Black Books Episode Guide: The Entertainer
He's Leaving Home | Black Books | Fever
Warning: Plot details follow.
Fran takes up the piano as a hobby. Of course, this means that she must also buy a piano and leave it sitting in the middle of Bernard's shop. Meanwhile, Manny is fed up with working 73 straight hours and goes out to have lunch, demanding that the last copy of the book Blue Sands be reserved for a character named Williams as he has written in the back of the ledger. Bernard, however, is suffering from a vicious hang-over:
Manny: It's not my fault you're hung over.
Bernard: It is your fault! If I lived with a normal person, there wouldn't be so much to blot out.
Bernard's hangover disappears when an attractive young woman walks into the store, looking to buy the last copy of Blue Sands. In attempt to persuade her that he's not a total freak, Bernard give the book away, quelling Manny's protests by applying the ledger to his head. Seconds after she leaves the store, a large man in a leather jacket walks in. Bernard quickly pins the blame on Manny (currently on the phone and unaware of what is happening) and he and Fran exit, leaving Manny to acquire a black eye from an angry Williams.
Cut to the next day, when Fran is taking piano lessons from her tutor, a blind Russian named Ioseph. Unfortunately, she is not as good as she had hoped, and after ten minutes she is already fed up. However her tutor will not be beaten so easily.
Iosef: When you hired me, you hired a Slavanski. My family has taught piano for two hundred years. Of all my thirteen brothers and sisters, I was the one sent on the scholarship; the rest stayed behind in the yurt.
Fran: What's a yurt?
Iosef: A tent, made of beaver skins. It's not so good.
Meanwhile, Bernard and Manny are sitting in the local pub, having been kicked out for the lesson. Manny is still trying to get some time off:
Manny: I want the weekend off! I mean it! I want a life!
Bernard: This is life! We suffer and slave and expire! That's it!
Manny: We have needs! Fran's got her piano, I want some time to myself, you want to go out with that girl.
Bernard: Don't make me laugh bitterly. Fran will fail, you'll toil your life away, and I'll die alone, upside-down on the floor of a pub toilet.
Just then, they notice that the girl is sitting, unawares, a couple of tables away. Manny bets Bernard the weekend off that she'll say yes if he asks her out, and, plucking up his courage, Bernard does so. To his surprise, the girl (whose name is Kate) says yes.
Kate: Is tomorrow alright?
Bernard is speechless.
Kate: You did ask me out, didn't you?
Bernard: Yes, yes I did, and look what happened. I'm sorry to bother you.
Returning to the bookshop, we find Fran still unable to play:
Fran: I must be musical! I've got hundreds of CDs!
Manny: I always wanted to learn, but my parents forced me not to. I spent hour after hour playing football, all by myself. Peering in at all the other children in the neighbourhood, practicing their piano.
She and Bernard go out to get generally drunk, leaving Manny in charge. While messing around with the piano, he suddenly finds that he's a natural pianist! The next morning he makes this fact known to his friends by playing them a classical music piece...just as Iosef walks in. Quick to take advantage of the situation, Fran pretends it was her playing the piece, and that she had been practicing all night. They almost manage to get rid of the tutor, but then Bernard mentions Bach - Iosef's favourite. He will does not leave until he coerces Fran into a performance of Bach the next day. Manny is persuaded into performing for Iosef, but before he can retire for the evening Kate walks in for her date with Bernard. Seeing the piano, she asks Bernard if he plays. Unable to resist the chance to show off, he says he does so, and quickly inveigles Manny into hiding in the piano body and playing the strings with spoons, while he sits grinning at the keys. Finally the two lovebirds head off for dinner, letting Manny crawl down to the pub to drown his sorrows.
The next day, Fran and Bernard decide it's time to admit the truth to both Kate and Iosef that they cannot play the piano (and they don't have much choice since Manny's enjoying his free weekend) - until they find that Iosef has flown in not only his father Pitor but also his grandfather Anton from Russia in order to hear her play. Fran decides she cannot let her tutor's family down, and goes out back to talk to Manny. Bernard joins her when Kate shows up, wanting to here some more of his playing. Several tunes later, Manny is fed up and slips out of the piano, unnoticed by all. Bernard and Fran start on their finale, only to find the piano no longer works for them...
Hilarity Ensues