How to Get Ahead in Television (22 page)

I walked back to his street, shoulders slumped, scouring the street in case someone had dropped a pound on the ground. No such luck. Damn you, money-dropping gods. How could I have let this happen? I promised myself I would be militant with every penny from now on. If I didn't win this placement, I'd have to ask my parents for more money to afford to stay in London. They'd force me to get a ‘proper' job, and my TV dream would be over.

I rang JR's bell, cringing at how awkward this was.

‘Hello?' he said.

‘It's Poppy.'

I heard a long sigh down the intercom as he buzzed me in.

He opened his flat door onto the landing, looking at me with tired eyes.

‘I, um, I need to borrow three pounds. I've run out of money on my Oyster and I left my bank card at home,' I lied.

‘Penfold, Penfold, Penfold…' JR shook his head. ‘You're a walking disaster zone.'

He went to get his wallet, then handed me twenty quid.

‘No, I don't need—'

‘Just take it, Poppy.'

I took it and turned to go. I felt like the worst prostitute ever.

STEP 37 – THE TALENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT

FROM
: CLEMMIE

TO
: POPPY

Oi, slagface sister, you better not bail on Mum's birthday dinner tonight. I'm not dealing with Mum vs. Aunt Josephine on my own… Clem

FROM
: POPPY

TO
: NATALIE

Borrowed £20 from your top drawer. Sorry. Will pay you back. Long story.

I
WAS BEGINNING
two weeks' work on a new show based at a studio in Hammersmith. This was a relief as it meant I wouldn't have to deal with seeing JR in the office. The new series of the daytime TV show
Les and Kel
was starting and they needed an extra runner to help out at the studio. Les Stourton was a national treasure in his eighties, while Kel O'Shaunessy was a beautiful presenter in her twenties. She was also JR's ex-girlfriend.

I arrived to a bustling production office. Researchers were madly printing off scripts, an AP was trying to make a remote-control
dog work, and the Wardrobe girl was holding up three slightly different shades of red dress for the director to choose between.

‘There you are, Poppy,' said Trey Arnold, the show's producer. Trey wore skinny mottled denim jeans, a black turtleneck and perfectly coiffed hair. He was the campest person I'd ever met.

‘I need you to help look after Les and Kel today, okay? Just get them coffees, be nice to them, make them feel like the huge stars they wish they were. Dressing rooms are on the third floor.'

‘Sure, no problem.'

‘Oh, Poppy?'

‘Yes?'

‘Don't look at Les's hair when you talk to him. And if he asks you for a “special coffee”,' Trey leant in to whisper, ‘that means neat bourbon in a coffee mug…'

I knocked on Les Stourton's dressing room door.

‘Come in!' he shouted.

I walked in to find Les wearing a towel, having tan sprayed onto his arms and neck by a make-up girl.

‘Hi, I'm one of the runners. Can I get you anything, Mr Stourton?' I asked.

‘Ah, a new face! Who's this, then?'

‘I'm Poppy.'

‘A flower of the field. Now, could you be a dear and run my lines with me, petal?' Les said, handing me a pile of cards.

‘Um, sure.' I walked further into the room. ‘I'm only the runner though; I could get one of the researchers up here if you like?'

‘You can read, can't you?' asked Les.

I took the proffered cards. The make-up girl had finished with her spray tan and pulled out another bottle of spray.

‘We'll just sit you down, Les,' she said, manoeuvering him over to the chair.

‘Okay, I'll read Kel's bits then, shall I?' I scanned the cards. ‘Welcome to the brand-new series of
Les and Kel!
With me, Kel O'Shaunessy…'

‘And me, Les Stourton,' said Les.

The make-up girl was spraying some kind of black spray onto the back of Les's head. I couldn't help but watch what she was doing. It looked like some sort of spray-on hair: fine wisps of black silly string, artfully disguising Les's bald patch.

The make-up lady coughed.

‘Yes?' Les said, irritably.

Oh shit, I wasn't supposed to look at his hair.

‘Today we'll be looking at all things robotic,' I said, quickly looking back at the script.

‘And all things chaotic!' Les gave a fake chuckle. ‘As we look at ways to keep your house that bit tidier!'

Who used spray-on hair? I thought, still mesmerized by the process going on in front of me. I wondered what else you could spray on. Spray-on eyebrows? Spray-on nose? That was ridiculous. Oops, Les was waiting for me again.

‘And if you want to enter our competition, to win a holiday for two in the Seychelles, all you need to do is give us a call on—'

‘This isn't right,' Les said, handing me back the cards.

‘Sorry?'

‘This script is wrong. Tell Trey about the numbers. Will you fetch me a coffee, petal?'

Did that mean special coffee or normal coffee? The make-up girl tapped her foot impatiently, so I took the cards and left.

Downstairs, I found Trey.

‘Um, Les said his script is wrong – something about the numbers?'

‘Oh bollocks.' Trey clicked his fingers at one of the APs. ‘Did you put phone numbers in Les's script?'

‘Er, maybe?' the girl said cautiously.

‘Les doesn't read phone numbers, it's in his contract. Any phone numbers, Kel has to read. Fix it.'

The AP scurried off to make changes.

‘He doesn't read phone numbers?' I asked.

Trey shrugged at me. ‘He doesn't read phone numbers.'

I went back upstairs with a special coffee and a real coffee, figuring I couldn't be wrong if I brought both options.

‘Ah, Lily, pet, there you are,' said Les.

‘Um, I've brought you two types, of… coffee,' I said, offering him both mugs.

Without even looking up, Les reached for the bourbon, as though there were sensors in his fingers, guiding him towards the one he wanted.

‘Thanks, petal.'

‘And Trey's fixing the script.'

‘Aren't you a doll?' he said, giving me a big grin, then looking back down at his notes. ‘Also, font sixteen. I need font sixteen or I can't read it. I can't read this.' He tapped a finger against his cards.

Outside Les's room I ran into the AP from downstairs. She thrust a new script into my hand.

‘Will you take this to Kel? Tell her we've tweaked the intro. Thanks.' She then legged it back down the corridor, evidently in a huge rush to be somewhere else.

I knocked on Kel O'Shaunessy's door.

‘Come in!'

Kel was on the phone. She held up a finger and then clicked another finger at me to come in and wait. Kel was absolutely stunning in person: she had long blonde hair, doll-like skin, and the most beautifully petite features. I'd never seen someone so skinny; the camera really must add ten pounds, because she looked positively skeletal in real life.

‘I don't care, James, it's not good enough,' she said down
the phone. ‘My parents want to meet you, so you need to make yourself available, comprende?… I don't care how you pronounce it… No, I don't speak Spanish. Just free up your diary.'

She hung up the phone and turned her attention to me. A feeling of unease came over me as I realized what I thought I'd just heard.

‘Yes?' Kel said.

‘Oh, um… I… I have some changes to the script,' I stumbled, made nervous by her fierce glare.

‘What changes?'

I went to give her the script.

‘Um, just the beginning… The phone numbers, I think…' I tailed off.

Kel scanned the first page. ‘Oh great, because that dinosaur won't read the bloody phone numbers, my script turns into a talking
Yellow Pages
! I'm tired of it!'

She threw the script back at me and I instinctively held my hands up to my face. The script fell apart in a flurry of pages all over the floor.

‘If he won't read numbers, I won't read numbers. I'm just as important as him, you know.'

‘Right.'

‘Les AND Kel, you know, not The Les Stourton Show. How they persuaded me to do another series with that old drunk I don't know.' She stood up and started fixing her hair in the mirror. ‘Well? Why are you still here? Zip, zip.'

I turned to go.

‘Wait,' she snapped. ‘Order me a pizza for after the show. Pepperoni, low-fat cheese, and tell Trey: I. Won't. Read. Numbers.'

I scuttled out of the room, picking up bits of the disintegrated script as I went. Was JR still seeing Kel? Had he tried to sleep with me behind her back? Maybe it was another James? I felt… I don't know what I felt, but I definitely felt better about my decision to pull the escape cord last night.

Downstairs, Trey's hair was starting to look less than composed; bits of his towering coif were coming loose from their hair-sprayed manacles.

‘Um, two things…' I said, once I'd gained his attention. ‘Les said he needs his cards to be font sixteen, and Kel, um, Kel says she won't read numbers either.'

‘For God's sake!' Trey cried. ‘Les's cards are already font eighteen, we can't make them any bigger or it will literally be a word a card, and Kel better… oh for… I'll have to go up there.' Trey flounced off.

I'd only been here an hour and already this was the most stressful show I'd been involved in. Worse than Valerie, worse than
Last Clan Standing
, even worse than
Changing Grooms
. I asked one of the production managers where I could order Kel's lunch and they took the order from me.

‘She is a total nightmare,' one of the production runners said, sidling up to me. ‘Can you imagine going out with her? What a piece of work. I mean, I know she's fit and everything, but seriously…'

‘Yeah, she seems quite on edge,' I said.

‘There's a high turnover of runners on this show. Kel keeps firing them. I try to avoid going into her room; I've lasted a whole series that way.'

‘She threw a script at me,' I said.

‘She threw a bowl of cornflakes at Kenny last series. He had to have three stitches.'

‘Woah!'

‘Les is quite sweet. Drunk, but sweet.'

‘Poppy,' the production manager called over, ‘will you take these cards back to Les? They're the same as the ones he had before, but tell him we've increased the size and he'll be happy.'

‘Er, okay, sure. Nice to meet you,' I said to the other runner, before heading back upstairs to the danger zone.

I could hear Kel screaming at Trey from the other end of the corridor. I knocked and ducked into Les's room.

‘Someone got out of bed on the wrong side,' Les said with a smile as Kel's screaming reverberated down the corridor.

‘I've got you some new cards,' I said, holding them out to him.

‘Much better!' he said, scanning them. ‘Now, where were we?'

I read through Les's lines with him and then it was time for the show to begin. I watched from the wings, excited about witnessing my first bit of live television. Kel had calmed down and appeared the picture of sweetness and charm on camera.

‘So welcome back from the break,' she said to the audience. ‘Don't forget to enter our competition, you just need to call the number on your screen for a chance to win.'

‘So we'll see you after the break!' said Les, raising his coffee cup up to the camera.

‘Ha ha,' said Kel, nervously. ‘We've just come back from the break, Les.' She nudged him jovially.

‘Nooooo we haven't,' Les slurred.

‘What's going on?' I heard Trey ask over talkback radio.

‘Anyway, so now it's time for our item on robotic objects you can use in the home.' Kel ploughed on with the next item. ‘Les, what have you got there, a robotic coat hanger?'

Les had taken a seat in his chair and looked as though he might be about to snooze off.

‘Oh, for bleeding…' cried Trey. ‘Go to break, go to break!'

‘We've just had a break,' came the script secretary's voice from the gallery.

‘Well, go to another one!' yelled Trey.

The floor manager revived Les for the last ten minutes of the show and they stumbled through an item about ‘original things to have on toast', featuring an interview with a man who'd set up a crisp sandwich shop in Norwich.

‘I like jam on toast,' Les pronounced.

‘I'm more of a Marmite girl,' said Kel.

‘What, people either love you or hate you?' Les laughed.

‘Hardly.' Kel looked ready to kill him.

‘I like toast,' said the crisp sandwich man. They hadn't asked him a single question yet and he obviously felt as though he should say something.

‘So people actually buy crisp sandwiches, do they?' Kel asked.

‘Yes, they are surprisingly popular,' said the man.