And now it's time for the third episode of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.
Remember how the Nutcracker that's me led the toys in a battle with the Mouse King and how the little girl Mary fell and cut her arm.
Godpapa Drosselmeyer, the curious old man with an eyepatch who repairs clocks and makes magical toys, started telling Mary and her brother Fred the story of how I came to look the way I do.
It all began in another kingdom, a long way away, when the Queen was preparing a sausage banquet for the King.
Suddenly, the Lady Mouseykins, Queen of all mousedom, popped up in the kitchen and demanded that she be allowed to taste the royal bacon.
I only asked the merest morsel, just a little scrap, the most insignificant mouthful.
Mmm, mmm, mmm.
Mmm, delicious.
The only problem is it's so good.
It seems unfair that I alone, among the inhabitants of Mouse-dom, should be able to enjoy it.
Quick, as a flash out, jumped Mouse-igan's sons and daughters, uncles and aunts, nephews and cousins, and they all started gobbling up the Queen's bacon.
No, stop it!
Help!
Help!
Help!
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.
A serial for radio in four episodes by Brian Sidley.
Based on the story by E.T.A.
Hoffman.
With Tony Robinson as the Nutcracker, Edward D'Souza as Drosselmeyer and James Grout as the King.
Episode 3, Mouseykin's Revenge.
In rushed the chief lady-in-waiting and all the ordinary ladies-in-waiting who all started flapping their skirts and handkerchiefs and shooing and shushing and screaming and shrieking.
Shoo!
Shoo!
Go away!
Humans!
Come away, my darlings!
Come away!
But we'll return another day!
That doesn't sound very encouraging.
When they had all disappeared back under the kitchen floor, the queen made an awful discovery.
The royal bacon!
It's almost all gone!
Oh, if the king doesn't get his sausage banquet, he'll be so angry.
Whatever shall I do?
So what do you think she did?
Went out and bought some sausages?
No, no, no, no, Fred, that would never have done.
Did she cook something different?
No, my dear Mary, that wouldn't have done either.
Then tell us, Godpapa Drosomai, what did the Queen do?
Now, I'm only a nutcracker, but what I think she should have done is She sent for the Royal Mathematician, of course.
Of course.
Now then, three-fours are twelve, multiply by seventy-six, add ninety-one and seven-eighths, And can you guess what he did?
Divide by 29 plus 155.
He used rulers and set squares and protractors and compasses.
Minus the square root of 42.
And scientifically divided what was left of the bacon between all the sausages.
Accurately to three decimal places.
Oh, dear.
I do hope nobody notices.
But it was a bit late to worry about that, because the guests were already arriving.
Royal Majesties and Noble Lords, welcome to our palace.
Let there be music and merriment.
And let the feasting begin.
Just a word about the menu.
I've been thinking recently and it occurred to me that royal banquets have become far too grand and everyone eats far too much food.
So, I decided that this banquet would be very, very simple.
None of those elaborate dishes with rich sauces.
Instead, the royal chef has prepared an excellent thin soup.
Oh dear, dear, don't look so glum.
I was only joking.
This is actually one of my famous sausage banquets.
So, without further ado, bring on the sausages.
At first it seemed as if everything was going to be all right, but then the king began to look rather pale.
Oh, dear.
Oh, dear, dear, dear.
By the second course of sausages he looked decidedly under the weather, and by the third course it was obvious that his majesty was not at all well.
Is something wrong, my dear?
Oh, the king.
Whatever can be wrong with the king?
Send for the royal doctors.
So they did.
Breathe deeply.
Hold your breath.
Close your eyes.
Open wide.
Say ah.
Give him air.
Give him water.
Give him wine.
Give him smelly salts.
Pat his back.
Mop his brow.
Take his pulse.
Just his eyesight.
But the doctors couldn't find out what was wrong with the king.
And then at last he told them.
Not enough bacon.
Not enough taste.
It's all the fault of that horrid Lady Mousikins.
So the queen explained about Lady Mousikins and the royal bacon.
And the king immediately sent for the royal clockmaker and engineer.
And do you know what his name was?
How could we know his name, Godpapa?
Let me guess.
It was... Christian Elias Drosselmeyer.
Well, well, well.
The same name as yours, Godpapa.
Indeed.
He was a brilliantly clever man.
And he'd become very famous in his own city, which was some long way away.
And he'd only recently been appointed royal clockmaker.
And so Drosselmeyer agreed to try and find a way to rid the Palace of the Mice.
For weeks he worked in secret.
There, your majesties.
Wonderful.
What on earth is it?
A machine, sire.
What does it do?
Watch.
Take a crisply fried bacon rind and attach it to this hook, which is suspended a few inches above the kitchen floor.
Then the moment that a mouse takes the bacon rind, the machine automatically switches itself on like this
Then what does it do?
Then...
This lever connects with this arm which operates this pulley, which activates this flywheel, which engages with this cogwheel and rotates this winch in an anticlockwise direction.
Then this ratchet on this pinwheel releases this cage which swiftly descends on the bacon-libbing rodent.
Splendid!
So Drosselmeyer made a great many of these contraptions and set them up in the kitchen.
And sure enough, the lady Mousikins and her family soon smelt the bacon and came sniffing and snuffling out of their hole under the floor.
No sooner had the mice started nibbling the bacon rinds than the trap began to work.
Mousekins tried to warn the others.
Look out!
Traps!
Mice, beware!
But it was too late.
It's a trap!
Little mice, it's a trap!
Yes, Fred, it was far too late.
Well done, Drosselmeyer, you did it!
You've caught all those nasty mice!
Not all, Your Majesty's.
Not Lady Mousikins.
Oh, dear me, no.
No.
No trap was clever enough to trap her.
She and one or two of her followers managed to escape.
You have not heard the last of the Lady Mousikins!
That doesn't surprise me in the least.
It's not a very happy story, Godpapa.
Oh, it gets happier.
For a while.
How?
Because the Queen decided to have a baby.
I shall call her the Princess Pearly Pat. and we shall call her Pearly Patkin for short.
She had white skin and sky-blue eyes and pretty golden hair.
The king was so happy to have a daughter that he danced and hopped and whirled around on one leg.
Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah!
Has anyone ever seen anything more beautiful than our little Pearly Patkin?
And all the courtiers and ministers cried, and they also danced and hopped and whirled around on one leg.
In fact, everyone was as happy as could be, until one day when the queen was in the kitchen cooking toad in the hole for the king's supper.
All of a sudden Congratulations, your majesty.
Mousykins, what do you want?
Oh, dear, can it be that I'm intruding where I am not welcome?
I am only visiting you in order to congratulate you on the birth of your baby, the Princess Pearlypatch.
After all, I have had babies of my own.
Most of them, of course, are now dead.
Thanks to those infernal machines created by the clockmaker Drusselmeyer.
If you are not gone from here, this instance... Very well.
I am leaving.
But be warned.
For merely nibbling the royal bacon, almost all my family have been put to death.
Take care the Queen of Mousedom doesn't nibble your delicious little baby in two.
What a terrible thing.
I thought you said the story was going to get happier.
Well, it did, dear lady.
Everyone, with the possible exception of Mousikins, was very happy about the birth of Pearly Patton.
But happiness doesn't last forever, though we might wish that it did.
What did the Queen do?
Did you invent more mousetraps?
Me?
Whatever gave her the idea that I invented the mousetraps?
But it was someone called Drosomire.
And that is your name?
How do you explain that, Godpapa?
I can't.
Any more than I can explain why there are so many children in the world called Fred and Mary.
Of course, the clockmaker was asked for his help, but there was nothing he could do.
But, Drosselmeyer, why can't you do something?
I'm afraid the Queen of all Mausdom is far too clever for me, Your Majesty, and for my machines.
But whatever will become of my baby?
That's what we all want to know.
I want an armed guard on duty outside the door to the royal nursery 24 hours a day.
Whatever for, my dear?
To stop the Lady Mousikins from getting in.
Oh, of course, of course.
Oh, you shall have two armed guards.
And I want two nurses to watch over the cradle day and night.
Very well, if you think that's necessary.
And six more nurses to sit all round the room.
My dear, think of the expense.
What has expense got to do with the safety of our daughter?
Oh, nothing whatsoever, my dear.
Six nurses.
And each of them must sit with a cat on her lap.
Hmm?
Which must be stroked all the time to make quite sure that they never stop purring. all arranged.
The guards kept watch outside the nursery, while inside, for many nights, there wasn't even a scent of danger and the Princess Pearly Pat, slept safe and sound.
Then, one night, just as everyone was beginning to forget about Mousykin's threats, it happened.
What did?
Tell us, please.
One by one, the seven nurses fell fast asleep.
And as they did so, they stopped stroking the cats.
And one by one, the cats stopped purring.
And the moment all the cats stopped purring, there was the pitter-patter-pitter of tiny feet.
Where is she?
Where is she?
Where is the pretty little princess?
Ah, there's the cradle.
Let's take a peep at sweet little Polly Pat.
Up we climb, up, up, up.
There.
Well, well, Your Highness, may I introduce myself?
I am the Lady Mousykins.
How do you do?
And that's when the Princess Pearly Pat woke up.
And the seven nurses.
And the seven cats.
It's mercy, kids.
The cat will get her.
There she goes.
Through a crack in the floor.
She's got to move.
Wake the queen.
Send for the king.
Call out for the god.
What about the baby?
Yes, what about the baby, good papa?
It's all right.
Thank heavens.
Poor little lamb.
She's alive.
And so she was.
But oh dear.
Oh dear.
She hardly looked like the Princess Pearly Pad anymore.
My baby!
Pearly Padkin!
What has happened to you?
No longer was the princess a pretty little thing with soft white skin, sky blue eyes and golden curls.
No.
Now...
She was a nasty, dumpy shape with a huge head on a shrunken, crumpled body.
Her eyes were green, wooden-looking balls.
And her lovely little mouth was now a great, wide, ugly grin that reached from ear to ear.
Who does that remind you of?
How terrible for the king and queen.
They almost went mad.
Oh, I wish I'd eaten my sausages without bacon.
Oh, I wish I hadn't offended the Lady Mousikin.
Oh, I wish I hadn't listened to Drosselmeyer.
Where is he, by the way?
Send for him immediately.
Did you go?
Drosselmeyer went.
He had no choice.
This terrible tragedy is all your fault, Drosselmeyer.
You made Mousikins angry with your clever traps.
And now our dear, sweet Princess Pearly Pat has been turned into the most ghastly monster.
Your Majesty... Silence!
Well, clockmaker, we will see just how clever you really are.
You have four weeks in which to put the princess back to the way she was before this vile crime.
But I don't think.
Your Majesty, Then you had better think, and think fast, or we will have you beheaded.
And that is our final word.
Four weeks?
One month?
What could he possibly do in that time?
Being a clockmaker, he decided to begin by finding out what made Pearly Pat tick.
I shall very carefully take the princess to pieces.
Now, this comes off here and that unscrews.
Twist this like that, turn to the left and then unwind and undo this and take that out and... Oh!
Oh, dear, this isn't good.
The bigger she grows, the uglier she's going to get.
And what's worse, I can't see any way of putting things right.
So you just put her back together again?
Is there nothing you can do to help my child?
I'm afraid I don't know where to begin.
Oh, please, try and think of something.
Now I must give Pearly Pat her supper.
Here you are, my dear.
Well, there's a familiar noise.
Nuts?
You give a baby nuts?
It's all she'll eat, Drosselmeyer.
She cracks open the shells with those great big jaws of hers and then eats the kernel.
Ah, how stupid of me.
You've shown me the answer.
I haven't.
This is exactly what I've been looking for.
I only hope I've not discovered it too late to save the princess.
Oh, my neck.
So Drosselmeyer went to consult his old friend, the royal astronomer, whose lectures he had attended when he was at university.
Let's draw up Pearly Pat's horoscope.
So they did, which was a very complicated business involving The line of the head Which goes from here To here.
Can that really be right?
Remarkable.
The line of the heart... Starting here and crossing over... To here.
I hardly dare believe it.
Astonishing.
The line of life.
Round here, down there and up.
To here.
Extraordinary.
And most importantly of all.
The line of fate.
Which reaches all the way.
From point A here.
Along there.
Getting tangled up just here.
But then going on again.
To point B there.
Q-E-D.
So there we have it, Drosselmeyer.
If our predictions are correct, then all the princess has to do to be beautiful again is simply eat the sweet kernel of the Nut Crackatook.
The Nut what?
Crackatook.
Never heard of it.
The Nut Crackatook has such a hard shell that a 48-pound cannon can be fired at it without even denting it.
Fancy.
Did you hear that, my dear?
Then how can the princess open the nut and get to the colonel?
Ah, yes.
What do you say to that?
The nut must be cracked for her.
Of course.
But how?
Exactly.
How?
By a man who was never shaved... And never worn boots.
Who must then hand it to the princess... With his eyes shut.
And must not open them again... Until he has taken seven steps... Backwards.
Without tripping over...
And the princess will be her old self again?
On the contrary, Your Majesty.
She will be her young self again.
Bravo, bravo.
This is wonderful news.
You shall be rewarded, Drosselmeyer.
Your Majesty.
You must begin as soon as dinner is over.
Have the young unshaved man in shoes here with this nut thingy.
A crack or two.
Quite.
And make sure the lad doesn't drink anything beforehand.
Your Majesty.
We don't want him tripping over when he walks backwards, do we?
Your Majesty.
Of course, he can drink as much as he likes just so long as it is afterwards.
Your Majesty.
What is it now?
I'm afraid you don't quite understand.
The Nutcracker Took and the young man have still got to be found.
What?
And I'm afraid we don't know yet whether they can be found or where to begin looking for them.
Then we shall have to behead you after all.
Your Majesty.
Yes, and you as well, Astronomer.
At once.
Send for the royal executioner.
Oh, please be merciful, my dear.
They have found a way of making Pearly Pat well again.
And if you cut their heads off, then they can't do anything more to help.
And poor Pearly Pat will stay like this forever.
There, there, my dear.
Don't upset yourself.
The Queen has a point.
We will show mercy to you both, providing you go and find the nutcracker, whatever it is, and the young man, and don't come back until you have.
And so Drosselmeyer and the royal astronomer left the court and set out on their quest.
For 15 years they journeyed north, south, east and west.
From Bangkok to Bucharest.
The Thames crossed the Alps, mile upon mile of Egypt, explored jungles and every terrain, and London called it Constantinople.
Why not?
The one place in 15 years we've not been to is our own city, the place where we were born and bred and grew up.
So off they went.
And as soon as they arrived in the old town, the clockmaker went to look for his brother, the dollmaker Zacharias Drosselmeyer.
When they found him in a dusty old shop down one of the narrow winding streets, Drosselmeyer and the astronomer told the dollmaker about their 15-year adventure.
What an amazing story, brother.
We haven't told you the half of it.
How he spent two years at the court of the King of Dates.
You don't say.
Or how he was taken prisoner by the Prince of Armand.
That was when my friend Drosselmeyer lost one of his eyes.
Oh, how absolutely terrifying.
Although the eye patches... most elegant.
That is something I would rather forget.
But if you wish, I will tell you how we tried to find the nut-cracker-took by making inquiries with the curator of the Natural History Society in Squirrel Town.
Cracker-took?
This nut, this cracker-took, is it a very hard nut-took?
Oh, you could drop it from the tallest tower in the world without even chipping it.
Really?
Whatever is the matter?
I think you may well be saved, brother.
Unless I am very much mistaken, I myself have this nut you are looking for.
It's the kind of coincidence you'd only believe in a fairy tale.
I'm not even sure I believe it there.
Anyway, Zacharias Drosselmeyer took out of his waistcoat pocket a very large nut painted with gold paint.
Was it the crackatook?
I'm just coming to that.
Mary, what on earth are you staring at?
It's strange that good Papa Drosselmeyer also wears an eye patch.
That's not the only thing that's strange.
There's more to all this than meets the eye.
And with his one good eye, looked closely at it.
How did you get this nut, Zacharias?
Oh, it was years ago now.
One Christmas, a foreigner came into town selling nuts.
Well, the local nut sellers weren't very pleased and told him to pack up and leave.
When he refused, they threatened to use force.
So he put down his sack of nuts in order to defend himself, and a wagon ran over it, crushing them all to bits.
Except one.
This one.
The foreigner offered to sell it to me for a silver coin with the date 1796 on it.
It just so happened that I had in my pocket a silver coin with that date on it, so naturally...
I bought the nut and took it home with me.
I tried to crack it several times, but without success.
In fact, I almost threw it away.
But after all, I'd paid good money for it, so I decided to keep it.
And I had a pot of my best gold paint open at the time, so I decided to paint it up to look like a solid gold charm.
I've carried it with me ever since for luck.
Well, it may well prove luckier than you expected.
May I remove the gold paint?
Of course, but I'm not sure what good it will do.
Well, let's see.
Oh, look, look.
Letters, or rather, characters.
Oh, it's Chinese.
And it says...
Yes, yes.
Crack a talk.
It's too good to be true.
All we have to do now is find a young man who can crack it.
And that could take another 15 years.
Listen.
What is it?
Shh!
In the third episode of ETA Hoffman's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, you heard Edward de Souza as Godpapa and young Drosselmeyer, Oriol Smith as Lady Mousekins and Tony Robinson as the Nutcracker.
Mary was played by Angela Shafto and Fred by Blair Ford, with James Grout as the king, Joanna Wake as the queen, Cyril Jenkins as the lady-in-waiting, Brett Usher as the astronomer, Ronald Herdman as Zacharias, Sandra Clarke as Mama and Eric Allen as the mathematician.
Other parts were played by Harriet and Catherine Usher and members of the cast.
The music was composed and performed by David Hewson.
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King was written for radio by Brian Sibley and directed in our Bristol studios by Peter Fozzard.
Now, where have I heard that sound before?
