MORTICIAN
Who's that then?

CUSTOMER
I don't know.

MORTICIAN
Must be a king.

CUSTOMER
Why?

MORTICIAN
He hasn't got shit all over him.

[clop clop]
ARTHUR:
Old woman!

DENNIS:
Man!

ARTHUR:
Old Man, sorry. What knight live in that castle over there?

DENNIS:
I'm thirty seven.
ARTHUR:
What?

DENNIS:
I'm thirty seven -- I'm not old!

ARTHUR:
Well, I can't just call you `Man'.

DENNIS:
Well, you could say `Dennis'.

ARTHUR:
Well, I didn't know you were called `Dennis.'

DENNIS:
Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?

ARTHUR:
I did say sorry about the `old woman,' but from the behind you looked--

DENNIS:
What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!

ARTHUR:
Well, I AM king...
DENNIS:
Oh king, eh, very nice. An' how'd you get that, eh? By exploitin' the workers -- by 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society! If there's ever going to be any progress--

WOMAN:
Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh -- how d'you do?

ARTHUR:
How do you do, good lady. I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
Whose castle is that?

WOMAN:
King of the who?

ARTHUR:
The Britons.

WOMAN:
Who are the Britons?

ARTHUR:
Well, we all are. we're all Britons and I am your king.

WOMAN:
I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.

DENNIS:
You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN:
Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.

DENNIS:
That's what it's all about if only people would--

ARTHUR:
Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?

WOMAN:
No one live there.

ARTHUR:
Then who is your lord?

WOMAN:
We don't have a lord.

ARTHUR:
What?

DENNIS:
I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.

ARTHUR:
Yes.

DENNIS:
But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.

ARTHUR:
Yes, I see.

DENNIS:
By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--

ARTHUR:
Be quiet!
DENNIS:
--but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--

ARTHUR:
Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

WOMAN:
Order, eh -- who does he think he is?

ARTHUR
I am your king!

WOMAN
Well, I didn't vote for you.

ARTHUR
You don't vote for kings.

WOMAN
Well, 'ow did you become king then?


ARTHUR:
The Lady of the Lake,
[angels sing]
her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!

DENNIS
Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

ARTHUR
Be quiet!

DENNIS
Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!

DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!

ARTHUR
Shut up! Will you shut up!

DENNIS
Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.

ARTHUR
Shut up!


DENNIS
Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!

ARTHUR
Bloody peasant!


DENNIS
Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that, eh? That's what I'm on about -- did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn't you?