Mortal coil
A comedy of corpses --
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-- And A funeral parlor frolic
Short-listed for the London Observer's PG Wodehouse Comic Novel Prize: "From the moment I started to read this book I was crying with laughter." "I nearly died laughing." "A first-rate contemporary farce, one of the hardest—if not THE hardest genre to pull off." "If you like dark humour and have a taste for knowing what you really shouldn't want to know you will love it. Brilliant characters and Great writing, be prepared to laugh your socks off."
Delmore Danruther
Clown, slacker, womanizer, wild man on the dance floor, takes nothing seriously, especially his job as a funeral director.
Proposed: Dan Levy
He takes the calls, picks up the bodies, sometimes from accident scenes, sells the coffins, organizes the ceremonies, and presides at some himself.
Has to do all the jobs that go with the turf—help with the embalming, wash the cars, clean the toilets.
Amid all this chilling death he's a Bugs Bunny of a guy— dresses the bodies up for parties, false eyebrows as he reads a service, ball-and-paddle in the back room.
But if he gets a call from someone whose family member has just died, he can suddenly be tender. And despite his boss's nagging he won't sell grief-vulnerable people caskets they can't afford.
Had a job hosing down buses at the terminal, was picked up in a bar by Hannah Merklinger, whose husband owns the funeral home. She got him the job, part of which is keeping her happy.
Falls so in love with Merrilie that he’s buried alive and almost dies for her.
When he gives his all and then finds her in bed with someone else, it breaks his heart and his spirit.
MERRILIE Gornton
Proposed: Annie Murphie
Beautiful, refined, heiress to a huge fortune, moves in a horses-and-sports-cars world out of Delmore's reach, has a blond-god boyfriend. Combines innocence and curiosity in a way that keeps us guessing. Is she caring or calculating?
Is horrified when Delmore lets her see the back room, but discovers in herself a fascination that amounts—fortunately for him—to a fetish.
anson gornton
"Anse." Merrilie's grandfather. CEO of multinational empire Gornton Pharmaceuticals and one of the richest men in the world. On his death bed.
Creaky-voiced but loud and authoritative all the same. Surrounded by family members awaiting their share of the pie.
Mistakenly pronounced dead, then wakes, takes Delmore in his cheap black suit for Death himself and confides in him. We’re never sure if he’s crazy or making sense. Extraordinarily well-hung.
Wraps his will in cigarette foil and swallows it before dying, causing a scramble for the body, which Delmore abducts.
The boss
Funeral-home proprietor J. Luther Merklinger is a cadaverous, insipid, humorless tightwad.
Proposed: Eugene Levy
Sucks up to the Gorntons.
Has it in for Delmore, who never makes any big sales. Suspects him of fun-having in the back room.
Has no idea his wife is sleeping with Delmore.
Nadine
The cosmetician. Professional, and proud of it. Could put you back together if you swallowed a depth charge.
Can restore and/or disguise a corpse till it's unrecognizable, which comes in handy when Delmore kidnaps Anse.
Proposed: Emily Hampshire
Brainy, noble, vulgar. Navy hair, gum.
Loves Delmore, and will do anything for him, but she'd never let him see that. Real tough.
Freon gornton
Fiftyish sassy well-shaped silicon, stiletto heels, rubber-duck voice. Rinse-red hair piled up and lanced by a silver cigarette holder, peacock-blue eye shadow, surgically-designed pout, lip gloss you could comb your hair in.
Tries too hard from the hips, but it works.
Anse adores her, and in her arms he rides out smiling.
She digs Delmore, and tries to win his aid in the search for the will.
HANNAH Merklinger
Forty-five, the boss’s wife and Delmore's lover, is sour and disappointed—in her husband, in the life they have, in skirt-chaser Delmore.
But she can't give Delmore up, which makes her even sourer. Strong-willed, smarter than her husband, cheers up when she thinks she's won Delmore back, then rants hysterically at him as he's smuggled out past the bad guys in a casket. Gets pills-and-boozy to play the organ at services.
Dog
Gaunt sleazy skuzz-ball, dead eyes, always needs a shave, funeral-home factotum, helps Delmore with the heavy lifting. Perverse tastes, mustn't be left alone with the bodies or he does bad things to them.
If gratification is sufficiently immediate can be something of a criminal genius. Accompanies Delmore on “removals”. Delmore protects him from the boss.
Jump
Pudgy nervous embalmer. Called "Jump" because when you speak to him he jumps. In the wrong job—good at what he does, but fears the corpses. Mustn't be left alone with them either, or he panics.
Wimpy, phobic, neurotic-compulsive home-body, pathologically shy of women. Dark-frame glasses he continually pushes up the bridge of his nose. Sensitive and intelligent—i.e. the opposite of Dog.
Dog is never so happy as when he's torturing Jump.
CHETWODE Gornton
Anse's son and heir apparent; fat, greedy, ruthless, stuck up, pre-coronary.
Enlists the local godfather to retrieve the body.
Heart attack when his dead father grabs his hand.
JOE FRANCE
Sinister Sicilian giant and hit man. Built like one refrigerator on top of another. "I like to make things dead." Short temper.
Delmore fools him, and he comes after Delmore, who hides with Merrilie in the casket display room. When Joe hears them getting it on in there, he shoots up every casket in the place.
Anse's NURSE
Sour battle-axe in a white uniform, also after the money.
Embarrassed by having assisted at a false declaration of death, she is mocked by Anse, and claims to be carrying his child.
Reluctant to pronounce him dead again, and hampers the abduction.
THEME SONG
(for cheerful female voices, to the tune of "Shuffle off to Buffalo")
When you're in the mortuary
When you're in the mortuary
You may find it cold and scary—
No, no, don't recoil.
Off you're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off this mortal coil!
Comes the undertaker later
And he'll drain your radiator
And he'll change your oil.
Off you're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off this mortal coil!
First he'll put you on the table,
Then he'll pump out your insides.
He'll make your condition stable
With formal-de-hyde!
You'll be magotty and wormy—
It's enough to make you squirmy—
When you're in the soil.
Off you're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off this mortal coil!
Just because you feel immortal
Doesn't mean you'll never die.
You'll get hard and rigor mortal—
No use to won-der why!
When you're pushing up the daisies
You'll be lying back and lazy--
No more moil and toil.
Off you're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off this mortal coil!
Shuffle off, shuffle off, shuffle off, shuffle off,
Shuffle off this mor-tal coil!
Pretentious Pictures presents
Pretentious Pictures presents
a funeral parlor frolic.
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