Guest: There he is!

Father: Hold it!

(But it is too late. Sir Lancelot cannot be stopped. With fearless abandon he throws himself into the crowd and starts hacking and slashing. He has carved quite a number up before the Father can stop him and pulls him back onto the stairs. Renewed groans and cries.)

Father: Hold it! Please!

Lancelot: Sorry! Sorry! ... (with bitter self reproach) There you are you see ... I just got excited again and I got carried away ... I'm ever so sorry. (to the crowd) Sorry.

(Crowd kneeling round their wounded again. Moans etc.)

Guest: He's killed the best man!

Lancelot: Oh, no ...

(Hostile shouts of "arrest him," "boom in shot" etc.)

Father: Now hold it! This is Sir Lancelot from the Court of Camelot! He is a very brave and influential knight and my special guest today.

Second Guest: (holding a limp woman) He's killed my auntie.

Father: No, please! This is meant to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who ... We are here to witness the union of two young people in the joyful bond of holy wedlock. Now unfortunately, one of them, my son Herbert, has just fallen to his death ...

(Murmurs from crowd; the bride smiles with relief, coughs)

Father: - but I don't want to think I've lost a son ... as much as gained a daughter... (Smattering of applause) For, since the tragic death of her father ...

Shout from back: He's not quite dead!

Father: Since the fatal wounding of her father ...

Shout from back: I think he's getting better!

(Father nods discreetly to a soldier standing to one side. The soldier slips off. Father's eyes watch him move round to where the voice came from.)

Father: For ... since her own father ... who ... when he seemed about to recover ... suddenly felt the icy ... hand of death upon him.

(A scuffle at the back, then a shout) Oh, he's died!

Father: I want his only daughter, from now onwards, to think of me as her old dad ... in a very real and legally binding sense. (Applause) And I'm sure ... that the merger ... er ... the union ... between the Princess and the brave but dangerous Sir Lancelot of Camelot ...

Lancelot: What?!

Crowd: The dead Prince!

(There is Concorde holding "the dead prince" in his arms.)

Concorde: He's not quite dead!

Prince: I feel much better now.

Father: You fell out of the Tall Tower you creep!

Prince: I was saved at the last minute.

Father: How?

Prince Well ... I'll tell you ...

(Music intro to song. Concorde stands the son on his feet and adopts cod "and now a number from my friend" pose.)

Father: NOT like that!

(But the music doesn't stop and the crowd starts to sing.)

Crowd: He's going to tell.

Father: Shut up!

Crowd: He's going to tell ...

Father (screaming): Shut UP!

(As the song starts the father tries yelling at them and eventually gives up. Sir Lancelot joins Concorde in the crowd.)

Concorde: Quickly Sir, come this way!

Lancelot: No! It's not right for my idiom. I must escape more... more ...

Concorde: Dramatically, Sir?

Lancelot: Dramatically.

(Concorde goes. Sir Lancelot runs back up the stairs, grabs a rope off the wall and swings out over the heads of the crowd in a swashbuckling manner towards a large window. He stops just short of the window and is left swinging pathetically back and forth.)

Lancelot: Excuse me ... could somebody give me a push ...