I have a feeling Professor Loftus wants to speak to me about that
patient sitting up in the middle of his operation.
What happened?
He took one look at his intestines and fainted.
What happened?
He took one look at his intestines and fainted.
Another Graham Chapman script (with Bernard McKenna) and about as absurd
as the Doctor comedies got, with a delegation of 28 representatives from
the People's Republic of China visiting St Swithin's. A busy episode that packs
an awful lot of gags into 25 minutes, largely visual jokes about herding
multiple Mao-suited figures who go to places where they shouldn't, hide behind
doors, etc. At one point the script even requires the Chinese to stand in line
and fall like dominoes.
Two modes of comedy intertwine - the absurd (culturally specific details of
trying to integrate with Chinese customs) and the farcical (moving the
delegates about). The two styles reach their best moment of synthesis in a
scene when the delegates, in surgical masks and swabs, attend an operation. Dr
Waring prepares for the surgery by reciting from the Little Red Book, before Dr
Bingham enters with a Policeman - "Arrest these Chinamen!"
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