'd be tall, dark and handsome?

She's more of an interpretive reader

than one who's into specifics, you know.

But, hey! Fate!

ALARM RINGS

Oh, I'm just going...

Yeah, you carry on, I'm just off to the loo.

Oh, hi, I'm looking for the medical room.

Oh, thank you so much.

I want a word with you.

Patients to see, places to go, all the usual stuff.

You're trying to get them together.

Who?

It wasn't Howard who asked for Niamh to be at the conference.

You saw a chance to get her and Al together in the same room.

Look, Karen,

it's like when you put two things in a Petri dish

and then over time, something will grow.

I'm not sure that was the image I needed.

Al and Niamh are mad for each other, but left to their own devices,

they'll never get it on.

There's a slight inconvenience of a third party.

Oliver!

All's fair in love and...

War.

The work of opposites, the contest of polarities.

Light and dark, sun and shade,

the eternal battle of good and evil,

fought over worlds and galaxies

and within the heart of man.

Monsters and gods.

From the advent of storytelling...

Sorry.

From the advent of storytelling, the pull of these opposites...

-BREATHLESS:

-Sorry.

..has been a driving dynamic.

'Sorry.'

This is the theme of our conference.

Oh, sorry, was that your foot?

The theme of our conference is the exploration of what that

dynamic creates -

change from conflict,

transformation from opposing forces...

Oh, he is brilliant. I've read everything he's ever done!

..men of high purpose,

seduced into evil.

But, to whom do we ascribe the term "monster"

and by what transcription is this suggestion of evil?

(Monster, monster, monster.)

(Monster, monster, monster.)

Or as Mary Shelley says, "No man chooses evil because it is evil,

"he only confuses it for happiness, the good he seeks."

Monster!

Leaves us in no doubt, that impulses rise up from within.

HE CHUCKLES

To illustrate the point, a film compilation - From The Shadows.

Doesn't seem to be a bad sprain.

But if it gets any worse, make an appointment at the Campus surgery

with one of my colleagues. They'll look after you.

OK? Take care of it, bye.

MOBILE PHONE CHIMES

They say he's slept with 1,000 women.

Who?

Blake Calverly.

No wonder they used to call him the "Rock God of Steampunk."

Though "Rock God" makes me think more of Robert Plant

with his shirt off.

There's something about a man with a bare torso

and tight leather trousers.

Yeah, I was going to wear mine, but it looked like it might rain.

Hey, I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with men

of more generous dimensions.

Au contraire, as they say in France.

Mostly.

I suppose you'd be more into biopunk?

What?

Being a doctor, I suppose you'd be more into biopunk than steampunk.

Genetic malpractices, apocalyptic virus outbreaks.

Actually, I'm more into hard sci-fi -

Asimov, Lem, Kim Stanley Robinson.

So, you're very scientifically-minded then?

Mm.

Fantastic.

There's something brilliant about a man who knows

the difference between warp speed and parsecs.

GIRL SOBS

Are you OK in there?

I just wanted to see if you need any help with anything.

Atopic dermatitis.

Yeah, that's what my GP says.

Hazard of using industrial strippers on ferrous metals.

What have they prescribed you? Hydrocortisone or similar?

Think so.

-You shouldn't wear long sleeves.

-No?

It gets dust and bacteria into the wounds. Infects it more.

Destined for the caring professions, weren't you?

Actually, I was destined for scientific greatness.

And still you might.

-You reckon?

-Yeah.

I'm good with auras.

You have a glowing penumbra of intellectual assurance.

As you've just seen, monsters and gods clash within us

and the effect is on the world without.

To return to Mary Shelley's greatest creation

and in the words of her creation's own creation,

"I have love in me, the like of which you can scarcely imagine."

"And rage the like of which you can not imagine.

"If I cannot indulge one, I will satisfy the other."

Thank you.

Look, Mr Calverly!

Mr Calverly.

Just really interested.

Why do you think that Frankenstein is Mary Shelley's greatest work?

Its subversion of the Prometheus story, erm,

themes of Faustian overreach

and it was the first science-fiction novel.

Well, not if you include Voltaire's Micromegas

or Kepler's Somnium.

Yes, but according to Aldiss...

Well, according to Sagan and Asimov, it's Somnium.

And that's not even including The Blazing World

or Underground Tales.

Right, well, you can't deny the influence of Frankenstein.

Yes, it is a seminal, seminal piece of work,

but it's not Shelley's greatest work.

-That's The Last Man.

-The Last Man?

Oh, you don't know it?

I think you'll like it, I'll get you a copy.

Plague has devastated the world, and one man is left alive.

It's a devastating critique on the timidities of medicine

and an absolute refusal to put man at the centre of creation.

Right, well, it does sound just a little nihilistic.

How so?

Well, do you really think the human condition is one of isolation?

Al?

Niamh?

Why?

Howard drafted me in for medical cover.

"A beauty come cresting across the Emerald Sea."

-Blake Calverly.

-Niamh Donoghue.

-Doctor.

-Beauty and intellect.

That's a rare combination.

I need to show you something.

Oh, my word, sorry!

No, no, no, no.

Trying...

Oh, well, that's easy.

-Yeah?

-Yeah!

"Blake Calverly", self-explanatory,

unless it's on about another Blake Calverly, which it might be,

but I doubt, as he's actually within the building.

Wow, that's a deduction of Sherlockian dimensions.

Actually, common misconception.

Sherlock gets to his conclusions by a process of inductive reasoning,

not deductive.

"12:00", does what it says on the tin.

"Hour of the Rock."

"Hour of the Rock" is from the Tiberius Cycle.

Blake's earliest novels.

On Lothar, one of the moons of Tiberius,

the People of the Plains are committed to the truth, right,

and if one of them is found to be telling an untruth,

they're taken to the mile-high Rock of Igtur,

their arms are bound and then...

My word.

Someone's going to do him in.

-Alyson.

-The truth.

-I...

-You didn't tell the truth.

..be afraid, Alyson...

Don't be...

What's she going to do?

Drag him to the top of the building and throw him to his doom?

I think we should take it seriously.

I'm not saying we shouldn't, but we don't know who she is.

We don't even know if this is a real threat.

A friend of mine once had a message scrawled on the windscreen

-of his car.

-What was it?

Vauxhall Astra.

Oh, "Evil will visit you."

Did it?

-It was a punk band from Lampeter.

-Oh.

They couldn't afford advertising

so they went round spraying their name on random vehicles.

I don't think this is a case of artistic promotion.

Maybe it's revenge.

Someone's offended by really bad prose.

Well, she did seem really troubled.

Perhaps we should call the cops.

What, and tell them we've found a message in the ladies' loos?

Well, I think we should just try and find her.

Er, no pressure like,

but there's less than ten minutes before the Hour of the Rock.

Come on.

A Petri dish?

Welcome to the Dr Clay matchmaking service.

It was just an analogy.

We just need to get them in the same room together.

-And the magic will happen.

-Cynical.

It's right, though, those two could be stuck together

in a room for years and nothing would happen.

Bet you a fiver.

It'll have to be more than a fiver, big boy.

OK, then, one of those Ferrari track days.

Whoever loses buys the other one a day at the track.

All right, you're on.

You say they'll get together,

I say that Al will bore her to death,

talking about spaceships fuelled by real ale.

We could check it out.

What? The sci-fi conference?

Mm-hm.

Well, you'd fit right in

but I'll have to borrow something a bit spammy.

How's anything going to happen with you two lurking around?

Maybe we go in disguise.

-You lied.

-I didn't.

It was summer.

'Alyson.'

I was off school, remember?

-Alyson, it was...

-You came into my room.

'There's no need to be afraid.'

"Don't be afraid." That's what you said.

-PANTING:

-Please, please.

-But it wasn't OK. Things weren't OK.

-BREATHLESS:

-Pass me my briefcase. My briefcase.

-Your fault.

'Don't be afraid.'

-It was your fault!

-Please, the case!

She's kinda cyber-punk, Goth, er, black clothes, eye liner.

Well, it's not the easiest place

to look for someone kind of funny looking.

There! There!

Excuse me.

Never mind, sorry.

I think this is the moment when one of us says split up.

Right, we should go and search in different directions.

Top idea.

Hello?

Anyone?

Hey! Can you hear me?

I'm going to look after you.

Right, now, take nice, easy breaths.

There you go.

Now, I could call an ambulance.

-If you have had an episode, then I would advise it.

-I'm OK.

"Hour of the Rock."

That's what she wrote, on the bathroom mirror.

"Blake Calverly, 12:00, Hour of the Rock."

She wasn't trying to kill me.

Is she just some kind of deranged fan, is she?

She's my daughter.

We used to spend our time between London and LA.

My mum was English and we lived mostly over here.

But he had one of his stories optioned by the studios.

It was the summer I turned 15.

I knew it was wrong.

I knew what I did was wrong.

It was the Pacific Coast Highway.

We were driving back from a party in Malibu.

My wife, Maria, wanted to drive.

I said, "Let's call a cab," and she said no.

I called one anyway and they said there'd be a wait of an hour.

She had a meeting the next morning, a big client,

and was insistent that she got home.

So, I gave in.

It was just north of Santa Monica

when we were blindsided by the truck,

put the car into a spin, Maria couldn't hold it,

there was a concrete wall and...

He walked away.

My mother was killed...

..and he wasn't touched.

12:00.

That's when he told me my mother died.

That's when everything...stopped.

-But, if it was an accident...

-He made her drive.

He's always lied about it, always said it was her.

She had a meeting, some big contract.

But he drank.

He was alcoholic and he was mean when he drank.

I know he made her drive.

He'd done it before.

She didn't like driving in the States, she was nervous,

it was the wrong side of the road for her and...

..she swerved out in front of the truck.

Police said maybe it was a reflex

or maybe she just pulled to the wrong side.

I should have been stronger.

More insistent, taken the keys.

-But...

-So, what's with all the messages?

Well, Alyson, she's always held me responsible.

She was diagnosed bi-polar, as a child.

And she'd already had a couple of episodes before she was 15.

And I got her treatment, the best, but...

..she moved back here to go to university.

Soon as she was alone, I became a figure of hate.

The calls...the e-mails.

And, whenever I'm over here, she turns up and...

Asks you to tell the truth.

-Honey, I've always...

-What do you want to try?

A polygraph?

Or maybe a Voight-Kampff test, see if you've got any humanity at all?

-No, that's not fair.

-You killed my mother.

I didn't.

You made her drive.

-She wanted to drive!

-You were drunk.

You wanted to get back.

The taxi couldn't come, mum didn't want to drive,

but you insisted.

You made a scene, you made her feel so humiliated, she said yes.

Alyson, maybe...

You know he hasn't drunk since?

That's guilt.

He can write about The Hour of the Rock.

He can write about liars being purged on the page.

He just can't admit it to himself,

can't admit that she died because of him.

BLAKE SOBS

She helped him when she gave him the nitro spray.

She couldn't let him die.

She could have.

No, she knew the truth. She just wanted him to admit it.

What was that test that she was talking about earlier?

The Voight-Kampff Test?

It's from Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep,

Which they made into an excellent film in 1982, called Blade Runner.

Now, the test is to see whether humans are humans,

or whether humans are actually replicants,

because replicants, they can't feel anything.

And you two are very empathetic.

-What?

-I told you, I'm good with auras.

Yours are burning really brightly,

they're almost phasing into each other.

I don't believe in auras.

Just because you don't believe doesn't mean they don't exist.

MAN SPEAKS WELSH

Dim problem!

Hang on.

-Was that Welsh?

-Yeah.

And you said Howard sent you here?

Well, it was actually Jimmi suggested it.

Of course it was.

Well, this must have taken quite a bit of planning.

You were excellent.

They look just like two ordinary werewolves

hanging out at a sci-fi convention

when in fact we know them better as Dr Jimmi Clay and Dr Kevin Tyler.

It's not them.

THEY LAUGH

You thought that was Jimmi? What?

They're my mates, from Aber.

So, this Jimmi bloke, he's Welsh, is he?

Yeah, he's very Welsh.

And you thought he'd roped me into...?

THEY LAUGH

Oh, that's brilliant.

Jimmi, it's Al.

Yeah, I uncovered your rather pathetic attempt at playing cupid,

I had expected better of you.

SHE GASPS

OK, OK, it's OK.

I'll help you dislodge it, OK? OK, just wait, wait.

OK, don't worry.

OK, up, up, up, up.

I've got you, I've got you.

Oh!

Al!

-She just started choking!

-The Heimlich didn't work?

-No!

Right, I need you to help me.

-We need a pen, a hollow pen.

-A biro, I need a biro!

Tracheotomy?

No.

Al?

Cricothyroidotomy.

Pen, please.

AIR HISSES SHE GASPS

It's OK, it's OK.

Mate, we heard what happened!

Everything OK?

You decided on a cricothyroidotomy, then?

Well, it was 50-50 so I thought I'd go for it.

I know what it is,

but why did you decide on that as opposed to a tracheotomy?

That's because the carotid and the arteries

and jugular veins are either side of the trachea

so if you make your incision in the wrong place then...

-Well, Al made the right choice.

-Dr Ice.

To be fair, I couldn't have done it without Dr Donoghue.

-Oh, no.

-No, seriously, we were all really lucky you were here.

Beers after work, then?

Yeah, we'll get em.

So, Jimmi set us up.

Yeah, yeah, and without any assistance from the Taffia.

We should go on a date.

A date? What, what, me and...?

Who else would I want to go on a date with?

I don't know, someone with more pros than cons?

OK, that was Emma's idea, and I would never have...

-Look, it's fine.

-It's not.

And it didn't mean anything, I'm really sorry.

I'm going to talk to Oliver.

Oh, right.

-I just need to check...

-Yeah, Friday.

Friday.

Actually...

SHE LAUGHS

OK.

BOTH: Friday!

-Depression?

-Yes.

HESTON CHUCKLES

Because of you, my son's a wreck.

Because of your son, my daughter's dead!

You're not going off to have a baby, are you?

No, locuming, I don't want to do it any more.

Oliver, it isn't you, it's...

Sorry, I've got a meeting with a colleague.

-Oh, I'll go.

-No, no, please don't. I'll be as quick as I can.