MARTIN MARTIN: France is the French, Sir.
KEVIN KEVIN: Right. And what else?
MARTIN MARTIN: Um. Dunno.
KEVIN KEVIN: What France means to you. What you celebrate, what you do. Christmas—do you celebrate Christmas?
MARTIN MARTIN: You have to celebrate Christmas. I mean, there’s no choice, like, is there?
KEVIN KEVIN: That’s not necessarily true, but I suppose it could be. What does your family eat at Christmas?
MARTIN MARTIN: I don’t eat with my family at Christmas or Easter. ’s not my thing.
KEVIN KEVIN: What about on normal days?
MARTIN MARTIN: Dunno.
KEVIN KEVIN: What France means to you.
MARTIN MARTIN: Ask someone else, Sir.
KEVIN KEVIN: I’m asking you.
MARTIN MARTIN: I said I dunno. Nobody does, I reckon.
KEVIN KEVIN: Tell me one thing that sums it up for you. Something that tells me what France means to Martin Martin.
MARTIN MARTIN: Do I have to.
KEVIN KEVIN: Yes you have to.
MARTIN MARTIN: Well . . .
KEVIN KEVIN: Yes.
MARTIN MARTIN: I know Rimbaud, Sir. I know Arthur Rimbaud.
KEVIN KEVIN: Oh OK. So for you this country is about writers and poets.
MARTIN MARTIN: I’m not that bothered. Well . . . I dunno.
What Rimbaud wrote—“I is another.” That means something to me, that really gets me.
I was joking, Sir, earlier on. When I said I’m not bothered.
KEVIN KEVIN: It’s good to joke. I like a good laugh.
Even the French have to laugh sometimes.
MARTIN MARTIN: “The wolf howled beneath the leaves.
Like him I consume myself.”
That’s Rimbaud too, Sir. It’s beautiful, Sir.
KEVIN KEVIN: Wonderful. But what about you, Martin Martin? Something personal.
MARTIN MARTIN: Personal.
THE WOLVES: Don’t tell him, Martin.
MARTIN MARTIN: Well . . .
THE WOLVES: You mustn’t tell him. Other people aren’t like us.
MARTIN MARTIN: Dunno.
KEVIN KEVIN: You dunno.
THE WOLVES: Don’t walk into his trap, Martin.
MARTIN MARTIN: What do you want? Proof?
Isn’t it enough that I’m here? You want me to join in as well?
I’m not sure about this project of yours.
KEVIN KEVIN: OK. What are we doing? We could’ve done with a visual.
You need a bit of help, that’s all.
OK.
Let’s look at it another way.
The whiteboard in KEVIN KEVIN’s classroom starts to fill with words:
France: myth and reality.
History. Origins. Camembert. Croissants. Unemployment.
Monet. Injustice. Culture. Rain. Paris.
Wealth. Le Pen. Work. Baguette.
Triomphe (Arc de). Inequality. Tourists.
*
LIAR BY NIGHT
LORIE LORY (on the phone): I’m a bit fed up with Mohammed’s.
No, not couscous again.
No, I don’t know what time I’ll be back, KK.
No, I can’t tell you. Yes, I’m busy.
No, I don’t know, just a thing.
Yeah, a thing. Let’s have a nice coq au vin for a change.
MARTIN MARTIN: Miss?
LORIE LORY (on the phone): Yes, hold on just a second. (To MARTIN.) Something you want to tell me?
MARTIN MARTIN: Dunno. I was just thinking . . . There’s something I want to ask you.
LORIE LORY: I’m the one who asks the questions round here. I’ve already told you you’re not the one doing the asking.
We said that we’d only get somewhere if there was something you wanted to tell me.
So, what is it?
MARTIN MARTIN: Um. I dunno.
I could tell you about my Big Project if you want.
*
LIAR BY NIGHT / GETTING TO KNOW YOU / BRING DOWN THE MOON
KEVIN KEVIN: OK. Get yourselves into a circle. We’re going to play a game.
That’s not a circle. That’s a squashed oval.
Come on, a circle. You too, Martin.
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): My teacher loves playing games.
He’s always wanting us to talk.
KEVIN KEVIN: I can see you’re holding all sorts of colourful objects.
Most of you have followed the instructions—good.
So tell me, where do all those things come from?
MARTIN MARTIN: My teacher always finds everything fascinating.
KEVIN KEVIN: This is fascinating.
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): But he never really listens when we ask him a question. (To KEVIN KEVIN.) Yeah, but Sir. ’scuse me, Sir.
KEVIN KEVIN: Alyssa, you go first.
LORIE LORY: “The Big Project”? He hasn’t exactly bust a gut on that one, your teacher, has he?
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): ’s not really his style.
Alyssa’s brought a scarf that belongs to her gran.
Her mum wants her to wear it. But Alyssa doesn’t want to look like an old granny.
KEVIN KEVIN: Fascinating. Your turn, Jordany.
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): Jordany’s brought a flag. It’s the flag from where he was born. Before he was adopted.
KEVIN KEVIN: You have it on your bedroom wall. You look at it each day to help you remember.
MARTIN MARTIN: Jordany says no, he keeps it in a drawer.
KEVIN KEVIN: Fascinating.
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): Fabio’s saying he wants to go next.
KEVIN KEVIN: Yes, go ahead, Fabio.
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): Fabio always talks loud. But that’s normal—his dad’s Italian.
KEVIN KEVIN: A piece of volcanic rock. Fascinating.
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): Fabio’s saying that the village his family’s from is built on the ruins of a village that was there before the eruption.
KEVIN KEVIN: It reminds you of your homeland. You go back often.
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): Just on holiday, Fabio says.
KEVIN KEVIN: I love Venice. I love pizza and all that stuff.
LORIE LORY: Do you ever think your teacher’s a bit weird?
MARTIN MARTIN (to LORIE LORY): Sometimes.
Sometimes I say to him “Yeah, but Sir . . . ?”
KEVIN KEVIN: Fatmanur, your turn.
MARTIN MARTIN: Sir?
KEVIN KEVIN: Hold on, Martin. Fatmanur’s telling us about where she’s from.
MARTIN MARTIN: But she’s not from anywhere, Fatmanur.
She’s never even been on the Metro.
KEVIN KEVIN: Sh! Listen to what she’s saying.
Is that some kind of jewel you’ve got there?
MARTIN MARTIN: Yeah, but Sir . . . ?
KEVIN KEVIN: I love Turkey. I’ve seen pictures on Google and I love it.
So what kind of food do you eat over there?
LORIE LORY: Look, what’s the point you’re trying to make?
MARTIN MARTIN (to KEVIN KEVIN): Why do you want to know where we’re from, Sir? You know this is home for us.
KEVIN KEVIN: That’s an easy thing for you to say. I don’t see anything in your hands.
MARTIN MARTIN: But why do you want us to bring an object?
KEVIN KEVIN: That was the task. An object or a piece of music that tells us about you.
MARTIN MARTIN: But there’s never any music round here. Nothing to liven things up.
KEVIN KEVIN: Tell us then, Martin. In your own words.
MARTIN MARTIN: I ain’t from nowhere and I got no background.
KEVIN KEVIN: Tell us something you remember, then.
MARTIN MARTIN: Do I have to, Sir?
KEVIN KEVIN: You’re not going to get off that easily. Come on.
We hear THE WOLVES.
MARTIN MARTIN: You really want to know, Sir?
KEVIN KEVIN: I’d find it fascinating, yes, if for once you’d . . .
We hear THE WOLVES.
MARTIN MARTIN: Well . . . There was this one time . . .
KEVIN KEVIN: Yes.
MARTIN MARTIN: With some mates . . . This is a personal thing I’m telling you now.
KEVIN KEVIN: Yes.
MARTIN MARTIN: Well, I dunno . . . We were having a bit of a party, right?
KEVIN KEVIN: A party, right. With your friends. OK.
MARTIN MARTIN: And then, well . . .
KEVIN KEVIN: Go on, tell us. You’re not getting out of it.
MARTIN MARTIN: Well, we were just there, my mates and me. And in the sky there was a moon . . . I don’t know how to describe it.
THE WOLVES: A giant moon.
MARTIN MARTIN: A moon floating in the sky, but it was like you could have touched it with your finger.
THE WOLVES: A moon close enough to touch.
MARTIN MARTIN: It was like it had come looking for me, Sir. As if it was there just for me. And for my mates. As if the moon was one of us that night.
THE WOLVES: The wolf howled beneath the leaves. Like him I consume myself.
KEVIN KEVIN: OK. Go on. So there was a moon.
THE WOLVES: The disturbance of the senses.
MARTIN MARTIN: And then that was it. We were hungry.
THE WOLVES: We play tricks on madness. I is another.
KEVIN KEVIN: Right. A huge moon. A moon that brought you together and . . .
MARTIN MARTIN: Well.
THE WOLVES: I is another.
I is another.
KEVIN KEVIN: Yes, Martin. There was a big moon and . . .
To bring you together. Under the moon, yes . . . ?
MARTIN MARTIN: We were really hungry. We bared our fangs at each other and growled.
We needed meat.
KEVIN KEVIN: What do you mean, your fangs?
THE WOLVES: Shut it, Martin. Don’t tell him any more.
MARTIN MARTIN: Afterwards . . . Afterwards, well.
THE WOLVES: Don’t tell him any more.
KEVIN KEVIN: Then what?
MARTIN MARTIN: Well . . .
THE WOLVES: Don’t walk into his trap, Martin.
KEVIN KEVIN: Then what?
MARTIN MARTIN: Well, we went and got a Burger King, Sir.
We hear THE WOLVES.
