Diplomatic Baggage
September 1985
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The first act is set in the drawing room of Barry and Pamela Layton, in their home which they share with Pamela's elderly uncle Luke. Department of Trade employee, Barry, has faked the flu in order to have the afternoon off to spend with Pamela as it's her birthday. Unfortunately, as he left the office, he picked up the wrong briefcase and took that of his boss, a hypochondriac called Harrison Tweedie. The briefcase contains important documents that need to be signed by his counterpart in France for a ten-year trading agreement. So, Tweedie gets his chauffeur to drive him to the Layton's house. Arriving unexpectedly he meets Barry coming downstairs in his pyjamas, and thinking him to be ill, smartly pulls out his thermometer to take his temperature. Barry's temperature is, of course, normal, but when Tweedie absent-mindedly stirs his tea with the thermometer before taking his own temperature, he thinks he's got a fever or 106o. So, Tweedie is carted off to the nearest hospital leaving Barry to go to France to get the documents signed. However, before he can depart French diplomat monsieur Martell, and his Parisian, non-English-speaking wife also turn up at the house.
Act two switches to an elegant hotel in Paris, where Barry has just arrived. Amongst the hotels' staff are a hotel porter, who is always willing to do anything for the right tip, and Fifi, a frivolous chambermaid in thigh-hugging little black uniform, black stockings and suspenders. Barry has barely fought off Fifi's advances when Eloise, Mr Tweedie's sophisticated French "secretary" arrives. If that weren't bad enough, then Monsieur Martell arrives with his own "secretary" Simone, and the two girls quickly change into something "more comfortable" i.e. scantly black negligees and suspenders.
Was Barry able to uphold diplomatic relations, and get the trade agreement signed, whilst resisting the advances of the French ladies, and remaining faithful to Pamela?
Well, you had to be there for this uproariously funny farce by John Chapman to find out.
