THE GHOSTS OF HAMPSTEAD: A DELIRIOUS NOSTALGIC FARCE. London.

 

THE GHOSTS OF HAMPSTEAD: 

A DELIRIOUS NOSTALGIC FARCE

by Benjamin Gavarre

bengavarre@gmail.com

THE GHOSTS OF HAMPSTEAD: A DELIRIOUS NOSTALGIC FARCE.... LONDON. © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Introduction: Relocated to the rainy, gothic affluence of North London, The Ghosts of Hampstead is a delirious farce exploring the clash between the rigid bureaucracy of modern corporate life and the glorious, albeit pathetic, resistance of an aging theatrical avant-garde. Trapped within a sprawling, dusty mansion, four survivors of a bygone bohemian era weaponize their eccentricity against the outside world. When reality violently intrudes, the result is a masterclass in dark comedy, codependency, and the triumphant survival of absolute madness.

CHARACTERS

MARTHA (65). Sophisticated, world-weary. She holds the posture of an empress in exile. Lives clutching her iPad.

ARTHUR (50). Her husband. Deep-voiced, former radio broadcaster. Trapped in an eternal, gothic, erudite adolescence.

RITA (50s). Legendary stage actress. Chaotic elegance. Wears extravagant coats and massive headphones around her neck.

OLIVER (50s). Acidic, charming, possessing the brilliant and destructive lucidity of a highly functional alcoholic.

SARAH (35). Martha’s daughter. Rigid, permanently offended by the world. Bureaucracy incarnate.

GENERAL SETTING

The dining room of a traditional Hampstead mansion, designed as a museum of enlightened chaos. Heavy carved wooden furniture that smells of wax and confinement. The bookshelves are on the verge of collapsing under the weight of encyclopedias, first editions, and empty bottles of obscenely expensive vintage wines, now used as candelabras. In one corner, a profane altar: towers of superhero action figure boxes, immaculate and unopened.

ACT ONE: THE DELICATE EQUILIBRIUM OF DECAY

[ The light is amber, dusty, almost liquid. A light that refuses to admit it is the early hours of the morning.

MUSIC CUE: A terribly slow Vera Lynn record plays on a gramophone, but the vinyl is slightly scratched and repeats the same syllable every four beats in a hypnotic loop: "We'll meet a-gain... gain... gain... gain..."

MARTHA is sunk into a Louis XV wingback chair. She wears a spectacular silk robe. Her reading glasses rest on the tip of her nose as she swipes her finger across her iPad at a feverish speed. From the speaker escapes an unmistakable sound: the moans and rhythmic splashing of an adult film. She doesn't flinch.

At the other end of the table, ARTHUR wears an argyle sweater. He uses white art-curator gloves and, with the precision of a neurosurgeon, polishes the plastic box of a retro Dracula figure. ]

 

MARTHA

(Without taking her eyes off the screen, with a casual, aristocratic tone)

Arthur, darling... The Hungarian plumber has just produced a tool that defies the laws of Euclidean anatomy. And yet, what impresses me most is how pristine their bathroom tiles are. Do you think they use bleach or white vinegar?

 

ARTHUR

(Blowing an invisible speck of dust from the box, without looking at her)

Bleach is for the middle classes, my lotus flower. It is surely an optical illusion. Two-dimensionality beautifies even the most sordid of human interactions. That is why I prefer Lugosi. He didn't need to undress; he sucked your blood with a single look.

 

MARTHA

(Sighs, entranced by her screen)

What a marvel it is not to have to smell one's lovers. To watch bodies entangle, sweat, and be discarded without the brutality of emotional commitment. No one asks you to poach them an egg the following morning. Pornography is true world peace.

[ SOUND EFFECT: The main door doesn't just open; it bursts inward with a theatrical slam. The cold London street wind cuts through the heavy atmosphere, making the candles flicker.

Enter RITA and OLIVER. They are wrapped in extravagant faux fur coats, despite it not being quite that cold. Rita walks with the majesty of a diva receiving a standing ovation, carrying a designer handbag that clinks suspiciously. Oliver carries a half-empty bottle of gin, using it as a microphone. ]

 

OLIVER

(Releasing a deep, dramatic sigh as he drops onto the rug, flat on his back)

Survival! We have crossed the asphalt desert. The air conditioning in the Harrods Food Hall should be classified as a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Out there, the world wakes early; it is hostile, ordinary, and sober. Absolutely bloody disgusting.

 

RITA

(Advances to the center table. She strikes it three times like a judge handing down a sentence)

Attention, ghosts! The gods of petty theft have smiled upon this unemployed actress. The security guard—a poor devil who clearly hasn't seen a proper West End play in his life—was so overwhelmed by my stage presence that he opened the electronic gates for me. For me! The woman carrying half the gourmet delicatessen in the bowels of this handbag!

[ THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF THE LOOT: Rita begins pulling items from the bag. Each object emerges with a cartoonish sound effect (a "pop", a tiny cymbal crash, a little bell). She extracts: a wheel of Camembert, a jar of black truffles, three kilos of kalamata olives, a plaster bust of Beethoven that no one knows why she stole, and finally, gripping it with both hands and pulling backward with immense physical effort... ]

 

RITA

And the crown jewel!

[ She pulls out an entire leg of Gran Reserva Iberico ham. She hoists it high in the air like Rafiki lifting Simba. ]

 

MARTHA

(Lets out a muffled gasp. She switches off the iPad abruptly and covers her eyes with both hands, trembling)

Rita, for the love of the Queen! Remove that amputated corpse from my sacred table! It's sweating grease! It is an atrocity!

 

OLIVER

(Leaps up from the floor with an absurd ninja flip. He uncorks a wine bottle with his teeth and spits the cork toward the audience)

We've been living on borrowed time in your guest room for three years, Martha. Eating solely thanks to the enlightened kleptomania of this woman. Respect the dramatic art of the heist!

 

MARTHA

(Stands up, highly insulted. She paces frantically)

It is grotesque! It's a dead leg. It’s that color... that texture. It is exactly like the incident on the North Circular.

 

RITA

(Rolling her eyes, she pulls out a nail file)

Oh, no. Not the North Circular again.

[ LIGHTING CHANGE: The general light drops. A deep red spotlight illuminates only Martha. A solitary violin plays dissonant notes. Martha breaks the fourth wall, walking to the edge of the stage, speaking directly to the spectator in the front row. ]

 

MARTHA

The nineteen-seventies. A Tuesday. Sunny. I was young and still believed in human goodness. I was walking along the pavement by the North Circular. A car pulls over. The driver opens the door. And there it was. Exhibiting its miseries.

(She opens her eyes impossibly wide, reliving the trauma)

A red thing. Wrinkled. Congested. Pulsating. It wasn't a phallic symbol, it was a cured sausage on the verge of a cardiac arrest. It immediately reminded me of the chickens in my grandmother's yard in Yorkshire. They would chop their heads off with a cleaver, and the bodies would run in circles, spasmodic, staining the dry earth with jets of blood... a tangled mess of feathers refusing to accept its own death.

(She shivers, hugging her own body)

That is flesh! A reminder that we are made of viscera that will sooner or later rot. Get that swine away from me!

[ LIGHTING CHANGE: The normal amber lighting returns. The violin stops abruptly. ]

 

ARTHUR

(Without looking up from his Dracula)

And then you married me. Because I am made of injected polymer. I do not pulsate. I do not sweat. I am eternal.

 

RITA

(Caressing the ham, speaking to it like a baby)

Don't listen to her, little Piglet. Your disgust is beautiful, Martha. But I made the mistake of swallowing life by the fistful. That's why I'm drowning. That's why I crash cars and survive without a scratch while my co-pilots end up in intensive care.

 

OLIVER

(Pouring wine into flower vases, coffee mugs, and a stiletto heel)

A toast to us! To the drowned who learned to breathe in formaldehyde.

[ The gramophone changes songs on its own. Now playing Shirley Bassey at a very low volume. Oliver pulls an absurdly massive photo album, the size of a tombstone, from under the table. ]

 

OLIVER

(Blowing the dust off the album, creating a thick cloud that makes everyone cough comically)

Mykonos. 1984. Before biology, or Reagan and Thatcher, declared war on us.

[ The four gather around the album. Their faces are illuminated by an internal, nostalgic light. ]

 

RITA

(Bringing her hands to her mouth)

Look at me! I weighed forty kilos, wore that sequined turban, and consumed narcotics that today would be used to sedate rhinoceroses. I looked like an anorexic Hindu deity. And beside me... "The Quicksand."

 

MARTHA

Julian. The man who paid for that trip by emptying his diabetic mother’s savings account. What a fascinating emotional terrorist he was.

 

OLIVER

(Laughing with sweet bitterness)

Falling into his bed was like falling into quicksand. You sank slowly, losing your dignity and your wallet. But what a trip.

 

RITA

(Stepping away from the table, memory taking over her body. She begins to declaim and act for the room)

The night of the hurricane! We were in that miserable little whitewashed villa. The roof started to fly off... the shutters were spinning like ninja stars! And Julian, in a panic attack induced by absinthe, clung to the base of the toilet screaming: "I am the plug of the ocean! If I let go, the underworld will swallow us!"

 

OLIVER

(Crying with laughter, throws himself on the floor)

And you went out into the storm to recite Shakespeare!

 

RITA

(Shouting over the imaginary roar of the wind)

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! And just then... SMACK! A pelican the size of a Golden Retriever flew through the air and landed right on Julian's face!

[ All four burst into monumental laughter. A deep, animalistic, hoarse laugh. The laughter of those who have stared into the abyss and given it the finger. ]

 

ARTHUR

(Cleaning his glasses)

Pure cinema. David Lynch mixed with Monty Python.

 

MARTHA

(Softening her voice, caressing the photo)

We were immortal in that commune, in the room above Julian’s mother’s flat.

 

OLIVER

(With a broken voice, suddenly serious)

A tangle of legs and smoke. Passing lovers around like cigarette lighters. And the poor woman downstairs... watching Coronation Street. Armored in her rocking chair.

 

RITA

Until the virus got in. It took Julian. It took the fat one. It took them all, pelicans included. One by one. Coughs, spots, panic, silence.

 

ARTHUR

And they left us here. The four horsemen of the perpetual hangover.

 

RITA

(Stands up. The pain turns her aggressive, grandiloquent)

That’s why I don’t leave this house! When they took my son from me... when the judge told me I was "unstable" and sent him to Paris with that imbecile actuary of a father... I went to the Edinburgh Fringe. I played Lady Macbeth. It started to rain. A biblical storm. The makeup was running down my face like black tar, I was swallowing hailstones, but I didn't stop! The audience was petrified.

(Pause. She smiles madly).

Mainly because the doors of the courtyard were jammed with mud and they couldn't flee. But I was immense. I am immense!

 

OLIVER

(Kissing her hand)

You are our Greek tragedy with a Freedom Pass, my love.

 

ARTHUR

(Walking among them like a shepherd of lost sheep)

Look at us. We have survived everything. The epidemic, Rita’s car crashes, Martha’s clandestine abortions, Oliver’s fossilized liver. We are gold-plated cockroaches. That is why you are here. That is why we invited you to stay for three days, and you've spent three years sleeping in Sarah’s room separated by a curtain. Out there, the world demands that you heal. In here... we honor the wound.

[ They hold hands. It is a moment of beautiful, toxic, perfect codependency. A delicate equilibrium.

SOUND EFFECT: The gramophone makes a violent SCRATCH noise. The needle jumps. Silence falls. The screech of a key in the main lock is heard. The door opens.

Enter SARAH. She wears an Oxford grey tailored suit that absorbs what little light is left in the room. She drags two colossal wheeled suitcases that make an unbearable noise against the floorboards: CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK. Her face is a mask of offended righteousness. ]

 

SARAH

(Dropping the suitcases, sniffing the air with disgust)

It smells like a clandestine pub. Like marijuana. Like damp. And like... rancid cheese.

 

RITA

(Without letting go of Oliver's hand, taking a sip from her glass)

It is Australian Camembert, darling. It costs more than the deposit on your Audi. Good early morning to you.

 

SARAH

(Advances, ignoring everyone, addressing her mother)

René is a fraud. Useless. We broke up. Modern men lack structure. I'm moving back home.

 

MARTHA

(Turning her iPad back on)

Hello, daughter. A bloody miracle. Welcome. There is Earl Grey iced tea in the fridge, if you manage to dodge Rita's stolen hams.

 

SARAH

(With a scream that shatters everyone's theatrical tone)

I DON'T WANT TEA! I WANT MY BEDROOM!

(She points at Oliver and Rita with a trembling finger)

And I want these two parasites to pick up their headphones, their bottles, and get out on the street. It's been three fucking years. It's a hostage situation!

 

OLIVER

(Smiling with venomous politeness)

Sarah, my love. Every day you resemble a human pumice stone more and more. Scratchy, pale, and full of holes where all your joy leaks out. If you had sent a WhatsApp, we would have packed up our decency.

 

SARAH

Shut up, closet alcoholic!

 

ARTHUR

(Interposing, conciliatory but firm)

Sarah, lower your decibels. Your aura is vibrating at the frequency of an overdue electricity bill. You come wounded. But this house is immense. Rita and Oliver can set up in the drawing-room, I will move my collection to the cellar...

 

SARAH

(Stomping the floor)

NO! I am not going to live dodging aristocratic vagabonds just to get to my own kitchen! I don't want to trip over their delusions of grandeur at three in the morning! I am the daughter. I want you to kick them out! TODAY!

 

MARTHA

(Switches off the iPad with a sharp thud. Stands up slowly. Takes off her glasses. Her voice is a thread of ice)

Now, you listen to me, spawn of accountancy. At my sixty-something years, a frustrated thirty-five-year-old girl, incapable of maintaining a relationship for more than six months without drowning her partner with her demands, is not going to give me orders in my own dining room.

(She steps closer, threatening)

You are a walking disaster. You hate this place. You hate us. But you're quick to come hide behind your "blood rights" when your little Excel-spreadsheet world collapses.

 

SARAH

IT IS WHAT I AM ENTITLED TO! IT IS ONLY FAIR!

[ Heavy silence. Rita separates from Oliver. She adjusts her coat. Suddenly, she looks up at the lighting booth. ]

 

RITA

Gerry! Offended heroine lighting, please.

(A blue spotlight illuminates her).

Thank you.

(She turns to Sarah, speaking with a sepulchral voice).

Justice is an invention of the mediocre to avoid accepting their own insignificance, little girl. You are right about one thing: the room is yours. Oliver, grab the plaster Beethoven and the gin. We are leaving.

 

SARAH

(Crossing her arms, smiling with petty triumph)

About time.

 

RITA

(Smiling back, with chilling malice)

Oh, yes. But we are not leaving through the back door. First... we shall have a farewell supper. The Last Supper of Hampstead. Befitting our royalty. And you, little girl, are going to sit and watch how the living dead celebrate our exile.

[ MUSIC CUE: A raucous mambo blares at maximum volume.

CHOREOGRAPHY OF TRANSITIONAL CHAOS: Oliver and Rita run back and forth setting up a ridiculous banquet table. Arthur puts on his Dracula cape. Martha begins throwing crystal goblets onto the floor to make space. Sarah stands in the middle, clenching her fists, as the refuge prepares for war. ]

 

QUICK CURTAIN ON THE FIRST ACT

ACT TWO: THE LOOP OF HAM AND ASHES

[ The set is exactly the same as the end of Act One. But something in reality is broken. The wall clock has its second hand spinning backward at a dizzying speed.

SOUND EFFECT: A deafening screech, like a cassette tape rewinding at maximum velocity. The lights flash in a maddening strobe effect. The characters move in reverse in fast motion: Rita spits wine back into her glass, Sarah walks backward toward the door dragging her suitcases in reverse.

Suddenly: CLACK! The light turns amber again and everything freezes.

The slow Vera Lynn mambo plays again. The front door is kicked open. Sarah enters with the exact same two colossal suitcases. The exact same rigid posture. ]

 

SARAH

(Inhaling with disgust, the exact same tone from the first act)

It smells like a cheap pub. Like marijuana. And like cheese...

 

RITA

(Interrupting her, with a deranged smile, holding a metronome that no one knows where she got)

Cut! Time, time, time!

(She breaks the fourth wall. Walks to the proscenium, looking directly at the lighting booth)

Gerry! I told you the amber makes me look like I have liver disease. Turn up the pink filter, darling, because I am about to destroy this City worker and I need to look radiant.

(The stage light instantly changes to an absurd bubblegum pink. Rita smiles at the audience)

Thank you.

(She returns to her position, clearing her throat)

Carry on, Sarah. "And like cheese..."

 

SARAH

(Bewildered, blinking rapidly, trapped in the scene)

And like... what the hell are you doing? I want you to leave!

[ Oliver executes an Olympic jump over the back of the armchair. He grabs a kalamata olive and throws it with sniper-like precision onto the floor, exactly where Sarah is about to step. ]

 

SARAH

René is an imbecile and... Aaaah!

[ SLAPSTICK CHOREOGRAPHY: Sarah steps on the olive. She slips with cartoon physics (arms windmilling, legs in the air). She flies toward the table. Arthur, with feline reflexes unbefitting his age, lunges... not to catch Sarah, but to protect his Batman box. Sarah lands face-first in the plate of Iberico ham. A circus drum-cymbal crash sounds. ]

 

MARTHA

(Without looking up from the iPad, swiping right to left)

Oh, I didn't like how she fell. Looked very fake. Let's rewind her.

[ SOUND EFFECT: Zzzzipp! Fast rewind. Sarah is "sucked" back to the doorway, standing, intact. The lights flicker. ]

 

SARAH

(Entering for the third time, panting, dizzy, with a slice of Iberico ham stuck to her forehead)

It smells like... smells like... Enough! You're all crazy! I'm going to lose my mind!

 

OLIVER

(Approaching the audience, pulls out a cigarette and speaks to the front row)

Does anyone have a light? Thank you.

(Lights the cigarette)

Look closely at her. Thirty-five years old and she believes the universe owes her a guest bedroom. It's fascinating. If we performed an autopsy on her right now, we would find a spreadsheet instead of a heart, and a defaulted promissory note in her large intestine.

 

SARAH

(Ripping the ham off her forehead, hysterical)

Who are you talking to, you miserable drunk! There's no one there!

 

RITA

(With the tone of a BBC Nature documentary narrator)

The bureaucratic specimen suffers hallucinations upon leaving its natural habitat of cubicles and fluorescent lights. Let us observe how it reacts to Art.

[ MUSIC CUE: Strauss’s "The Blue Danube" plays, but performed violently on kazoos and out-of-tune accordions.

DREAMLIKE CHAOS CHOREOGRAPHY BEGINS: Arthur and Oliver grab Sarah by the arms and force her to dance a waltz. Sarah kicks and screams, but they spin her with absurd elegance, passing her back and forth like a rag doll. Rita grabs the leg of ham as if it were a double bass and starts "playing" it to the rhythm of the waltz. Martha stands up, raises her iPad like an Olympic torch, and marches around the table with a military step. ]

 

SARAH

(While spinning in the air, held by Oliver)

Let me go! I'm calling the police! I'm calling the council!

 

OLIVER

(Throwing her toward Arthur in a ridiculous pas de deux)

The police don't come to Hampstead at this hour, my love! They're terrified of the mimes and poets without government grants!

 

ARTHUR

(Catching Sarah, dipping her into an extreme tango pose, his face inches from hers)

Did you know Bela Lugosi was buried in his Dracula cape? That is commitment to the character. You were buried alive under a prenuptial agreement. Sad! Very sad!

(He drops her suddenly. Sarah falls hard on her backside onto the floor. The music stops with a record scratch effect).

 

SARAH

(Crying with rage and despair, on the floor)

You are monsters... Mother, say something to them. Please.

 

MARTHA

(Approaches Sarah, lowering the iPad. Her face suddenly adopts a solemnity worthy of Greek tragedy. The lights turn dramatic, a white spotlight on her).

My daughter... My flesh. My blood. Fruit of my womb...

(Pause. Martha's lip begins to tremble. She stares at Sarah... and suddenly the tragic expression transforms into pure disgust).

Ugh, gross! You smell like cured meat! You stuck carrion to your face! You are just like the man on the North Circular! Get your mortality out of my sight, you failed abortion of bureaucracy!

[ Martha runs off, making sounds of disgust and covering her mouth, taking the stairs two at a time. ]

 

RITA

(Leaving the ham on the table, sighing)

And there goes the Mother of the Year award.

 

SARAH

(Crawling toward her suitcases, completely broken; the implacable corporate mask has vanished)

I just want to sleep... I just want to lie in my bed and cry over René... I want my clean sheets...

 

OLIVER

(Crouches next to her. His tone is suddenly genuinely compassionate, soft, sweet)

Sarah. Sarah, look at me.

[ Sarah looks at him, eyes full of tears, expecting a shred of humanity. ]

 

OLIVER

René was cheating on you with your cousin who sells Herbalife.

 

SARAH

(Her eyes widen like saucers)

What?

 

OLIVER

(Jumping to his feet, exultant, like a game show host)

And with the accountant! He was a very versatile lad! The point is that life is a farce, my love! And you want to star in a BBC period drama inside a house designed for the Theatre of the Absurd!

 

RITA

(Opening her designer bag, which now seems to have a golden light shining inside it)

Farewell supper. We promised a farewell supper. Let the banquet begin!

[ MUSIC CUE: "Flight of the Bumblebee" at triple speed.

FAST-MOTION CHOREOGRAPHY (Silent film style): Under a flickering light mimicking 1920s silent film frames:

Rita starts pulling impossible things out of her bag and throwing them on the table: a lit candelabra, a rubber chicken, a feather boa, three bottles of champagne, and finally a massive hourglass.

Oliver pours champagne into coffee mugs, vases, and into Sarah's shoes.

Arthur runs down the stairs with a black vampire cape over his argyle sweater and begins blessing the table in Latin.

Sarah runs in circles trying to grab her suitcases, but Rita and Oliver kick them back and forth.

Suddenly, Martha appears on the second-floor balcony. She holds a megaphone. ]

 

MARTHA

(Through the megaphone, with the voice of a fascist film director)

Faster! I'm not feeling the existential terror! Throw the black truffle in her face!

[ Oliver grabs a truffle and smashes it into Sarah's nose with an amplified "SQUISH" sound. The music cuts out instantly.

Everyone freezes in absurd positions: Arthur mid-bite on the rubber chicken, Rita pouring champagne over a suitcase, Oliver pointing at the ceiling, and Sarah hyperventilating in the center of the table, covered in wine, cheese crumbs, and with her nose stained with truffle. ]

 

RITA

(Breaks her pose, walks to the front, and speaks to the audience)

See? It’s a matter of rhythm. If you break someone fast enough, they don't even have time to get offended.

 

SARAH

(Falling to her knees, arms outstretched in a cross, looking at the ceiling. A monologue of total breakdown. The light focuses on her. It is a moment of brutal honesty wrapped in humiliation).

You were right. You were right and I am an imbecile. The world out there doesn't exist. René doesn't exist. My job in human resources is an illusion created so I don't kill myself on Sunday afternoons. I come here demanding order in a house where my mother watches Russian orgies and my father thinks he is a bat. You are immortal because you are already dead. You are dead and you are throwing a party! And I am alive and I am rotting!

(Pause. She lowers her arms. Looks at the three of them with a broken, terrifying, completely insane smile).

Could I please have a little wine from my shoe?

[ Sepulchral silence. Oliver, Rita, and Arthur look at each other. A slow, malevolent smile spreads across their faces. Martha slowly walks down the stairs, without the iPad. The initiation rite is complete. ]

 

OLIVER

(Hands her her shoe, soaking with champagne)

Cheers, little princess of darkness.

[ Sarah takes the shoe. Drinks. Coughs. And lets out a laugh, a deep, hoarse, theatrical Hampstead laugh. Exactly the same as theirs.

SOUND EFFECT: The wall clock makes a loud "CLACK". The second hand starts moving forward again. The loop is closed. ]

 

ARTHUR

(Adjusting his cape)

Welcome to the bunker, Sarah. We have stolen cheese and a cellar full of toys. We will never see the sunlight again.

[ The four adults surround Sarah, who laughs hysterically from the floor, toasting with her own shoe. Martha strokes her hair with a mixture of maternal love and pure morbid fascination. The light closes in on the group, forming a Renaissance painting of absolute madness. ]

 

CURTAIN ON THE SECOND ACT

ACT THREE: THE CORONATION OF THE PUMICE STONE

[ Three days have passed... or perhaps three minutes, time no longer exists. The Hampstead dining room has mutated. The heavy furniture has been dragged to block the front door, forming a barricade that mixes Louis XV chairs, the leg of Iberico ham (now just the bone), and Sarah's suitcases.

In the center of the table, a precarious throne has been erected, built with Arthur's immaculate Batman and Superman boxes.

MUSIC CUE: "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana, but played exclusively on bagpipes and Aztec death whistles. An epic, folkloric, terrifying sound.

Sarah is seated on the throne of boxes. She wears Arthur's black cape over her grey suit, which is now torn and stained with wine. Her eyes are unhinged, and she chews a piece of Camembert with the ferocity of a wild animal.

Arthur, Martha, Rita, and Oliver are sitting on the floor around the table, watching her with a mixture of absolute devotion and panic. ]

 

SARAH

(Swallowing the cheese without chewing, she raises an empty gin bottle like a scepter)

Listen to me well, specters of decay! No more half measures! If we are going to be dead, we are going to be the best damn mass grave in all of London. Oliver!

 

OLIVER

(Leaping to his feet, saluting militarily)

At your orders, my general of existential panic!

 

SARAH

How many hours has it been since we cursed civil society?

 

OLIVER

Approximately twenty minutes, your highness. Ever since Rita leaned out the window and shouted "mediocre" at the dustman.

 

RITA

(Filing her nails with a credit card)

He wasn't separating the cardboard from the glass. His lack of ecological consciousness offended my kleptomaniac sensibilities.

 

SARAH

(Leaps from the throne with feline grace. Paces back and forth. Her energy is frenetic, thirty-five years of repression released all at once)

It's not enough! The void is trying to slip through the cracks. I can smell the inflation! I smell the interest rates scraping the foundations of our house! Mother!

 

MARTHA

(Sitting on the floor in the lotus position, iPad resting off in her lap, watching her in fascination)

Tell me, little monster of my blood.

 

SARAH

Hand me that apparatus of two-dimensional perversion.

[ Martha hands it to her with reverence. Sarah takes it, marches toward the barricade at the door, and with a war cry, uses it as a hammer to nail one of Rita’s stiletto heels into the wooden frame, symbolically sealing the door. BAM! BAM! BAM! ]

 

MARTHA

(Clutching her hands to her chest, but smiling with morbid joy)

That was fifteen inches of retina display! And the premium subscription to the Hungarian plumbers! Oh, what delicious brutality!

 

ARTHUR

(Adjusting his glasses, completely in love with the destruction)

It is the triumph of chaos over technology. It is... poetry. Sarah, my child, I have never been so proud of you. You have surpassed Frankenstein. I created you with a defective gene of bitterness, but you have turned it into contemporary art.

 

SARAH

(Throwing the shattered iPad over her shoulder)

Silence, prop vampire! I make the rules now. Rita, empty everything left in that magic bag of yours. We are taking a survival inventory.

 

RITA

(Standing up. She crosses her arms and breaks the fourth wall. She walks to the front, illuminated by a spotlight)

Right, dramatic pause. Audience, are you seeing this? We spent two hours building an insufferable antagonist, rigid, the classic "castrating daughter," and in ten minutes she goes full Caligula on us. This is my play! I am the unstable star! I am the one who spits at directors!

(She turns to look at Sarah)

Listen here, little pumice stone, you are stealing my spotlight. Dial the hysteria down a notch; I am the deranged diva in this room.

 

SARAH

(Gets close to Rita, nose to nose. She whispers with psychopathic intensity)

You want the spotlight, Rita? I'll give you the spotlight.

(Shouts toward the booth)

Gerry! Kill the spot on the relic and hit the whole stage with the strobe light!

[ SOUND EFFECT: Industrial techno music at maximum volume. The lights turn to full strobe.

CHOREOGRAPHY OF THE END OF THE WORLD: Movements are choppy, mechanical, like broken wind-up dolls.

Sarah grabs her divorce papers from the suitcase and starts shredding them with her teeth, throwing the pieces in the air like confetti.

Oliver and Arthur dance a macabre conga line around the table, carrying the leg of ham bone aloft like a patron saint.

Martha crawls on the floor picking up the pieces of chewed paper and rubbing them on her face, ecstatic.

Rita, resigned to losing the lead role, pulls an umbrella from her bag (it's raining champagne inside) and opens it, tap dancing furiously and uncoordinatedly.

The music cuts abruptly. The lights return to the warm gloom of the refuge. All five are lying on the floor, panting, sweating, covered in divorce confetti, feathers, cheese, and dust. ]

 

OLIVER

(Lying on his back, looking at the ceiling. Speaks with a broken voice, but immensely happy)

I am having a heart attack. Or an epiphany. I'm not sure. If I die, please don't notify my family. Tell them I was abducted by a UFO in the Starbucks in Camden.

 

MARTHA

(Resting her head on Arthur's chest)

What peace. What disgusting, perfect peace. No red meat. No outside world. Just us, rotting with style.

 

ARTHUR

(Stroking Martha's hair)

The perfect fade to black. No one will ever find us. We will be an urban legend. The five vampires of North London.

 

RITA

(Sitting up slowly, pulling a jar of capers from her cleavage, and opening it)

Well. If we're going to stay here until the end of time... who is going to wash the dishes?

[ Absolute silence. The five look at each other. The mere mention of a domestic responsibility shatters the sacred charm of the absurd.

Sarah sits up slowly. Her face hardens once again. She adjusts the torn jacket of her tailored suit. Everyone looks at her in terror. Has the Corporate Drone returned? ]

 

SARAH

(With an icy, corporate voice)

The dishes are not washed. The dishes accumulate until they form a stalagmite of grime that holds up the ceiling when the house begins to collapse.

(She smiles, a wide, genuine, and terrifying smile).

Just like the eighties.

[ The four adults let out a collective sigh of relief. ]

 

OLIVER

(Raising his shoe, which still has a little puddle of wine)

To Sarah. The pumice stone that turned into a diamond of madness.

 

MARTHA

To the tribe.

 

ARTHUR

To the refuge.

 

RITA

And to the security guard at Harrods, who will miss me tomorrow.

[ Everyone clinks their glasses, shoes, and empty bottles. They begin to laugh. First, it is a soft laugh, which grows, feeding off each other. It becomes the same deep, theatrical, Hampstead, catartic laugh from the first act. A laugh of those who have beaten sanity by technical knockout.

The wall clock chimes again: TICK, TOCK, TICK, TOCK. But nobody cares.

The light slowly closes in, forming a very small circle on Sarah's face, who is laughing with her mouth wide open, free for the first time in her life. The circle of light snaps off.

In total darkness, the laughter of the five resonates endlessly, while the mambo plays again at a deafening volume. ]

 

FINAL CURTAIN

THE GHOSTS OF HAMPSTEAD: A DELIRIOUS NOSTALGIC FARCE.... LONDON. © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International