Kate Adie Reporting

by Jane And Mark Lewis

Background
Rating
Characters
Staging
Script

Background

This sketch has no spiritual content whatsoever. It is purely to show up what Christmas has become for many people. The idea is that elsewhere in the service someone will explain the real meaning of Christmas!

Rating

Characters

Martin Lewis, newsreader
Kate Adie, intrepid reporter

Staging

Martin Lewis is at a newsdesk with a phone and Kate Adie is preferably off-stage speaking through a distorted PA (to sound like a long distance phone call). You could also have a photo of Kate Adie on an OHP acetate with the caption "LIVE".

Script

Martin: We interrupt this programme for a newsflash. I have on the line our on-the-spot reporter - Kate Adie. [picks up phone]. Kate - can you hear me.
Kate: [Slight pause] Yes I can...
Martin: Where exactly are you?
Kate: I'm at a scene of total devastation. There are bones and burnt remains lying everywhere. Discarded possessions lie abandoned as people have fled the scene....
Martin: But where exactly are you Kate?
Kate: I'm in my kitchen, Martin. And we've just finished Christmas dinner. The all-too-familiar scene is quite horrific. A turkey carcass lies silently on the worktop. On the table lie the crumbs of a once perfect Christmas pudding - a half-filled jug of brandy sauce stands helplessly by. Pots and pans are piled high around me and I have to pick my way carefully through the debris to avoid dislodging the precariously balanced stacks of plates. Across in the corner behind me an over-loaded dish-washer groans under the strain.
Martin: You have an automatic dishwasher Kate?
Kate: Oh No! That's my husband....I'm just going to.....oh no!.... [pause]....Sorry I had to take cover just then from a missile attack launched from behind the breakfast bar - a sustained burst of paper projectiles from my son Paul. This can only mean that they're showing Star Wars on the television again.
Martin: Are you alright?
Kate: Yes I'm fine. I'm now over by the Christmas tree and the floor is littered with torn Christmas paper - all that is left after a dawn raid by the Childrens Army. The quiet serenity of the early morning was shattered at 6:00am when tensions, which have been building up for several weeks, erupted into violence. The wrapping paper had been expecting the attack for some days now but no-one could have predicted the force and brutality of the incident it lasted only a few minutes and it has left the presents completely defenceless and vunerable to further attack.
Martin: The Childrens Army seem to be a well co-ordinated fighting force.
Kate: No, not at all. In fact, as a direct result of Operation Unwrap they began to fight amongst themselves. The first sign was a skirmish between Paul and Adam. It soon died down but was followed by a pitch battle for control of the Scalextrix. Later there was blood-shed when my daughter Rachel had a lacerated finger sustained as a result of trying to occupy the cat's milk saucer.
Martin: So the fighting is still continuing?
Kate: At 10:00 hours a ceasefire was established the TVTimes was brought in and negotiations for a lasting peace were underway.
Martin: Is it still holding Kate?
Kate: No it lasted 12 and a half minutes until talks broke down over the issue has divided the childrens army for years ....... do they watch Disney time or Top of The Pops.
Martin: What's the situation now?
Kate: The Scalextrix has been abandoned as the Childrens Army retreated into the lounge; and, in a gesture of defiance they have barricaded the door and taken the goldfish hostage. As the Scalextrix is the only supply route into the lounge I seized control of it myself, about half an hour ago. In a last ditch attempt to negotiate I sent a car through with further peace proposals. Unfortunately the car carrying the documents was intercepted by the cat. As far as I can tell the proposals are now making their way through the cat's digestive system.
Martin: What do you intend to do now Kate?
Kate: Well I'm going toget behind enemy lines I'm squeezing my way through the lounge doorway as we speak. As I wade knee deep through discarded Roses and Quality Street wrappers and the almost deafening noise of the TV one can see very clearly who the real winners of this war are......Chocolates and Television. It is appalling that such acts of gross self-indulgence still occur in what we would all like to think of as a civillised society. This is traditionally a time of caring, sharing, peace and goodwill but the only peas we've seen today have been trodden into the carpet. This is Kate Adie for the BBC from my living room.
Martin: We'll be bringing you more news, views and idle speculation as it happens. We resume our scheduled programming now with the 435th showing of "The Sound of Music".