Mr Campion's Fault by Mike Ripley Page A

could not find an adolescent gaze willing to meet hers. ‘From what I remember it’s only a walk-on part,’ she said airily. ‘We’ll just have to hope she walks very quickly.’
    An infectious, though barely audible snigger rippled over the bowed heads of Perdita’s audience as the boys pretended to concentrate on their scripts and Perdita allowed herself a smile at discovering kindred spirits.
    ‘So who can tell me what’s left of what we actors laughingly call “the text”?’ she asked, weighing the flimsy sheets of typing in her right hand. ‘And please introduce yourselves. You know I’m Miss Browning but I’ve no idea who you are and we don’t have long in which to get to know each other.’
    Once again, the red-headed boy in the front row raised his hand. ‘I’m Faustus, Miss.’
    ‘So you must be Roderick … Braithwaite, isn’t it?’
    The young man’s shoulders straightened with pride at being recognized. ‘Yes, Miss.’
    ‘Well, if Mr Browne cast you as Faustus he must have had faith in you and presumably he explained his thinking behind what appears to have been rather major cuts to the play.’
    ‘Bertie – Mr Browne, I mean – had to make way for the music,’ said Roderick, his face a study of concentration, as if choosing his words very carefully.
    ‘That’s Mr Cawthorne’s department, isn’t it?’
    ‘He’s the music master, Miss, but Mrs Cawthorne won’t let him have anything to do with our play,’ advised a new, deeper voice, this time from a thick-set youth of dark complexion who, out of school uniform, Perdita felt sure would probably go unchallenged in a public house.
    ‘And you are?’
    ‘Mephistophilis, Miss, second-in-command to Lucifer himself.’
    ‘I know who Mephistophilis is, thank you, but who are you?’ Miss Browning asked sternly but politely.
    ‘I’m Banville, Miss. I volunteered to do the music myself but they wouldn’t have it. Now we have to put up with the local oompah-band.’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘Don’t take any notice of Banville, Miss,’ said Roderick, riding to the rescue. ‘He’s a fan of progressive rock music.’
    ‘You mean like The Moody Blues?’
    Perdita spoke before remembering that it was a dangerous thing these days to debate popular music with teenagers, a subject which ignorance of usually resulted in bliss.
    The older-than-his-school-uniform-suggested boy snorted loudly in disgust.
    ‘They’re hippies! Cream and King Crimson are the future of music!’
    ‘I can’t say I appreciate or agree with your taste,’ Perdita said with a wry smile, ‘but I think Mephistophilis might.’
    ‘Don’t take any notice of Banville, Miss Browning,’ said her leading man. ‘He’s just hacked off because he wrote a song for the play and Mr Browne threw it out.’
    ‘You wrote a song? That’s quite impressive.’
    It was Mephistophilis the prog-rock fan’s turn to bristle with pride but Dr Faustus was quick to deflate his nemesis.
    ‘He didn’t write anything really, Miss. He just rearranged the last Faustus speech – the “I’ll burn my books” one – and set it to a distorted guitar. He wanted to call it
Sixteenth Century Schizoid Man
.’
    In case the pretty new drama teacher was unfamiliar with the concept, Mephistophilis rose to his feet and mimed the action of a hyperactive electric guitar player, but fortunately did not burst into song before Perdita waved him back down into his seat.
    ‘Mr Browne said it was a daft idea and told Banville he shouldn’t mess with Marlowe’s dialogue,’ said Roderick, as if summing up for the prosecution.
    Perdita adopted what she thought was a judicial pose and addressed the now deflated guitarist. ‘I think that’s very good advice, Banville. However, I’m still not clear on why the text seems to have been cut to a few sheets of foolscap.’ She waved the slight typescript with a flourish.
    ‘Religion, Miss,’ said Roderick quietly. ‘There’s a quite a lot of it in Denby Ash