Ramble Book
Page 15
‘Didn’t you think Dr Venkman was funny, though?’ I asked Dad, smiling to myself as I recalled Bill Murray’s line: ‘It’s true – this man has no dick’ – a type of humour that was new to me.
‘He seemed rather too pleased with himself’ was Dad’s verdict on the comedy genius.
After the Ghostbusters teaser campaign, we were determined that when it came to JOEADZ productions we, too, would indulge in similar acts of poster foreplay, and a lot of time was spent inventing mysterious logos and taglines for our photocopied flyers.
In 1989 the teaser campaign for Tim Burton’s Batman attempted to reprise the glorious build-up to Ghostbusters by covering every inch of public space with shiny Bat-logos, but by that time the word ‘hype’ had entered the public’s consciousness and, as it turned out, Batman was no Ghostbusters.
* * *
The JOEADZ production of Pvt Wars turned out to be … A SENSATION. We received a rave review in the school magazine from a girl in the year above who didn’t even know us, and there was even some grudging praise from a few of the Lads, all of which immediately went to my head and I started believing I was Robert De Niro.
Bugsy Malone
One morning towards the beginning of 1986, Joe, Ben and I sneaked out of school during a private study period and over Cokes and crisps in our favourite café Cornballs suggested our next project should be a stage production of Bugsy Malone.
Alan Parker’s 1976 film musical in which children play Prohibition-era gangsters, drive pedal-powered sedan cars and battle each other with machine guns that shoot whipped cream was a thrilling, dreamlike experience when I saw it first aged nine. Star Wars was all well and good, but Bugsy Malone was the realisation of just about every childhood fantasy I’d ever had, so I was wary of taking a big 16-year-old crap on it.
The play programme from the 1986 JOEADZ production of Bugsy Malone with design and layout by A. Buckles and passive-aggressive thanks by J. Cornballs.
How could we get anywhere close to the film’s production values, I asked Joe? How would we do the sedan-car chases, the splurge-gun battles and, most important of all, how could we do justice to those amazing Paul Williams songs? I could see my dad shaking his head and saying (with lots of reverb), ‘You’ll make fools of yourselves …’ But J-Corn reasoned that there were workarounds for all these problems, some even outlined at the back of the playscript specifically for amateur productions, and as far as the songs went, we knew lots of school musicians and we liked singing, ‘So it’ll be good, man, fuck it!’
My next issue with the production was casting. Joe decided Ben should play Bugsy, as he was more of a leading man, and I would be perfect as the rotund mob boss Fat Sam. This was a blow.
After the success of Pvt Wars I was still pretty sure I was Robert De Niro, and suddenly I was being told I was actually the overweight sidekick. Apart from the insult to my performing skills that this represented, I’d been self-conscious about my body ever since a girl I fancied at boarding school had told me: ‘You’d be quite handsome if you lost some weight,’ and now here I was being Fat Sam-shamed. ‘Man, it’s the funniest part,’ said Joe when I failed to hide my disappointment. As soon as we began rehearsals I realised Joe was right, and once I’d relaxed, Big Boned Sam (as my character preferred to identify) gave me licence to go BIG in every way.
We wanted Louis to be involved with Bugsy Malone and cast him in one of the main parts as rival mob boss Dandy Dan. A few weeks into rehearsals, however, Louis baulked, claiming the size of the role was making him anxious. Joe gave Louis four small walk-on parts instead, but it was a drag having to recast at a time when we were scrambling to resolve problems with nearly every aspect of the overambitious production. In our paranoid moments we suspected that Louis was reluctant to be such a prominent part of a show he feared might be a spectacular turkey, though Louis has assured me over 46 times since then that this wasn’t the case. I think I believe him.
In the end Bugsy Malone, which we performed over three nights in early June 1986, was another SPECTACULAR SUCCESS. In fact, I hope you won’t mind if I just take this opportunity to say a few overdue thank-yous.
First of all, to our amazing cast – guys, you were great, and it was such a privilege to work with so many talented people who normally we would have completely ignored in Yard because you were in different years or social groups. It was so cool for us, and probably even more so for you, to get to come together and create such a special JOEADZ event. To our musical director and the wonderful Bugsy Malone band, I just want to say – wow. The music in this production could so easily have been a messy cacophony, and there were times when it looked as though it definitely would be, but when it came down to it you guys pulled it all the way out of the bag. Even the horn parts on ‘My Name Is Tallulah’ only made the audience wince a couple of times. As for our amazing production crew, and all the people – including the cool teachers – who worked so hard to help us bring this show together at a time when some uncool teachers and uptight parents were giving us a lot of shit about not revising for our exams, all I can say is: you were incredible and I hope you didn’t get too hung up on those occasions when Joe and I acted like appalling, spoiled arseholes. At least we didn’t sexually harass any of you. Finally, to the school, thank you for believing in us enough to let us use the special ancient hall where you would normally have been putting on earnest productions of Pinter, Beckett, Stoppard and all that other predictable shit so we could do our ground-breaking production of a children’s film from ten years previously. Sorry about the whipped cream messing up those seventeenth-century wooden carvings, but I think you’ll agree that the amount of fun Joe, Ben and I were clearly having during ‘You Give a Little Love’ more than made up for it. THANKS!
The first of our sixth-form exams happened just a few days after the final performance of Bugsy Malone, so our euphoria and the sense that we were more than just a little bit brilliant was short-lived. It took a further bashing when my parents received that term’s exam results and report cards, which predicted A-level catastrophe. ‘No more plays,’ announced Dad at another tense family supper.
Now that I know the extent of his financial difficulties at the time, I can understand why Dad wanted me to focus on getting the results that he believed would eventually insulate me from a life of similar financial worries. Even if he hadn’t had money problems, I dare say it was reasonable for Dad to be keen that I didn’t screw up my education, but at the time I felt like Billy Elliot, being forced to deny my true fabulousness because it didn’t fit in with my uptight dad’s boring view of the world.
Twitch
To get around the parental play embargo, Joe decided we should make another film. Over a series of damp weekends during winter term 1986 we filmed Twitch, a version of the Sweeny Todd story that Cornish had adapted himself. (The title was a nod to Twitch of the Death Nerve, a 1971 film by Italian slasher pioneer Mario Bava. No, I haven’t seen it either.)
Ben Walden starred once again, this time as psychotic café owner Maxwell Hitch, who along with his murdery wife (played by Susanna Kleeman, transcendent as Tallulah in Bugsy Malone) made meat pies out of their victims and enjoyed a huge upsurge in business subsequently.
My character was Donovan Spanner, a bad-tempered, no-nonsense cop on the trail of Maxwell Hitch. My work in Wars and Malone had showcased my mugging talents, but Twitch was a serious, gritty film drama, and if I was to do justice to the complexities of the part, I needed to step out of my comfort zone as an actor. I decided the best way to do this was to deliver all my lines as if I was absolutely furious, often emphasising the words by pointing aggressively. If even more depth was required, I would sigh, close my eyes and run a hand through my spiky hair.
To play the part of Detective Spanner’s assistant Harvey, a dim-witted and thuggish young policeman, we decided to give a still barely pubescent Louis Theroux one more try. Louis, pleased that the Bugsy Malone incident had been forgotten, was happy to be involved
and insisted he was doing his best to be menacing, though Joe and I were concerned he was just playing his part for laughs and compromising the seriousness of the project. Perhaps the material was just beyond his grasp at that stage of his emotional development.
There are some clips of Twitch (as well some of that behind-the-scenes footage from A Few Friends for Dinner) on The Story of Adam and Joe, which can be found on the extras of The Adam and Joe DVD, which can be found in selected charity shops and extinct format museums. Joe’s also been posting a few of those clips on his Instagram page recently. Powerful as they are, I think I prefer Cornish’s more recent films.
At the end of our first sixth-form year our little gang was being compared by some people in school to the Hollywood ‘Brat Pack’, the posse of actors that appeared in films like Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, The Outsiders and The Breakfast Club, all of which we loved.
Unfortunately, the comparisons were heavily sarcastic, and one day I was handed an anonymously written, photocopied ‘Gossip Sheet’ that included a paragraph referring to us as ‘The Prat Pack’. ‘How much longer are they going to subject us to their tedious amateur theatrics?’ asked the author, before complaining that ‘they seem to believe Steven Spielberg will turn up at any moment and whisk them off to Hollywood on his magic carpet’.
Years later, Steven Spielberg did exactly that. At least, he whisked Joe off to Hollywood, along with Edgar Wright, to work with him on Tintin, but apparently there wasn’t enough room on the fucking magic carpet for the most talented, funny and handsome member of The Prat Pack (which was Buckles, in case that wasn’t clear). And by the way, if I had been invited, I wouldn’t have gone on my friend’s podcast and made an anecdote about Tom Cruise doodling on a notepad last over half a decade.
Argument with Wife Log 2
SUBJECT OF ARGUMENT
WHETHER TO SAY ‘LEASH’ OR ‘LEAD’
MAIN POINTS – WIFE
‘A leash is used to tether an animal. A lead is used to walk it.’
MAIN POINTS – BUCKLES
‘Jesus Christ!’
WINNER
WIFE
SUBJECT OF ARGUMENT
CHILDREN’S SCREEN TIME
MAIN POINTS – WIFE
‘They have no more screen time than their friends.’
MAIN POINTS – BUCKLES
‘Fuck their friends! We’re talking about OUR children! To be clear, I’m not literally suggesting we fuck their friends.’
WINNER
ONGOING AT TIME OF WRITING
SUBJECT OF ARGUMENT
WAS HELENA CHRISTENSEN’S SON ‘MINGUS’ NAMED AFTER CHARLIE MINGUS?
MAIN POINTS – WIFE
‘No. Mingus is a common Danish name.’
MAIN POINTS – BUCKLES
‘Of course she named him after Charlie Mingus! Unless she thought it was funny to make a baby name out of the words “minge” and “dingus”.’
WINNER
BUCKLES
SUBJECT OF ARGUMENT
CUTLERY DRAWER
MAIN POINTS – WIFE
‘Does it really matter where the spoons go?’
MAIN POINTS – BUCKLES
‘Does anything really matter?’
WINNER
BUCKLES
SUBJECT OF ARGUMENT
FAILURE TO TAKE REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS TO SUPERMARKET
MAIN POINTS – WIFE
‘I hadn’t planned to do a shop so I didn’t have the bags.’
MAIN POINTS – BUCKLES
‘Had you planned to KILL THE PLANET?’
WINNER
BUCKLES
SUBJECT OF ARGUMENT
TEXTING WHILE WE WATCH TV
MAIN POINTS – WIFE
‘I’m organising the entire running of this household.’
MAIN POINTS – BUCKLES
‘You’re missing the nuances of Ant and Dec’s I’m a Celebrity … links, which is rude and annoying.’
WINNER
WIFE
SUBJECT OF ARGUMENT
REFERRING TO A GROUP OF MEN AND WOMEN AS ‘GUYS’
MAIN POINTS – WIFE
‘Women find it offensive to be called “guys”. It’s a gender-specific term.’
MAIN POINTS – BUCKLES
‘Not the way I use it.’
WINNER
BUCKLES
CHAPTER 13
1985
I read somewhere (probably the Guardian) that people who went to boarding school often try to compensate for the trauma of being separated from their parents at a young age by developing unhealthily intense attitudes to love, sex and intimacy. Whatever – 1985 was the year of my sixteenth birthday and whether it was boarding-school trauma, teenage hormones or just being self-absorbed and oversensitive, my attitude to love, sex and intimacy was beginning to get unhealthily intense.
I was still pining for my prep-school love, Alison. She was now at school out in the country and lived abroad the rest of the time (or she at least said she did), so we hadn’t seen each other for nearly three years, but we still maintained a fitful correspondence by mail. I would tell her how much I loved her and how much I hated Westminster, and she would reply with long, stream-of-consciousness rambles in bubbled cursive that seldom attempted to match my level of romantic intensity. Instead, she would inform me that Anne-Marie was making blow-job faces at her, that Zoe had just farted on her favourite bubble-gum-scented rubber and that Tanya fancied a boy who had ginger pubic hair and was known as ‘Rouge Pube’. I responded by insinuating that I had considered overdosing on aspirin. That refocused her for a week or two, but by the end of the spring term 1985 it was clear that Alison and I were all washed up.
We had agreed that if either of us ever felt the relationship had run its course, that person would send the other a symbolic empty envelope. That way, we could bypass the inevitable break-up platitudes. Not for us the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ routine – that bullshit was for 13-year-olds. We were 15.
One cold, grey afternoon I wrote Alison’s address on an empty envelope, sealed it, then walked around St James’s Park for a while thinking deep thoughts. I found a post box but hesitated. The point of the empty envelope was to save the recipient a load of self-involved moaning, but when it came to the crunch I was determined that, somehow, Alison must be made aware of my pain.
Leaning on the post box I scrawled on the back of the envelope: ‘Love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves. This is our last dance.’ I stopped short of writing ‘ … this is ourselves – Under Pressure’ because I worried that might destroy Alison completely.
A period of emotional convalescence followed. On weekends when I was home from school this took the form of a routine that began with McDonald’s take-out in front of The New Adventures of Wonder Woman. If Dad was home he’d appear at the door of the front room, watch Linda Carter in action for a little while, then say something cryptically sleazy like, ‘She’s got nice eyes.’ That was at least preferable to the usual rows we’d have about how I needed to take O-level revision more seriously.
I started to look forward to Dad being away so I could enjoy a lecture-free Saturday night of television-watching that concluded with episodes of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Magnum P.I., often accompanied by a box of French Fancies – little square sponge cakes with vanilla-flavoured fondant topping, all encased in either pink, yellow or brown icing, eight to a pack. Though I always intended to limit myself to two French Fancies, one pink and one yellow, most weekends I was down to the browns by the end of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and they, too, were usually snaffled by the end of Magnum.
Preparing for O levels meant that for much of the first half of 1985 we had fewer regular classes and were expected to use the additional free time for revision, either at school or at home. I went home but decided that instead of revising I would use the time to watch more TV. On the rare occasions Dad was also in residence he would ask why I was slumped in front of Max Headroom with a pac
k of chocolate digestives when he was paying for me to go to an expensive school and it was term time. Rather than entertain that entirely reasonable question, I’d stomp out and go to the cinema with Joe.
Joe and I stood in a lot of West End movie queues that year, making stupid comments about whatever film we were about to see, hatching plans for our own brilliant projects and trying to stay out of range of the big homeless man who looked like Chief Bromden from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and stood motionless by the Empire cinema in Leicester Square for hours at a time, hawking up big gobs of spit that described his pavement patch in a semi-circle of flob. And of course there was Protein Man, an old guy with a Donovan cap and a big sign proclaiming that we were all at risk from dangerous levels of lust if we continued with lives that included ‘fish, bird, meat, cheese, egg, beans, peas, nuts and sitting’.
* * *
RAMBLE
A lot of films made an impression on us in 1985 – some great, some not so great. We saw Terminator in January and emerged from the Odeon South Kensington so delighted that we ended up seeing every film Schwarzenegger starred in for the next decade, albeit with increasingly generous squirtings of irony sauce.
Despite our fondness for all things American, Back to the Future rubbed us up the wrong way for feeling too cheesily Yankocentric; all cars and high schools and proms, as epitomised by the enervatingly energetic Huey Lewis and the News on the soundtrack – ‘FUCK Huey Lewis and the News,’ I thought then (though now I’m old, I don’t mind the odd slice).