- Just the fact that Oliver is knocked down and killed by a ham truck is Gallows Humour at its finest.
- Geoffrey trying to fulfill Oliver's final wish.
Reg Mortimer: How can we help you?
Geoffrey: Well, I wonder if you could do me the favour of removing Oliver's head from his body and setting the head aside prior to the cremation, saving the head. O.K., let me explain that I'm not crazy.
Sal Mortimer: With all due respect, we have heard otherwise.
Geoffrey: That was a temporary condition and I assure you, I don't want to do anything weird with the head. As a matter of fact, it was Oliver himself who requested that his flesh be removed and that his skull be used in all future productions of Hamlet. So, you see, it's not weird and in fact it is notarized.
Reg Mortimer: We've never removed a head.
Sal Mortimer: We've sewn them back on.
Geoffrey: Well, I imagine it's the same thing but in reverse.
Reg Mortimer: And there are legal implications.
Geoffrey: You see, I would have thought that the ethical implications of not respecting a man's last wish would outweigh the legal implications. Furthermore, I believe that the state has no place in the nation's bedrooms and by extension, their graves.
Reg Mortimer: We can remove the head, but we can't do the rendering, we're not equipped.
Geoffrey: I see. And where would you suppose a fellow would go for such a service?
Reg Mortimer: A taxidermist.
Sal Mortimer: I would begin with the less reputable firms.
Geoffrey: Thank you. Let's do this thing.
- Pretty much anything that comes out of Darren Nichols's mouth.
Darren: I am Darren Nichols. Deal with THAT.
Darren: I could tell you stories of my six weeks in a Schwartzfeldt puppet colony that would reduce you to tears.
Darren: I must say, I've fallen in love with the musical genre. It's the art form of the common man. If you want to communicate something to the proletariat, cover it in sequins and make it sing. It's noisy, vulgar and utterly meaningless. I love it.
- Ellen's reaction to Oliver's death:
Ellen: I always thought he'd grow old and die in the arms of some Jamaican cabana boy. But no, he got run over by a pig truck. Oh God. And I'm alone, just me and my dehydrated chameleon.
- Geoffrey and Darren's sword fight
.- And then afterwards, when an outraged (not upset, outraged) Darren confronts Richard and demands "everyone be fired". And then this:
Darren: I'm used to being hated. That's my thing. But I can't function as a director unless that hatred is kept in check by a thin, calculated veneer of invulnerability.
Richard: Darren, please, we have-
Darren: And another thing.... I may have cried... when I was stabbed. They may have seen me cry.
Richard: Darren, everyone cries when they're stabbed! There's no shame in that!
- This:
Ellen: This isn't a sitcom.
Geoffrey: Oh, well, yes, actually, it is. I have a broken wang and there is a lizard queen living downstairs.
- "I was trying to throttle a swan ... it seemed like a sensible thing to do at the time."
- Especially for those very familiar with Shakespeare, the three different theme songs (1 for each season) are hilarious.
- Geoffrey and his attempt to encourage the insufferable Darren Nichols to put the life back into his "dull, anti-romantic, vaguely condescending" production of Romeo and Juliet. "Go- go break your legs!"
- In the first episode of season 2, episode 1, when Geoffrey is telling Ellen that they’ll be producing Macbeth instead of Antony and Cleopatra:
Ellen: Geoffrey that is thrilling! And it’s a better play than Antony and Cleopatra-
Geoffrey: No no no no no, arguably it is not a better play, it’s actually quite flawed, it’s an extraordinarily difficult play to stage effectively, it’s blood, blood, blood, and more blood, and- I don’t wanna do it! This was Oliver’s thing!
Ellen: It would be a nice gesture in Oliver’s memory, you know-
Geoffrey: Oh, God, Ellen, you too.
Ellen: It would be good karma.
Geoffrey: ”Karma", you just wanna play Lady Macbeth.
Ellen: God, yes!
Geoffrey: I don’t believe this! Oliver Wells is dead! I poured him in the river and swans ate him! What do I have to do to get this man OUTTA MY LIFE?!
- Oliver and Geoffrey collaborating on Macbeth together:
Oliver: The Scotsman is evil. Both he and Banquo encounter the witches, both their futures are foretold, but only The Scotsman goes on a killing spree.
Geoffrey: “The Scotsman”? Oh, do you mean- Mac-beeeth?
Oliver: Geoffrey, please.
Geoffrey: What?
Oliver: Don’t say his name aloud!
Geoffrey: Who? Mac-beeeeth?
Oliver: You’re just asking for trouble.
Geoffrey: Well, we are rehearsing a play called Mac-beeeth. It’s gonna be a little awkward if I can’t say the title character’s name.
Oliver: This isn't actually rehearsal. This is a meeting after rehearsal.
Geoffrey: Oh I'm so sorry, Oliver, I forgot- you believe in the curse.
Oliver: And you don't?
Geoffrey: No. The only thing cursed about this play is that it is extraordinarily difficult to stage effectively.
Oliver: So you think you're above this kind of superstitious prattle?
Geoffrey: As a matter of fact I do, yes.
Oliver: You're talking to a ghost! Wake up and smell the coffin!
- Richard confronting Sanjay on his seemingly suicidal ad campaign for the festival:
Richard: Old people dying?? What is that supposed to communicate?
Sanjay: That we know how they feel! It’s a connection, it’s brilliant! You know who thought this up? An ideablast team composed of a puppeteer, a professional figure skater and a nine-year-old child!
Sanjay: ....You don’t like it.
Richard: It’s not just me. It’s our customers! They think we have gone crazy!
Sanjay: YES! And when they think we are all crazy, that is the moment when we get to decide the new message. There’ll be hostility- lots of hostility! Any change is resisted- because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.
Richard Nixon said that. We will
know this is working, when the very people who are the most invested in the old festival- people like you!- are
burning with fury.
[Grabbing Richard by his shirt] C’mon Richard! Show me fury!
Richard: Oh, stop this shi-
Sanjay: Ahh!
Richard: What?
Sanjay: Show me fury, Richard! AHHH!
Richard: Bahh!
Sanjay: AHHH!
Richard: Ahhhh!
Sanjay: AHHHHH!
Richard: AHHH!
Sanjay: AHHH!
Richard: AHHHHHHH!!!!!
Sanjay: There, you see? It’s working! [Hugs a confused-looking Richard]
- Geoffrey and Oliver's "couples' therapy" sessions. There's this clip. And also:
Oliver: My father was a brute. And absolute brute.... That's why mother and I drank.
- When Sophie gives her airheaded roommate Megan the benefit of the doubt, and offers to go out with her and Michael to the bar:
Megan: I took a two-week workshop with Laurie Turbit at The Actor's Incubator. Do you know her?
Sophie: No, I- I don't know of her at all.
Megan: Oh, she's fantastic! She has this way of teaching, it's called "The Chroma Technique".
Sophie: Chroma.
Megan: Yeah! Have you ever heard of it?
Sophie: I'm... sure I haven't.
Megan: The main idea... is that all emotions are like colors. So, before you start rehearsing, you look at your script, and decide what main emotions your character is having and what colors they are.
Sophie: So before you start rehearsal, so you can sort of attack the colors-
Megan: Right! So, like, "anger", might be red, right? And sadness is like-
Sophie: Blue?
Megan: No- it's green, actually!
Sophie: That's surprising!
Megan: Yeah! Well, then you just play the colors you decided on!
Sophie: Wow. That's... so, kinda straightforward- I wish we'd known this when we started doing
King Lear!
- Cyril regailing Frank ("Ducky") with the infamous incident of Geoffrey's nervous breakdown on stage:
Cyril: God knows what he'll do with Oliver's Hamlet. Play the lead himself?
Frank: You think?
Cyril: Oh, why not? [Dramatically] It was the play that drove him mad!
Frank: Oh, really?
Cyril: Seven years ago...
[Conspiratorially] I saw it all with me own eyes. 'Alfway through the gravedigger scene, he went all quiet an pale.
Frank: He went off?
Cyril: Off his nut. Then he leaped.
Frank: Leaped?
Cyril: Into the grave, Ducky, into Ophelia's bloody grave! Leaving Horatio and Laertes staring down into the 'ole as if they'd just made a wish!
Frank: Crikey!
Cyril: Crikey, indeed! Then he went screaming out into the night- mad as a hatter.
Frank: ...Well, he's... been to 'ospitals, maybe he's better.
Cyril: Maybe he's worse! Oh- here he comes.
Geoffrey: [Enters bar, sets down the skull of Oliver onto the table] Carlsburg. [Looks down at skull] Two Carlsburgs.
Frank: Cr-ikey.
Cyril: Bloody 'ell!
- This:
Geoffrey: Could I get a coffee, black?
Anna: Sure. Cream and sugar?
Geoffrey: Yeah. Black.
- The Macbeth when Geoffrey messes with Henry Breedlove (in an attempt to get a more honest performance out of him), is, if you'll pardon the overused expression, made of win:
Henry: [Furiously] I cannot function like this. This isn't theater, this is.... improvisation!
Geoffrey: Well that's a kind of theater, isn't it, very alive! Very exciting!
Henry: Fuck off!
