User:Stanleypowell/The Basement (BBC Radio Wales)

The Basement
Six-episode political situation comedy, broadcast on BBC Radio Wales between 24 February 2000 and 30 March 2000.

Co-written by Mark Griffiths and Cai Ross.

Produced by Trystan Iorwerth

Performers

Emyr Roberts, Arwel Griffith, Sam Harris Davies, Marc Roberts.

Backstory

The series was commissioned by BBC Radio Wales in the aftermath of devolution and the creation of The Welsh Assembly in Cardiff. The show's topicality was almost its downfall when the First Secretary, Alun Michael, resigned after failing a vote of no-confidence just weeks before the first broadcast. As a result, a Star Wars-like prologue was written which claimed that the show detailed the last weeks of Michael's tenure.

Episodes.

1.ArrivalBroadcast 24 February 2000

Young, liberal innocent AM Ingrid Thomas is press-ganged into helping Dafydd Wigley- self-styled Welshest Man in Europe - into helping him with a bi-election, whilst simultaneously being forced to turn Y Clogs, a Welsh, wooden sports trainer, into a fashion icon. The bi-election faces disaster when the Welsh language slogan on the banners and badges, translated as "Above Reasonably Sensible Expectations," reveals itself to have an unsuitable acronym.

2. The Crempog Strikes BackBroadcast 2nd March 2000

Rhodri Morgan and Alun Michael compete bitterly to write the winning poem for the National Eisteddfod. Meanwhile, Dafydd Wigley misthinks that a rumoured, Europe-led rechristening of the welsh Crempog (pancake) is an act of war. He seeks help from an Eisteddfod druid, whom he assumes can brew a magic potion to give him and his army superhuman strength. The baffled druid gives him a vat of coffee. Having drunk the lot, Dafydd proves too babblingly hyperactive to make sense to his gathered troops. At the Eisteddfod, Rhodri calls Alun an cheat for translating the lyrics to Bridge Over Troubled Water into Welsh and passing them off as his own.

3. The Lure of The Brecon BeaconsBroadcast 9th March 2000

Dafydd Wigley appoints himself as historical advisor to a new Hollywood movie about Gryfydd ap Llewelyn (starring Charlie Sheen and Nastasha Henstridge) and causes trouble. Envious of Dafydd's brush with fame, Rhodri Morgan volunteers to appear in The Lure of The Brecon Beacons, shooting in mid-Wales. Eager to distance himself from a new scandal - vegetarian Agriculture secretary Christine Gwyther admits to have had a moment of madness in a Cardiff park. She claims to have had public sex with a complete stranger, but everyone suspects that she really went to the park to eat a meat pie and some Chinese ribs - Alun Michael demands to go with him. They are very slow to realise that The Lure of The Brecon Beacons is actually a tawdry porn film (starring Candy Lovespoon and Dai Smiling). Meanwhile, Dafydd's disruptive attitude on the set is bought off with a bigger trailer and extra perks, and he agrees to the addition of a massive fighting moth to the Llewelyn legend.

4. The Last Welsh RhinoBroadcast 16th Match 2000

Rhodri and Alun visit north Wales as judges for a county fair - Alun will judge the best root vegetable category whilst Rhodri will judge the Young Miss Gwynedd Farmhand competition. They arrive amid rumours that sheep and sheepdogs have been crushed to death in the area. A prominent vet's theory that a rhino was responsible is dismissed: "Surely the rhino has been extinct in Wales for over 50 years." The vet's fears are realised, however, when the rhino appears and destroys the sheepdog trials. Rhodri and Alun volunteer to go out and kill the rhino and are joined by Dafydd Wigley. Out in the dense forest, stalking their prey, they attempt to shoe the rhino in Y Clogs. However, in the event, Alun ends up riding the rhino back to the trials, where he is hailed as a hero for taming the beast. Thinking Alun is dead, Dafydd and Rhodri drown their sorrows with the rest of the beer and whatever they can syphon from the tranquilizer darts.

5. Bara Brith EncounterBroadcast 23rd March 2000

In a pre-credits sequence and referencing 2001: A Space Odyssey and Walking With Dinosaurs, cro-magnon men discover a large dinosaur egg in prehistoric south Wales, and accidentally invent the game of rugby. Millions of years later, a monolith is discovered by NASA on the moon. It is made of Bara Brith, the Welsh fruit-bread delicacy. Puzzled, NASA request the Welshest Man On Earth to visit the moon and solve the mystery. Dafydd instantly volunteers and travels to the moon to inspect the monolith. Bizarrely, upon touching the monolith, an eeire sound is heard, and when Dafydd returns to earth he has become English. Appalled, Rhodri hires a hypnotist to cure Dafydd and soon, he is restored to his old ways.

6. It's a Wonderful Life, Alun. Broadcast 30th March 2000

Tory AM Dick Rogers (Rod Richards in all but name) is accused of cheating on his wife in a seedy motel. Instantly, jokes circulate around the halls and Dick is furious. He wants to know where these jokes are coming from and hires a Joke Hunter. Alun Michael is on thin ice with the AMs who want to vote him out after he accidentally taped over the Wales vs Argentina match with an episode of Hart to Hart. When he mistakenly sells Anglesey to a French winery and accidentally boils Dafydd's pet Komodo dragon, it is the last straw and he is put to a vote of 'no confidence.' Alun visits a lonely bridge and contemplates jumping off, but the ghost of Richard Burton dissuades him. While there, he overhears Dick Rogers ordering the captured Joke Originator to unleash thousands of jokes about his fellow AMs, ridiculing them into the ground. Alun rushes back to the debating chamber to warn the others. Dick tries to escape using his Welsh Jet Pac, but forgets that he is indoors and crashes into the ceiling. The series ends with an address from veteran newscaster Idris Burgess.

"Alun Michael left the Assembly as its leader. Trial expectee and cad, Dick Rogers, was forced to hand back his Conservative whip.  The rest of the Assembly would reconvene to censure a few other AMs and vote on whether to have lunch breaks inside on in the yard, now that it's gone all cold.  Business thrived, families blossomed and the people of Wales rejoiced, safe in the knowledge that their First Secretary was a man of respect and courage.  However, a few weeks later he cocked up again so they threw him out and Rhodri Morgan finally became the Welsh leader.  And that is exactly how it happened.  Good night."

The Basement Part II(Unbroadcast)

Episode VII: Of Mice and Welshmen

Rhodri Morgan has become drunk on power since becoming First Secretary. He commissions a Welsh Mount Rushmore to be created on a slate quarry featuring four likenesses of himself. The exiled Dick Rogers, along with his toadying lacky, Nigel Evans, plan a return to power. They gamble all their money fruitlessly on an illegal mouse race - racing mice include 'Cheese Leaving Home', 'Ol' Pink Eyes' and 'Eating His Young' - which is abandoned when a cat finds its way onto the track. Rhodri is forced to turn the slate quarry into a Doctor Who Theme Park, when the statues turn out to look more like Tom Baker than himself.

Episode VIII: One Flew Over The Badger's Sett

Esteemed BBC Wales news anchor, Idris Burgess, is appalled to learn that he is being replaced by a pretty young girl and forced to present Badgerwatch. His replacement, Gemma Snowdrop turns out to be a better journalist than expected, immediately "outing" a married AM. The AMs deal with these rumours by publicly indulging in the most overtly heterosexual behaviour possible - bringing supermodels to work and bare-knuckle boxing in the canteen. Rhodri's aim to out-man everyone is repeatedly scuppered by his shocking inability to best weedy Conservative leader Nick Bourne in a scrap. Idris's Badgerwatch investigations inadvertently expose Dick Roger's plot to get rich by cornering the badger-fur market ("Note the way the badgers' noses have been tastefully incorporated into the bra section.") Idris rediscovers his inner investigative journalist and destroys the plot, while Gemma Snowdrop is bought off with a safe seat at a bi-election.

EPISODE IX: The Trial of Dick Rogers

Dick Rogers is accused of ungentlemanly behaviour with a young lady in a motel and faces trial. Idris Burgess recounts the career of this dark AM, from his early military post as a landmine in Bangladesh, to a brief spell as a right-wing folk singer - his only charting album, 1973's The Puffin's Friend. He won his first seat by chance when his rival was found dead having accidentally stabbed himself fourteen times in the back, secured himself in a trunk and thrown himself off Menai Bridge.

Dick chooses to represent himself in court. Asked why he has a young horse next to him, he replies that "As I understand it, a man who represents himself in court has a foal for a client." He objects to the prosecution playing sinister mood music on a keyboard whenever he speaks. His own attempts to prejudice the jury come unstuck when he can't turn off the 'Samba' function. A reconstruction of the alleged crime, directed by Quentin Tarantino, portrays an argument about the different merits of Wolverine and She-Hulk, spiralling into mindless violence. Despite the prosecution's best attempts, Dick is found not guilty. However, he is arrested for smoking a celebratory cigar in the foyer and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences.

EPISODE X: Apocalurdd Now

Recently retired Dafydd Wigley lies in bed in Caernarvon, kept awake by the helicopter school and the grasshopper farm next door. "Everybody gets everything he wants. I wanted an excuse to involve myself in a headline-grabbing political struggle.  And for my sins, they gave me one."

Dafydd is shocked to learn that Mr. Urdd, jolly, tri-coloured mascot of the National Eisteddfod and his own childhood hero, has gone mad and taken over Puffin Island. He his charged by the Eisteddfod druids to travel to the island by boat and terminate Mr. Urdd with extreme prejudice.

Someone has left a bag of rotting prawns in the ventilation system of the Assembly building. Incarcerated AM Dick Rogers is suspected. Ingrid is ordered to visit him in prison and find out where the prawns are. Dicks sniffs the air when he sees Ingrid. "Hmmmm. You're wearing Slazenger Sport unisex deoderant.  And you have a choc-dip in your cheap purse." He laces Ingrid's tea with a truth drug. She inadvertantly reveals that the referendum results were faked and that there shouldn't be an Assembly at all. Dick escapes, knocking a guard unconscious with the key Ingrid was compelled to leave behind. Dafydd reluctantly terminates Mr Urdd's command, but Urdd's followers take him to be their new leader, and he sets up Wigley World in his own honour.

EPISODE XI: Rhodri Morgan - My Part In His Downfall

Power has gone to Rhodri's head. He has locked himself in the highest turret of his new-build castle in Swansea. His massive overspending (on himself) is taking Wales into bankruptcy. Rhodri's spin doctor, Hugo Hancock, is appalled by Rhodri's antics and plots to take over the leadership. Hugo is accosted in the lift by Dick Rogers. Dick blackmails Hugo into helping him take over, threatening to reveal to the world that Hugo was Jive Bunny. "Your remixed late-fifties pop songs made the charts a place of darkness and suffering for a whole generation. Do you really think they'll forgive you?" Bringing Rhodri down is easier than it seems: his latest plan is to energise Wales's workforce by building an enormous pyramid in Cardiff. Rather than explain the suicidal idiocy of such a plan, Hugo actively encourages Rhodri.

Dafydd Wigley narrates in Charlton Heston tones, "And so it came to pass that in the heart of Wales, God's favourite country, a monument to her greatness was begun in earnest. Thousands of proud Welshmen, women and children toiled under Rhodri Morgan's heavy yolk, and brick by enormous brick, the Great Pyramid of Cardiff began to take shape." - Half way through, someone counts that the pyramid has nine sides - "And lo, the good people of Wales did knock down what they'd started and did begin again with a floor plan."

The unveiling of the Pyramid is a disaster and Rhodri is booed by a vicious crowd. Dick takes the microphone and calls on the crowd to abandon Rhodri and accept himself as their new leader. Rhodri tells him that the other AMs will never stand for it, but Dick has trapped all the others in a coach down a mine shaft - letting them believe that they were on a trip to a chocolate factory. Rhodri's reign is over. Hugo tells Ingrid that the only reason she wasn't trapped with them is that she is...his daughter.

EPISODE XII: The Phantom Crevice

Dick's first act as Wales's despot is to unleash biblical plagues upon the populace - plagues that he can thwart and thus appear a great leader. Due to financial restrictions, frogs and locusts etc being too expensive, new, cheaper plagues are devised - "Fishguard has endured a plague of Real Ale Enthusiasts. Pubs have been emptied by the sea of Aran sweaters, thick beards and incessant arguments about the merits of bottled beer.  A plague of water in Anglesey has been confirmed as rain."

A desolate Rhodri sits in his ruined castle on a rickity throne, unmoved by the comedy of his jester, Ron Davies. Meanwhile, Dafydd tries to raise the spirits of the trapped AMs, "Any red-blooded Welshman would give his life to die in a coal-mine!"

Idris Burgess reports on BBC Wales from a ticker-tape parade in Dick Rogers's honour. The plagues are over, "run out of the country and hopefully, over the border into England." A plague of GM chickens was defeated by a plague of GM foxes, which was itself destroyed by a GM Flintshire Hunt. The Real Ale Enthusiast plague was silenced by an aggressive advertising campaign for Alco-Pops and a plague of Bee Gee impersonators was chased out of Pontypridd by a plague of Clive Anderson impersonators.

Rhodri watches this in despair, roasting his jester over a barbecue. "It's a sad day when the thought of spit-roasting Ron Davies doesn't raise a smile." Ingrid tries to rouse him from his apathy, volunteering to find the sceptre of office for him to cradle one last time. In doing so, she finds Dick Rogers's memoirs, in which he details his fiendish plan in writing. "I will detail every sordid aspect of my plan in the rest of these memoirs, unless I realise what a foolhardy enterprise this book is. I just hope nobody finds it.  Did I think that or write it?" Having let Ron go, Rhodri is visited by the ghost of Alun Michael. "Wait, how can you be a ghost? You're not even dead." "My career is." Alun fails to goad Rhodri into fighting Dick Rogers. The only hope for Wales is Ingrid Thomas.

Dick and Hugo attend the mine shaft so that Dick can gloat over the AMs' demise. Ingrid confronts them, threatening to show Dick's memoirs to the world. She appeals to Hugo's better instincts - "Father, there is good in you. Jive Bunny was 25 years ago.  You've changed." Eventually, Hugo prevails and his throws Dick Rogers into the mine shaft. There is still the problem of how to pull up the coach full of AMs. Out of nowhere, Rhodri Morgan appears in a torn vest and pulls the coach up safely.

Rhodri is restored to power and he swears to turn his back on his profligate ways. Hugo and Ingrid become Rhodri's joint chief advisors.

Down in the mine shaft, Dick Rogers helps Lib-Dem leader Mike German dig. German wants to set up a new world, underground, like David Essex in The War of The Worlds. Dick demands to be the leader of this new world. German has another idea, "We could share power, like a coalition." Dick snorts, "Like that would ever work."