Chart Throb (37 page)

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Authors: Ben Elton

BOOK: Chart Throb
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‘You think I should wear my glasses then?’
‘Duh!’
Chelsie urged. ‘It’s a slam dunk. Of
course
you should wear your glasses!’
And so Damian was ushered before the famous judging panel wearing his glasses. Staring myopically through lenses that grotesquely magnified his eyes, he parted his enormous teeth and announced that he would like to sing ‘Everything Is Beautiful’.
The song had been Chelsie’s suggestion.
‘Something upbeat but also soulful, babes,’ she had assured him, by which she had meant that this highly dubious thesis would have a particular comic resonance when coming from ugly little Damian.
Damian couldn’t sing at all. Calvin knew he couldn’t sing because he’d watched Damian’s video during the final selection. Nonetheless Calvin assumed an expression of stunned incredulity as if taken utterly by surprise. Then just as Damian reached the third line Calvin called a halt.
‘Thank you!’ he shouted. ‘It’s a no. Goodbye.’
Now it was Damian’s turn to be stunned. He knew the way
Chart Throb
worked, he had watched the show, the contestants sang their whole song. They got a moment to argue their case. They received constructive criticism. Then all three judges were called upon to vote.
‘But can’t I—’ he began.
But Damian did
not
know how the show worked. He did not realize the pre-assessment of him had been that he had no potential Cling or Bling at all, he was pure Ming. He would not plead pathetically and he was too sensible a lad to be persuaded to claim to be the new Justin Timberlake. The only interesting things about him were his teeth and his glasses. These had been duly committed to camera and would later be included in a two-second bite as part of a Minger montage.
Chart Throb
was done with Damian.
As if from nowhere, a security man (a real one, not one of the enormous bald extras who featured in the show) suddenly appeared in the company of a pretty junior PA. The good and the bad cops then marched Damian directly from the room.
‘Next up is Doreen,’ Trent said. ‘Chelsie’s got her all bigged up and ready.’
Trent had noticed Calvin’s clear approval of Chelsie’s performance and he was far too clever to try and kick against that particular shit. Much better to go with the flow and try to colonize Chelsie’s ascendancy as if it had in fact been him who had nurtured it.
‘Which one is Doreen again?’ Beryl enquired with weary martyrdom, as if she was a saint to put herself through the gruelling process of making television.
‘Tic Toc,’ Trent informed her.
Tic Toc was
Chart Throb
slang for Toothless Old Crone.
‘Oh God,’ Beryl lamented. ‘Is she a smack head?’
‘Didn’t like to ask.’
Doreen, a terrifying social casualty, skeletal, toothless, ancient long before her time and with a distinct aroma of urine about her, was duly brought before the judges. The fleshless quality of her cadaverous frame was emphasized by the fact that her minidress had a heart-shaped hole cut in the front revealing the grey, dry skin of her stomach and the deep, hollow navel. Doreen had arrived wearing a leather jacket but Chelsie had assured her that she would be so much prettier with it off. Doreen’s cheeks were sunken into her toothless mouth and her dyed black hair had been falling out in chunks. What was left of it hung greasily from a centre parting, framing the face of a woman who looked sixty but wasn’t.
‘How old are you, Doreen?’ Calvin asked.
He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear her say it.
‘I’m forty-three, Calvin,’ Doreen said, at which Calvin pulled his stunned mullet expression. He then proceeded to engage Doreen in a brief discussion about her ambitions to be a singer, which, had it been broadcast in full, would have revealed her to be a damaged, hopelessly inadequate, almost certainly drug-addicted borderline mental case who had lived an appalling life of deprivation and abuse. However, the two or three bites that would emerge from the edit just made her look like a mad, nasty, arrogant old bat.
‘I’m a singer, Calvin. I reckon I can show them little girlies it’s experience that counts . . . I got glamour I have, I’ve turned heads. Just let me show you what I got to offer . . .’
Then Calvin invited her to sing. They gave her three lines of ‘Amazing Grace’ and then let her have it.
‘If you were the only contestant in the competition you’d lose,’ said Calvin.
‘You might get work at Hallowe’en,’ said Rodney.
‘Have you thought about investing in a hair weave?’ said Beryl with croaky-voiced sincerity, for it was her special talent to be able to look both sympathetic and contemptuous all at once.
In the depths of Doreen’s malfunctioning brain a tiny light bulb lit up and in a rare moment of clarity she suddenly recognized something which would have been blindingly obvious to her, had she had all her faculties. She’d been had.
‘That fucking woman told me my hair looked lovely!’ she suddenly screamed, pointing at Chelsie, who had poked her head round the partition. ‘She told me you like the natural look!’
Chelsie was very grateful to have confirmation of her grooming process delivered to Calvin straight from the horse’s mouth.
‘I wanted to keep me hat on,’ Doreen protested.
But further discussion was superfluous. Doreen’s story was done. The good and bad cops appeared and she, like Damian, was ushered quickly from the room.
‘Next up, Madge, another oldie,’ Trent informed them.
‘Please not another ex-crack whore,’ Beryl pleaded.
‘No, a Moby.’
Moby was
Chart Throb
slang for Mad Old Bat.
Calvin featured a couple of Mobies every year, frail but feisty grannies who wanted to sing ‘proper songs’. They were good telly and they helped support the outrageous fiction that
Chart Throb
, unlike other talent shows, was genuinely oblivious to age.
‘Hello, hello,’ said Madge, hobbling in on her Zimmer frame. She had wanted to leave her coat and handbag outside but Chelsie had assured her that it would look great if she had all her bits and pieces with her.
‘Hello, Madge,’ said Calvin, assuming his expression of bemused tolerance.
‘Hello, darling!’ shouted Beryl, pulling the cloyingly protective face that she reserved for babies and Mobies.
Rodney grinned with what he imagined was a wry twinkle.
Once again an inordinate amount of the judges’ time was allocated to a person who had no more chance of being a Chart Throb than an actual corpse would have done but who would provide, when suitably edited, a minute or so of good telly.
‘I just think it’s time to give us old ’uns a go,’ Madge was coaxed to say. ‘Do you mind if I play my ukulele? I can dance, too, you know. A lot of chaps think I have very fine ankles.’
Then in a sweetly quivering voice Madge sang ‘Daisy, Daisy’. It sounded suitably grannie-ish, as if it was a song from her youth, although it had in fact been an oldie when Madge’s own grannie was young. When it was over Rodney and Beryl voted to put her through, which was how the notes Trent had given them suggested they should vote. Calvin looked suitably stunned at their decision even though it was he who had given the instructions. The three then briefly ‘debated’ their ‘choice’.
‘You honestly think Madge could be a Chart Throb?’ Calvin asked.
‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ said Rodney. ‘I think she has something.’
‘You think Madge could cut it live? In a studio?’ Calvin insisted.
‘You’re being ageist,’ Beryl claimed. ‘What is the point of us having no age restriction if you dismiss someone like Madge?’
When Calvin felt the pantomime had gone on long enough he called a vote and at two to one Madge was through to the next round. Calvin then helped her from the room, carrying her bag and coat. Outside, Madge was hugged by Keely while Calvin assumed his long-suffering look.
There followed in quick succession a whole host of Minger quickies, one-shot wonders whose ambition was pitiable enough to raise a laugh but who were not sufficiently interesting or insane to get a story to themselves. Shouters, screamers, midgets, beanpoles, porkers, baldies, speccies and goofies. Nutters in fancy dress, half-naked Druid couples, axe-wielding Vikings and Bacofoil-clad aliens. All were paraded in quick succession before an amusingly astonished judging panel before being just as quickly ejected.
Finally it was time to chuck the coffee over Rodney.
Resignation
‘This is all wrong!’ shouted Beryl. ‘I did NOT sign on for this. You know what, Rodney, you’re a great mate and I love you big time but you have just walked right through the edge of my envelope!’
They had retreated to the hospitality area to shoot the final part of the Vicky story. Beryl ranted and raved while Rodney, dripping wet, fondled a vol-au-vent nervously.
‘I just didn’t think she’d cut it in our business,’ he whined.
‘She’s
sixteen
, Rodney. The girl was
sixteen
!’
Behind her, Calvin was studying the sandwiches. Beryl rounded on him.
‘You know what, Calvin?’ she said. ‘I’ve had it, I didn’t buy into this, this is NOT what I signed up for. I’m out of here, that’s me done. Someone get me my fucking car! I’m going home. I love you both but I think you’re both horrible. I’m done!!!’
And with that Beryl swept out of the room.
‘Cut!’ shouted Chelsie before either Trent or the director had had a chance to.
Beryl swept straight back into the room.
‘Any good?’ she enquired. ‘You can bleep the “fucking”, can’t you? I’m not doing it again whatever you say, that was the third take and I have a shitload of calls to make.’
‘No, Beryl,’ Calvin assured her, ‘that was very, very good.’
Beryl then gathered up her phone and retreated to the make-up area.
‘OK, we’re done on that sequence,’ Trent called out. ‘We take fifteen and when we come back we’ll pick up Rodney apologizing to Beryl and her agreeing to stay.’
With that the crew began to lay down their equipment and Calvin too took up his phone.
‘Hang on!’ Rodney said firmly. ‘Hang on, hang on, hang
on!
What about our discussion, Calvin? Beryl leaves and we then have a blokey chat about how she gets too emotional and how it’s unprofessional and eventually for the good of the show I volunteer to try and coax her back.’
‘Not doing it, Rodney,’ Calvin explained. ‘No time. The item’s getting top heavy. Our chat’s been binned.’
Calvin was heading for the door.
‘HANG ON!!’ and this time Rodney shouted. ‘What do you mean, “top heavy”? It’s top heavy all right. Top heavy with Beryl! All we have is Beryl being mumsy, Beryl chucking coffee over ME, Beryl being all moral and righteous and Beryl walking out on the show. What exactly do I do?’
‘You apologize to her. We’ll shoot it after the break.’
‘EXACTLY. I apologize to BERYL! It’s her item again. What is it with you and this woman, Calvin?’
‘Beryl’s a mum, Rodney. It’s good telly.’
‘She’s a transsexual stepmum!’
‘People love all that. She’s lived, she’s suffered. Now we have only eight minutes left on the break, mate, I suggest you grab a cup of tea and get your make-up redone, you’re covered in coffee.’
‘How about this, Calvin?’ said Rodney, red with rage. ‘How about instead of Beryl
pretending
to resign, how about I
actually
resign? How would that be?’
Calvin thought for a moment then turned to Trent.
‘Trent,’ he said, ‘we need to cover this. This is gold. Real rage beats fake rage every time. I’ll pay the overtime, get the cameras back up to speed.’
Everyone in the room put down their coffee cups and took up their equipment. Once more Calvin turned to Rodney.
‘Rodney, mate, I know you’re pissed off but you are under contract so if you really are going to resign I’m going to have to ask you to hold for a couple of minutes while we get the cameras lined up.’
Rodney looked about him like a cornered animal.
‘You’re . . . you’re joking of course,’ he said, trying to smile.
‘Are you?’ said Calvin, smiling back.
‘Yes . . . yes, of course I’m joking.’
‘Good,’ said Calvin finally before standing the crew down once more.
‘Seven minutes on the break,’ Chelsie cried out, then, ‘Crew A with me please to the gents loo to shoot Planet Mars putting his make-up on.’
Words of Love
Calvin was finally able to grab a moment to put a call through to Emma. Standing discreetly in the corridor, he pressed autodial and found a frisson of pleasure even in the appearance of her name on the screen.
‘We just shot that spotty stage-school girl and her mum,’ Calvin said. ‘Do you remember them?’

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