Sketches
Help! Help! I'm Being Repressed!From the movie Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail
KING ARTHUR:
Old woman!
DENNIS:
Man!
KING ARTHUR:
Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
DENNIS:
I'm thirty-seven.
KING ARTHUR:
I--what?
DENNIS:
I'm thirty-seven. I'm not old.
KING ARTHUR:
Well, I can't just call you 'man'.
DENNIS:
Well, you could say 'Dennis'.
KING ARTHUR:
Well, I didn't know you were called Dennis.
DENNIS:
Well you didn't bother to find out did you?
KING ARTHUR:
I did say sorry about the old woman, but from behind you looked--
DENNIS:
What I object to is that you automatically treat me as an inferior.
KING ARTHUR:
Well I am King!
DENNIS:
Oh, King eh? Very nice. And how d'you get that? By exploiting the workers! By 'anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress with the--
WOMAN:
Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh, how d'you do?
KING ARTHUR:
How do you do good lady? I am Arthur, King of the Britains. Who's castle is that?
WOMAN:
King of the who?
KING ARTHUR:
The Britains.
WOMAN:
Who are the Britains?
KING ARTHUR:
Well, we all are. We are all Britains and I am your king.
WOMAN:
I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
DENNIS:
You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN:
Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
DENNIS:
That's what it's all about. If only people would hear of--
KING ARTHUR:
Please! Please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN:
No one lives there.
KING ARTHUR:
Then who is your lord?
WOMAN:
We don't have a lord.
KING ARTHUR:
What?
DENNIS:
I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week...
KING ARTHUR:
Yes.
DENNIS:
...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
KING ARTHUR:
Yes, I see.
DENNIS:
...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs...
KING ARTHUR:
Be quiet!
DENNIS:
...but by two thirds majority in the case of more major...
KING ARTHUR:
Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN:
Order eh? Who does he think he is?
KING ARTHUR:
I am your king!
WOMAN:
Well I didn't vote for you.
KING ARTHUR:
You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN:
Well, how did you become king then?
KING ARTHUR:
The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering sammite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!
DENNIS:
Listen, strange women lying in ponds is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
KING ARTHUR:
Be quiet!
DENNIS:
Well, you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
KING ARTHUR:
Shut up!
DENNIS:
I mean, if I went round saying I was an emporer just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
KING ARTHUR:
Shut up, will you? Shut up!
DENNIS:
Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
KING ARTHUR:
Shut up!
DENNIS:
Oh! Come see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
KING ARTHUR:
Bloody peasant!!!
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