CHISELHURST: You’ve all seen the highlights reel we put together of the video interviews. Incidentally, you’ll notice we got coverage of the room from three angles. The traditional behind-the-mirror shot was augmented by prototypes of the secret cams we’ll be using for Madhouse! None of the interviewees spotted either gadget, and here we had to install the equipment in an existing environment rather than being able to dress the set from the ground up as we will on location.
WILDING: One is in the light fitting. As for the other, I give up.
CHISELHURST: Behind the fire regulations notice.
WILDING: You’re recording now?
CHISELHURST: No. Davinda is taking minutes.
WILDING: Derek?
LEECH: That is acceptable.
CHISELHURST: So, how did you all like the tape? Do you see the potential?
GATLIN: MY FAVOURITE IS THE CHRISTIAN!
PAQUIGNET: Ouch, my ears!
WILDING: We see potential, Tiny. The tape represents your best prospects forMadhouse?
CHISELHURST: We have a couple in back-up, but yes. Dr Wendel?
WENDEL: It’s not just a matter of getting the right people, but of getting the right mix. They can’t all be too samey. There has to be a demographic spread of class, age and sex types among the subjects.
WILDING: But, ugh, no oldies, right? This is yoof you’re giving us.
WENDEL: No one over thirty-five, indeed. And eighty per cent under twenty-five. We built that early into the parameters of the experiment.
WILDING: Experiment?
CHISELHURST: It’s how Biffo the Boffin thinks. Heth, believe me, this is Light Entertainment, not Heavy Educational.
WILDING: Educational worries me. It’s a zapper prod. And so, frankly, are a lot of these people. Where did you get them?
CHISELHURST: They’re real people, Heth. They came in of their own accord.
WILDING: You must have recruited the prison guard...what was his name?
TREECE: Martin Leigh. Lockdown Leigh.
WILDING: Yeah, him. He’s a Central Casting Psycho.
CHISELHURST: He’s our borderline choice, actually. Miss Lark thinks he’s a bit obvious. Those tattoos might scare off some of the others too early.
LEECH: I like Leigh. He’ll be a leader. For a while.
CHISELHURST: My thoughts exactly, Derek. He’s a star in the making.
BATES: The one I hate most is Arabella Thingy-Thingy. The gold-digging posh bird.
BENDER: She’s my favourite. That voice. It’s not on a level with the LOUD CHRISTIAN or Miss Giggle, but there’s something awful about it. Almost Thatchery.
GATLIN: Looks like a horse, though. I don’t want to fuck her.
BENDER: Enough people will. You’re a Yank, Barry. You don’t understand this nanny thing we Brits have.
GATLIN: I don’t want to fuck her. But I do want to hit her.
BATES: Is that how you divide them? Into ones you want to, uh, have sex with, and ones you want to hit?
GATLIN: Them? People in general?
BATES: Contestants, participants, subjects, victims, whatever we call them.
GATLIN: It’s a fair enough system. Now, the Flame-On Chick. I definitely want to fuck her. I could light her fire, baby-cakes. You can take that to the bank and cash it!
TREECE: You’re a sick man!
GATLIN: That’s why you hired me, cherry-bee. You ain’t gonna get Alastair Cooke to present It’s a Madhouse!
TREECE: There’s still Craig Charles.
GATLIN: [laughs] Get the fuck outta here!
CHISELHURST: We’re off-topic, space kiddettes. Back to our mad people, please.
PAQUIGNET: I don’t think they’re mad.
CHISELHURST: What do you mean, Davinda?
PAQUIGNET: They’re just...ordinary. Even the pyromaniac girl. I don’t see them as any worse than the people I meet in clubs every night of the week.
WENDEL: Miss Paquignet, you are a junior assistant minion, I am a senior forensic psychologist. I assure you every one of these subjects is suffering from a severe, probably incurable personality disorder.
LEECH: Incurable?
WENDEL: By conventional means.
CHISELHURST: It’s possible that Madhouse! will have some therapeutic effect.
WILDING: Oh, give us a break, Tiny. This is docusoap shit, not On the Psychiatrist’s Couch. If we even thought you were sneaking something with content past us, you’d be off the air faster than a Girl Guides Tribute to Gary Glitter concert. We’re not funding this for therapy. The point is that the people you’ve selected don’t deserve help. Right?
TREECE: I certainly don’t want to see ‘Donger’ Bennett get in touch with his inner self and accept it.
BATES/PAQUIGNET: Donger the Plonker!
TREECE: He made a big impression on the girls in the office.
WILDING: And our office too. And we only saw the tape.
TREECE: You should meet him in person, get the full-strength Donger. Someone must have died and made him Bumgroper General. And he has this...smell. I think he uses rhino semen as an aftershave.
BATES: If nothing else, Madhouse! is the show that will tell the world Donger Bennetts are no longer acceptable.
GATLIN: So, none of you wanted to fuck him?
BATES/PAQUIGNET/TREECE: [retching noises]
GATLIN: Just asking, kittens. I thought he made some solid points, myself.
TREECE: [laughs] Are you sure you don’t want to be a contestant rather than the presenter?
GATLIN: [laughs and shivers] No way, Ape.
WILDING: As ever, we’re concerned with costs. How have you been coming along with the location?
CHISELHURST: That’s Constant’s department. Care to report?
DRACHE: Clearly we need isolation, and also a certain ambience of luxury. There’s a lifestyle element to the series, a subliminal trace of Fantasy Island or the 007 films, so we want a touch of class to set off the anticipated behaviour of the participants. First, we looked for country houses within the United Kingdom, but that proved impractical. Besides the liabilities of renting somewhere we all expect to sustain quite a bit of damage during the recording, our mainland is too small, too crowded. There’s nowhere, even in the wilds of Scotland, more than half a day’s hike from civilisation. It’s important that the players not have the option of just quirting and walking off. In the end, we’ve settled on an island. Several possibilities in British waters have come to light, but we favour the Med.
WILDING: That’ll cost.
DRACHE: Not in the end. We think the climate, the traditional association of the Mediterranean with ‘fun in the sun’, will significantly add to the show’s appeal. Never make the mistake of underestimating the fuck factor.
BENDER:Baywatch was a joke in the States, but a huge ratings hit here. That’s not all down to tits. If you live in Bolton and it’s drizzling over the gasworks, you want to switch on the telly and see sundrenched beaches, azure seas, drinks with a mess of fruit in them and skimpy bathing suits. It’s a can’t-miss proposition.
CHISELHURST: And international waters will help with some of the legalities. That’s always been a concern for Cloud 9, I know.
LEECH: It makes sense.
WILDING: Then it’ll be authorised. But we’ve worked with you before, Constant. I want no overruns on this. Don’t kit the set up with so much fucking decor that the animals get lost. This is a people programme, remember.
DRACHE: We have definite ideas on the look of the show.
TREECE: Abstract sculptures. Lots of sharp metal edges. Heavy candlesticks. Agricultural implements as ornaments.
CHISELHURST: You see the possibilities, Derek.
WILDING: No need to spell it out, Tiny. Now, our other concern. Clearly, we’re in a cutthroat business and the competition can’t get wind of this. The format’d be too easy to clone.
CHISELHURST: We’re already thinking of licensing it to the States. Look how Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? took off.
And it’s a natural for the Japanese market.
WILDING: Our main concern isn’t plagiarism, though. It’s backlash. You all know Mr Quilbert?
CHISELHURST: Basil, hi.
WILDING: He’ll be heading up our security operation. As of now, he owns you. Understand.
QUILBERT: Good morning, Mr Chiselhurst, Miss Treece. And those I haven’t met. We’ll have one-to-one sessions scheduled soon. It is a condition of the involvement of Cloud 9 in this project that all matters concerning security be channelled through me. There will be no exceptions. We have prepared acceptable cover stories as to the nature of the programme, based on the mock proposal you sent out to the applicants, and these will be leaked steadily to the trades. We’re building the cover stories around Mr Gatlin’s track record in extreme stand-up and the well-established ‘adventure game’ style of show. The truly radical nature of It’s a Madhouse! should not become evident until we are ready to broadcast. I have prepared various strategies for dealing with the cries for suppression we envision as inevitable. Cloud 9 will preface the premiere with a week of anti-censorship programming, with our tame ‘intellectuals’ debating with the less coherent and attractive members of various censorious or regulatory bodies. The purpose of this is to defang those most likely to object to a show which we consider will have the widest possible audience. If columnists have just spent an hour on Cloud 9 crying for freedom of speech and expression, they can hardly turn round and say we should not broadcast a show they consider to be objectionable. We used this basic strategy very successfully last year with the launch of the Lolita Channel and a variant is currently in play to pave the way for our 24-hour War and Gore strand.
CHISELHURST: So I take it you’re giving us a go. Derek?
WILDING: Cloud 9 will take Madhouse! to series. Make us television history, Tiny.
* * * *
THE FINAL SELECTION
Harry Bennett
Joshua Brew
Andrea D’Arbanvilliers-Holmes
Petra Kidner
Martin Leigh
Shona Murtaugh
Donovan Wyke
NOTES, by MYRA LARK
The optimum number of participants was set at seven early in the planning stages. An odd number ensures that, in the event of factionalisation, there will be an uneven split, with shifting loyalties or connections making for an unstable, potentially eventful series of relationship storms. In the event of heterosexual liaisons forming, one of the men will be left out. The most obvious candidate would be Mr Brew, because of his religious persuasions . More interesting from our purposes would be Mr Bennett, whose self-image is constructed entirely around his ability to coerce sex from females. It has been a subject for concern that Mr Leigh is too obviously dominant amongst the group, being habitually used to attaining his personal objectives through violence, but Dr Wendel and I have conferred and we see avenues around this ‘problem’ . If a blunt solution is required, Mr Leigh could be handicapped in some manner and forced to a great extent to rely on the goodwill of the others for his continued comfort. A subtler way out would be to arrange matters so that, from the outset, Mr Wyke is in a more commanding position. His record suggests that he can for a short while at least project the image of a confident, born leader.
After running simulations and role-play scenarios with fully briefed substitutes, these eventualities occur in every single variation of the basic situation.
a) After three days, multiple sexual exchanges will have taken place. There will also have been betrayals, extensive verbal and minor physical abuse and the development of very deep, though shifting, attachments and dislikes within the group.
b) At the six-day stage, a danger point is reached as the group turn against the experiment. We believe they will make an effort to destroy all recording devices in sight, and repeat our suggestion that these be dummies. Some of the ‘hidden’ cameras should be easily discoverable and disablable too. It is vital that we keep the subjects ‘ attentions on each other and not foster a group paranoia directed at external bodies (eg: the production company) , so we must insert into the scenario the idea that one or more of the subjects are in fact ‘plants’ working for us . You will recall that at an early stage of development, we rejected the idea of actually having a ‘mole’ in the group as unnecessary and unsatisfying. We believe these subjects are capable of creating and starring in their own paranoia/entertainment scenario with very little help from us.
c) Once the imaginary “plants’ have been dealt with, the programme will continue as before. Food, sexual favours, soft drugs and basic services will become currency. It is to be stressed that we should not go out of our way to make things difficult for the subjects - by withdrawing or tampering with the food supply, for instance - since the purpose of the show is to let them be themselves. Their own personality types are what is at issue here, are the factors that will make them stars. We have every confidence in them.
d) Most of the variables become extreme on the eighth day, when the subjects realise the experiment is not limited to the week they thought they had committed themselves to. Then the communications from Mr Gatlin should become more cryptic or mocking, playing on the knowledge of the survivor personalities we have gained in the course of the first week. It is possible that the group will forge together to attempt escape, but the inherent instabilities of the personality mix make this a highly unlikely and unworkable venture.
NB: Our amended psych profiles and the medical details of the subjects are attached. Note especially Mr Bennett’s asthma, Miss Kidner’s understandable high degree of tolerance for searing pain and Mr Wyke’s clinical sociopathy.
* * * *
MEMO
From: Tiny Chiselhurst, producer/creator
To: April Treece, co-associate producer
Re:It’s a Madhouse!
We have our madhouse! It’s three miles or so from St Helena, and we’ve bought it outright so it’s our own country (what should we call it?) and we can write the law-book. It was a refuge for the idle rich in the 1920s, and comes complete with a villa Drache is having restored to its original condition at great expense to Cloud 9. From the snaps I’ve seen, it’s very Agatha Christie. The hidden cams are being installed as I write. We’re taking advantage of the restoration to build a lot of versatility into the cams. There will be no blind spots on this island, though the stars will be told that there is one room set aside for privacy. Naturally, that’s where we expect a great deal of the action to take place, so it’s bugged from here to there and gone.
Just in case our stars take too long to find out about each other, we’re planting scrapbooks about each of them in the villa library. For the first week, Barry will transmit instructions nightly via a two-way TV hook-up to set out games and contests we’ve designed to be uneven and unfair, to sow discontent amongst the stars, and string them along the game aspect. Dr Wendel and Miss Lark disagree about when or if they will tumble to the ‘real’ nature of the show, but both are sure it won’t come until well after we have got the good stuff going. I sense Satellite Awards in the making.
* * * *
MEMO
From: April Treece, associate producer
To: Tiny Chiselhurst, producer/creator
Re:It’s a Madhouse!
Mr Q reports Shona Murtaugh is really Judy Burke, a freelance journalist for Scammagazine. The bitch is undercover doing an expose on rigged docusoaps. She must be imagining headlines along the lines of TV TEAM FORCED ME TO HAVE SEX WITH PLONKER.
* * * *
MEMO
From: Tiny Chiselhurst, producer/creator
To: April Treece, co-executive producer
Re:It’s a Madhouse!
Shona or Judy? It doesn’t matter. What I want to know is whether the meltdown giggle is real or fake?
* * * *
MEMO
From: April Treece, executive producer
To: Tiny Chiselhurst, producer/creator
Re:It’s a Madhouse!
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The shriek is real. I’ve got that from three sources. Probably why she got the assignment. No one can stand to have her in the office.
* * * *
MEMO
From: Tiny Chiselhurst, producer/creator
To: April Treece, co-producer
Re:It’s a Madhouse!
If the giggle’s real, the girl’s in. Have Mr Q disable any mobile phone or computer up-link she might contrive to get to our island (that goes for the others too, BTW). Miss Lark considers someone genuinely hiding her name will be a shoo-in to get tagged as the ‘plant’. If the scenario runs as expected, I doubt Judy the Journo will ever file copy.
Dark Terrors 5 - The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Anthology] Page 37
