Write Cricket Bats

An excerpt from Tom Stoppard's play, The Real Thing, Act Two, the middle of Scene Five:

HENRY: It's no good.

ANNIE: You mean it's not literary.

HENRY: It's not literary, and it's no good. He can't write.

ANNIE: I know it's raw, but he's got something to say.

HENRY: He's got something to say. It happens to be something extremely silly and bigoted. But leaving that aside, there is still the problem that he can't write. He can burn things down, but he can't write.

ANNIE: Give it back. I shouldn't have asked you.

HENRY: For God's sake, Annie, if it wasn't Brodie you'd never have got through it.

ANNIE: But it is Brodie. That's the point. Two and a half years ago he could hardly put six…