"(Scrapes strings)" "(# Playing off-key)" "(Applause)" "Last week, we took our cameras to the convent of the Order of St Beryl, in Norwich." "We'll show you the film later but first of all, we've brought along the Mother Superior, Fiona of the Croix, to, erm...answer a few questions on the Order of St Beryl, which is a very unique order, as you'll gather." " Good evening." " Good evening." "Erm..." "Mother Superior, erm...or may I call you Mother?" "I think that would be inappropriate." "I think Madam." "Call me Madam." "Erm...right, Madam." "I wonder if you would mind telling us in what respect the Order of St Beryl differs from other orders of nuns." "Well, the Order of St Beryl differs in this respect, young man - we are a leaping order." "We do...a great deal of leaping in the air." "It's part of our everyday routine, leaping here, leaping there, leaping, leaping everywhere." "And, er..." "I wonder, could you tell us how this leaping actually originated?" "Well, it all began in the 14th or 15th century." "It had its origins there, you know, when St Beryl, who was the daughter of St Vitus, the well-known dancer..." "She lived in Norwich, you see, in a very strict order of nuns, who were forbidden to take any life." "Now, round Norwich..." "Human or animal." "Round Norwich there were these ghastly snakes which infested the area - vipers, adders and that sort of thing - who used to attack the nuns and bite them to death." "And so the nuns arrived at this compromise of leaping over the snakey substances." "Er...should a snake appear, up the nuns would go, leaping all the time." "A great deal of leaping went on and so the famous leaping nuns of Norwich came into being." "I see." "And what, in fact, is the order of the day for the Order of St Beryl?" "Well, er, we're early risers." "We get up at four o'clock in the morning." "Er, then go back to bed again at five, when we realize we've got up too early." "Then, er...up again at six for the early-morning leap." "That's quite a small leap, usually about six inches." "Then we have a light-leaping breakfast." "You know, a hard-boiled fish or something like that, which doesn't settle on the stomach." "And then the morning-leaping begins in earnest." "You know, quite a lot of heavy leaping goes on." "Then there's lunch, afternoon leaping, evening leaping and finally, Vespers and bandaging." "Er..." "I don't understand." "Bandaging?" "Bandaging for those nuns who have leapt unsuccessfully." "I see." "Er...do you leap at all yourself, Madam?" "Well, I love to leap, as indeed, who doesn't?" " I don't, particularly." " Really?" "Well, I..." "I really love to leap." "I used to be a great leaper in the old days." "In fact, I achieved the leaping Record for the convent." "100 foot, vertically." "Amazing, really." "Unfortunately, I landed in a lawnmower, which rather..." "curtailed my leaping facilities and since then I've been, you know, sticking to about quarter-of-an-inch leaping, which isn't very exciting but it keeps one in practice." "Yes, I see." "Erm...who actually instructs the nuns in their leaping?" "Well, we're very fortunate indeed in having a wonderful trainer." "(French accent) Er..." "Sister Domination, who had just come over from Dijon, actually, er...at a record fee." "She was transferred from Dijon and it really is..." "She is a wonderful creature." "She really knows how to leap and she's training the nuns in all the modern techniques," " including the trampoline, of course." " That's wonderful." "Well, thank you very much, Mother Superior." "And now we're going to show you the film that we took of the nuns." " Accompanied by the Nuns' Chorus." " Yes." "(# Song drowned out by laughter)" "# They're bobbing up and down" "# By leaping, they will save, they will save" "# Oh, leap, leap, leap, little nuns, leap, leap" "# Leap in the morning sun, leap, leap" "# O Leap, leap, leap till the evening shadows fall" "# These are the nuns that leap them all" "# St. Beryl, mm-hm-mm" "# Leap, leap" "# The nuns they were in Norwich, where there lived a lot of snakes #" " (Man chuckles) Swinging." " # In the grass" "# And so then they scaled height to avoid a fatal bite" "# The Order of St. Beryl came to pass, came to pass" "# Leap, leap, leap, little nuns, leap, leap" "# Leap in the morning sun, leap, leap, ooh!" "# Leap, leap, leap till the evening shadows fall" "# The snakes, oh, the nuns, they leaped them all" "# St. Beryl, mm-hm-mm" "# Leap, leap #" "Thank you very much indeed, Mother Superior." " Thank you." " Fiona of the Croix." "(Applause)" "Oh, my aged Uncle Arly" "Sitting on a heap of barley" "Through the silent hours of night" "Close beside a leafy thicket" "On his nose there was a cricket" "In his hat, a railway ticket" "But his shoes were far too tight." "Long ago, in youth, he squandered all his goods away" "And wandered to the Tiniskoop hills afar" "There, on golden sunsets blazing" "Every evening found him gazing" "Singing, "Orb, you're quite amazing" ""How I wonder what you are."" "Like the ancient Medes and Persians" "Always by his own exertions" "He subsisted on those hills" "Whiles, by teaching children spelling" "Or at times by merely yelling" "Or, at intervals, by selling Procter's Nicodemus pills." "Later, in his morning rambles" "He perceived the moving brambles" "Something square and white disclose" "'T was a first-class railway ticket" "But, on stooping down to pick it off the ground" "A pea-green cricket settled on my uncle's nose." "Never, never more" "Oh, never did that cricket leave him ever" "Dawn or evening, day or night" "Clinging as a constant treasure" "Chirping with a cheerious measure" "Wholly to my uncle's pleasure" "Though his shoes were far too tight" "So, for three-and-forty winters" "Till his shoes were worn to splinters" "All those hills he wandered o'er" "Sometimes silent, sometimes yelling" "Till he came to Borley-Melling" "Near his old, ancestral dwelling" "But his shoes were far too tight" "On a little heap of barley" "Died my aged Uncle Arly" "And they buried him one night" "Close beside the leafy thicket" "There, his hat and railway ticket" "There, his ever-faithful cricket" "But his shoes were far too tight" "(Applause)" "(# Jazz)" "(Applause)" "Pete?" "Pete?" "Peter?" "Oh, look, there you are." " Shh!" " What d'you mean?" " Shh!" " What?" "I'm looking at The Casting Out Of The Moneylenders." "I don't care about that I've been looking for you for the last half hour." "We said we'd meet in front of the Flemish Masters." "No, we didn't We never said anything of the sort When I last saw you," " you were in the Pissarro, weren't you?" " That's right." "I said I'd meet outside the Abstracts." "You go through the El Greco, up the Van Eyck and I'd see you in front of the bloody Rubens." "No." "I said I was gonna go round the Velázquez, through the Abstracts, up the Impressionists and then in front of the Flemish Masters." " No, you didn't, Dud." " It doesn't matter, anyway." "Here you are, have a sandwich." "My feet are killing me." "What's that got to do with a sandwich?" "Nothing." "I just said it afterwards, that's all." "You shouldn't say things like that together." " It could confuse a stupid person." " Yeah." "You know, Pete..." "I reckon, er..." "I reckon there's a lot of rubbish in this gallery." " In here?" " Yeah." "Well, not only rubbish, Dud." "There's a lot of muck about." "I've been looking all over the place for something good." "I've been looking for that lovely green gypsy lady." "You know, the one what Terpsichore done?" "With the lovely, shining skin." "Where is she?" "Nowhere." "Nowhere." "So, I went up to the manager." "I said, "Here..." I got him by the collar," " I said, "Here..." I said, "Here..."" " Yeah." "You didn't spit sandwich at him, did you?" " Sorry, Pete." " Blimey." "Sorry about that No, I said, "Here..."" "Yeah, you'll do it again if you're not careful." "I said, "Where..."" "Come on, what did you say, Dud?" "I said, "Where's that bloody Chinese flying horse, then?"" "What did he say?" "He said, "Get out"" "So I had to run up the Impressionists for half an hour and hide out." "Yeah." "Yeah, but what I can't understand, frankly, Pete, is that, er...there's not a Vernon Ward gallery in here." "There's not a duck in the building." "There's no Peter Scott, no Vernon Ward, not a duck to be seen." " Nothing." "No." "And the marvellous thing about Vernon Ward is, of course, he's been doing ducks all his life." "Oh, he done more ducks than you've had hot breakfasts, Dud." "Vernon Ward, he's done plenty of ducks." " If he's done anything, he's done ducks." " Yeah." "He's done ducks in all positions." "He's marvellous." "Ducks in the morning..." "Ducks in the morning, ducks in the evening." "(Both) Ducks in the summertime." "What's that song?" "(Both) "Ducks in the morning, ducks in the evening, ducks in the summertime."" " Yeah." " I thought I recognized it." " Course you did." "You said it." " Yeah." "The thing what makes you know that Vernon Ward is a good painter, if you look at his ducks..." "Have you ever looked at his ducks?" " Yeah." " If you look at his ducks, you see the eyes follow you round the room." " Did you notice that?" " Yeah." "If you see 16 of his ducks, you see 32 little eyes following you around the room." "No, you only see 16, 'cause they're flying sideways and you can't see the other eye on the other side." "But you get the impression, Dud, that the other eye is craning round the beak to look at you, don't you?" "That's a sign of a good painting, Dud." "If the eyes follow you round a room, it's a good painting." " If they don't, it isn't." " Yeah." "Funny you say that, Pete, 'cause I was in the bathroom the other day..." "Course you were, Dud." "I remember that." "Course I was, Pete." "And I..." "I had the feeling..." "I had the feeling of somebody in the room with me." " Yeah." " I thought, "Funny." You know." "Bathroom door locked, you know." ""Funny, somebody..."" " "In the room with me." - "Funny." You know." "I didn't see no one come in." "I felt these eyes burning in the back of my head." " "Funny." You know." " "Funny."" "So, er..." "I whipped round like a flash," "I see the bloody Laughing Cavalier up there...having a giggle." "I said..." "You know..." " I felt so embarrassed, you know." " Course you would." "So I went out the bathroom and I went across to Mrs. Connelly's across the road and asked if I could use her toilet." " Yeah." "'Cause, er...you know, you feel a bit daft with somebody looking at the back of you." " Yeah." " She's all right, though, 'cause she's only got a bowl of pansies in her toilet." "A real bowl of pansies or a painting, Dud?" " A real painting, Pete." " Oh, that's all right, then." "I'll tell you what's even worse, Dud, than The Laughing Cavalier." " What's that?" " Can you think of anything worse?" " No." " There is something worse than that." "What my Auntie Muriel has." " She has the bloody Mona Lisa in her...toilet." " No, really?" " Yes." "Dreadful." " That's dreadful." "That awful, sniffy look about her, looking so superior, you know." "Peering down at you." "She looks as if she'd never been to the lav in her life." "Yeah." "I mean, that's the thing about The Laughing Cavalier." " At least he has a giggle, doesn't he?" " A laugh." "Yeah." " Yeah." " Don't sit there all prissy." " No, mate." "No." " Disapproving of you." " Yeah, I know." " Yeah, that's dreadful." " Have you been down the Rubens?" " No." "You haven't seen the Rubens?" "There's one over there." " Is there?" " Yeah." "It's lovely." "He does all the fat ladies with nothing on." "Great, pink, fat ladies." "Yeah." "Except for a tiny little wisp of gauze always lands on the appropriate place, if you notice, Dud." "Always the wind blows a little bit of gauze over you-know-where, Dud." " Yeah." " See it down there, can't you?" "Course, you know, it must be a million-to-one chance, Pete, that the gauze, you know, lands in the right place at the right time..." " Course." "Yeah." " ...when he's painting." "I bet there's thousands of paintings that we're not allowed to see where the...where the gauze hasn't landed in the... in the right place, you know, it's on their nose or something." "Well, I suppose, if the gauze landed on the wrong place, Dud, you know, landed on the nose or the elbow or somewhere unimportant, what Rubens did was put down his painting and went off to have lunch." " Yeah." "Or have a good look." " One of the two, yeah." "Course, you don't get gauze floating around in the air these days, do you," " like it did in Renaissance times?" " No." "There was always gauze in the air in those days." "Course, similarly, you don't..." "You don't get them, erm..." "them Botticelli cherubs about the place." " Aren't they lovely?" " Lovely." "I love them." "They've all gone." "They've died out, of course." "They hunted them down for their silken skin, you know, Dud." "No, they couldn't...they couldn't kill 'em, Pete, 'cause they were immortal." "No, they weren't." "They shot them through with arrows through their tiny little bellies and then their skin was turned into underwear for rich ladies." " Oh, no, really?" " That's what happened." "I reckon they went up to heaven, like the angels." " No, they didn't." " Course..." "Course, there's no call for angels now." " No, you don't see much of them these days." " No." "Though Mrs. Wisby saw one, actually, the other day, in the garden." " Yeah?" " Yeah, she saw this angel." "Actually, it turned out to be a burglar." "She went down...she went down on her knees praying to it, it was in the kitchen, whipping away her silver." " Nasty business." " Yeah, terrible." "Have you seen that bloody Leonardo da Vinci cartoon?" " No." " I couldn't see the bloody joke." " Went down there, nothing." " Yeah." "Though of course, you know, Pete, a...a sense of humour must have changed over the years." " Of course." "That's why it's not funny." "No." "I bet when that da Vinci cartoon first come out," "I bet people were killing themselves, you know." "I'll bet..." "I'll bet old da Vinci had an accident when he done it." "Yeah." "Well, it's difficult to see the joke, just that lady sitting there with the children round her." "That's not much of a joke as far as I'm concerned, Dud." "No, well, apart from that, Pete, it's a different culture." " Yeah." " It's Italian, you see." " Italianate." " We don't...we don't understand it." "I mean, for instance, The Mousetrap did terribly in Pakistan." "I didn't know that." "Yeah." "It shows..." "I still don't..." "Do you know how much it cost, though?" " What?" " 500 billion pounds." " Really?" " A lot of mon..." "No, hold on a moment." " Er, three and eight, I think." " Oh." "Or somewhere between the two, somewhere between the two." "And now the thing we've wasted money on is that bloody Cézanne, Grandee Baigneuses." " Have you seen that load of rubbish?" " No." " It's over there." " Oh, yeah?" "There it is." "Those fat, nude ladies with their bottoms towards you." "That's Les Grandee Baigneuses." "You know what it means, don't you?" " Big Bathers." " Is that all?" "That's all it means, Big Bathers." "500,000 quid, we paid for that." "Those nude women come out of our pocket, Dud." "Yeah." "That's worth..." "That's worth more than er..." "That's worth more than Tottenham Hotspur, innit, eh?" "Well, it's worth about the same now they've signed Gilzean at centre forward." "But it's not worth 500,000 quid, that load, is it?" "Works out about $50,000 a body, doesn't it?" "Well, you could get the real nude ladies over there for that price." "Yeah." "My Aunt Dolly would have done it for nothing." "She does anything for nothing, doesn't she, your Aunt Dolly?" " Yeah." " Filthy old cow." "You enjoying that sandwich?" "Mine's appalling, I'll tell you that much." "It's worse than the paintings, my sandwich." "Course, you know, Pete..." "You..." "You can't tell..." "I know." "You've just seen the Leonardo da Vinci joke, have you?" "Yeah." "I was gonna say, you can't tell whether that's a good painting or not because you can't see their eyes, whether they follow you round the room." "No, the sign of a good painting like that, Dud, with their backs towards you, is if the bottoms follow you round the room." "If it's a good painting, the bottoms would follow you round the room." " Would they?" "Shall I test it, then?" " Yeah." "You go and have a look." "All right, I'll stand up, see if they..." "They won't bloody budge, I tell you that, mate." "Not that load of rubbish." "Course, I can't look directly at it." "Otherwise, you know, they'll know I'm looking and they'll get all cagey." "I'll go up, you know, like..." " Are they moving, Dud?" " I think they're following me, Pete." " I don't think they are, Dud." " I reckon they are, Pete." "No, those bottoms aren't following you round the room." "Your eyes are following the bottoms round the room." " Same thing, innit?" " There's a good deal of difference between being followed by a bottom and you following a bottom." "Well, you come here, then." "You see what I mean." "I don't see anything at all." "Just a load of bottoms extremely stationary to me." "Well, you go that way and I'll go this way and you see if your bottoms move the same as mine." "It'll be a bit difficult for the bottoms if we're going in different directions." "Well, they'll divide up amongst themselves." " All right." " See what happens." " Mine are moving, Pete, I tell you." " My bottoms haven't moved, Dud." " Mine are going berserk." " No, mine haven't moved at all." " Mine's moving, Pete." " Oh, there goes one of yours." "Oh, it's rushing all over the place." "It's coming after you, Dud." " No, don't be daft, Pete." " See you in the Dutch Masters." "Righto." "Ta-ta." "(Applause)" " Can I sing a song, Dudley?" " Yes, please." "# Close your eyes" "# Put your head on my shoulder and sleep" "# Close your eyes" "# And I will close mine" "# Close your eyes" "# Let's pretend that we're both counting sheep" "# Close your eyes" "# It's really divine" "# While you play" "# Something dreamy for dancing" "# And we'll be romancing on love's holiday" "# Love's gonna be our guide" "# Close your eyes" "# When you open them I will be here" "# By your side" "# So, won't you close your eyes?" "# Music plays" "# Something dreamy for dancing" "# While we're here romancing" "# It's love's holiday" "# Love is gonna be our guide" "# Close your eyes" "# When you open them, dear, I'll be here" "# By your side" "# So, won't you close your eyes?" "(High-pitched) # Di-bi di-bi-di" "# Di-bi-di bi-dibidi-di" "# Di di di-di di di #" "(# Continues scat-singing)" "(# Music plays)" "# Something dreamy for dancing" "# We'll be romancing" "# It's love's holiday" "# Love will be our guide" "# Close your eyes # Close your eyes" "# When you open them, dear, I'll be here" "# Lover, close your eyes # Close your eyes, dear" "# Close your eyes" "# Close your eyes, dear" "# Close your eyes #" "(# Scat singing)" "# Close your eyes" "# Close your eyes" "(Applause)" " # Now is the time to say goodbye # - (Pete miming)" "# Now is the time to yield a sigh" "# Now is the moment...to wend our way" "# Until we meet again" "# Some sunny day" "# Goodbye, goodbye" "# We're leaving you" "# Goodbye, oh, where's the fun gone?" "# Fa ta ta ta, fa ta ta ta #" "(Applause)"