Grand Finale

Chapter 1. The Professional Dummy

Deep in the bowels of the London Palladium, Argyll Street was a corridor filled with dressing rooms. Each dressing room door had a bright gold star painted on its outside. On one particular door the name of the act currently occupying the room was papered beneath its gold star: The Great Bentley and his Talking Timber, Tommy!

Inside the dressing room, Bentley and his ventriloquist's dummy, Tommy were preparing to perform for the night's show; a live performance already underway and beaming to billions of fans around the world...such was the pulling power of one particularly talented act. An act saved for the show's Grand Finale: The Great Bentley and his Talking Timber, Tommy!

It was Bentley and his ventriloquist's dummy that had single-handedly revived the televised variety act. Words cannot hope to express the magnetism of the act.

The dummy had been examined on many occasions immediately after the act, as it seemed impossible to believe that there was not a tiny person lurking beneath its apparent wooden exterior. One of the examinations, televised by the BBC, is now a TV and viral internet clip comedy classic. Tommy's protestations at being examined were hilarious. These were thorough examinations, because the consequences of finding anything amiss, anything but an ordinary ventriloquist's dummy, would have cost Bentley and his management agency millions of pounds...not to mention the end of his career...or worse!

One of the reasons the dummy, Tommy seemed so alive to the audience was due in part to Bentley's apparent incredible skill of being able to speak at the same time as Tommy. In one act, Bentley swaggered around the stage completely inebriated and moaning about the pressure of being famous while Tommy sang 'What a Wonderful World' in a fruity sober voice. Bentley appeared to collapse into unconsciousness near the end of the act, but Tommy finished the act off before screaming out for a doctor from the audience. The curtains closed, and Bentley had to be carried away on a stretcher to his dressing room.

Tonight Bentley had had a drink or two, but was not drunk. The dressing room had a small writing desk, a bed, a chair and a mirror above a sink. Bentley was sitting on the edge of the bed staring angrily at the dummy that sat arrogantly on a chair. Not for the first time he was deep in argument with his dummy.

'But we had a deal!' snapped Tommy, his musical ventriloquist jabber rising to breaking point. His wooden lips had not moved, though the sound seemed to be coming from them.

'I know, I know,' pleaded Bentley quickly. He looked troubled and much older than his thirty years. 'Oh, Tommy. Don't you see? I've got to be the one who runs the show. If people thought you real... Oh, Tommy, surely you see!' Bentley was exasperated as his control over the dummy was diminishing, and the curtain call was imminent.

'So you admit it, I'm real?'

'How else can I explain this madness? I wish I had never met that Master character on that blasted fateful day.'

As Bentley stared insanely at Tommy he felt the croaky high-pitched jabber build in his throat. 'The Master gave me to you on that "blasted fateful day", and he gave me the skill to put words in your mouth. He knew of my entertainment abilities. I'm more than a dummy...and Bentley, you are less than one! At best, you are a professional dummy, working for the Master. You have no skills of your own. Zero talent. The Master saw in you the perfect straight man...that's all.'

'Nevertheless, I refuse, categorically and unequivocally to say the key words the Master gave me to free you,' shouted a resolute Bentley, shooting up to his feet from the edge of the bed with a pained expression. He plodded the few feet to Tommy and planted his screwed up angry face in front of Tommy's deathly-still brightly painted face.

'Bah!' said Tommy. 'Tonight will be a show they'll never forget, Bentley—you useless bag of blood and bones. A deal's a deal. I've made you great. Greater even than the Master thought possible. You must say the words he gave you and release me.'