Rudyard Ruins Everything: A Very Mini Series - DAY 4

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Ciara Baxendale (0:46)

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Felix Trench (1:06)

Rudyard Funn runs a funeral home in the village of Pifling Vale. It used to be the only one. It isn't anymore.

The Battle of the Giants now draws to a close. Could Rudyard actually win it?

And will the public believe in a haunted kettle? Or will Antigone be exposed as a fraud? There's everything to play for, as Eric would say.

But there's even more to lose.

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The Wooden Overcoats Anniversary Special by David K. Barnes. Rudyard Ruins Everything.

Day 4

Felix Trench (1:54)

The third day had stumbled to a close. Rudyard slept soundly at the vicarage, tucked up on the sofa, while Reverend Wavering sat dozing up at the other end, his open John Grisham still resting in his lap. John's also a mouse, by the way. Back home at Funn Funerals, Antigone was wrapped with even more anxiety than usual. She couldn't rest, no matter how many coffins she climbed into. As for Eric, he prowled up and down, muttering darkly, while making an unflattering effigy of Rudyard out of straw. And where was I, you ask? I was ensconced in the kettle, nine thimbles down.

Even for Maldihyde is blessed when you're plastered.

The sun rose upon the fourth and final day of this confounding conflict. As crowds of the curious flocked to the church, drawn by the promise of a haunted kettle, Eric joined Antigone outside. But if Antigone held any hope for words of advice or consolation, she was disappointed. Eric was too fixated on his own concerns to spare a thought for hers.

Beth Eyre (3:37)

Chapman? If you knew a thing, a thing that wasn't real, but other people thought it was real, would it be a bad thing to let them go on thinking it was real if you knew how to convince them it wasn't real but you didn't?

Tom Crowley (3:52)

I could put Rudyard in a bin.

Beth Eyre (3:56)

Sorry?

Felix Trench (3:56)

Yes.

Tom Crowley (3:57)

I could pick him up and I could put him in a bin. And then I'd put the lid on it and I'd kick it down a hill.

He can't block my funeral when he's stuck in a bin.

Beth Eyre (4:15)

You didn't sleep last night, did you?

Tom Crowley (4:17)

No. I've got a better idea.

I could interfere with the flowers in his wreaths so that they say rude words. Or I could take a minor role in a play he's starring in and then I'd really annoy him for some reason. Chapman. Or lure him up a waterfall and expose his secret past.

Beth Eyre (4:38)

Rudyard doesn't have a secret past.

Tom Crowley (4:40)

That's ridiculous, Antigone. Everyone has a secret past. It's just a question of finding it. I bet Marjorie knows.

Beth Eyre (4:45)

Chapman, can you please stop foreshadowing and listen to me? You've lost the bet. You have to accept it.

Tom Crowley (4:50)

Nonsense. We have suffered a setback, Antigone. Nothing more. I refuse to concede to that jack of all trades. He thinks he can do everything, does he? Well, anything he can do, I can do better.

Beth Eyre (4:59)

Chapman, snap out of it. You're not Rudyard and you never will be.

Tom Crowley (5:02)

We'll see about that. Hand me that mandolin.

Beth Eyre (5:05)

I haven't got a mandolin. I've got a kettle. I've got a kettle with a mouse and it's you understand a mouse. But they're all going to think it's a ghost unless I have a crisis of conscience and tell them, which I won't. What I'm trying to say is not everything rolls around you.