Situation Tragedy

by Simon Brett

  The Floor Manager, a hearty young man called Robin Laughton, who had ambitions to direct, took this as a cue for the start of the dress run. ‘Okay, boys and girls, let’s have a bit of hush. We are in a Dress Run situation. Can we have all the artistes for –’

  ‘Not yet!’ blazed Sadie Wainwright. ‘I’m not in the box. You can’t start till I’m in the box.’

  ‘But Scott says –’ Robin Laughton gestured ineffectually to the earpiece which kept him in direct communication with the director in Production Control.

  ‘Sod Scott! You can’t start till I’m in there to do the count-down.’

  ‘Scott says we’re pushed for time.’

  ‘And if we are, whose bloody fault is that? What do you expect with directors who don’t know what they’re doing? Scott Newton – huh. He couldn’t direct piss into a pot.’

  This colourful invective impressed the studio into silence. The cast stopped muttering in the audience seats. The cameramen disengaged themselves from their cameras. The sound-boom operators hung expectant from their mobile platforms. The assembled throng of scene-shifters, painters, carpenters and men whose only function seemed to be to wear lumberjack checked shirts, suspended their discussion of racing and overtime rates. The dressers stopped bitching and the make-up girls arrested their powder-puffs.

  Only one man seemed unaware of the atmosphere. Rod Tisdale, author of many television comedy gems, including What’ll the Neighbours Say? and The Strutters, stepped out of the shadows towards Sadie. He was a man totally without distinguishing features, so ordinary as to be indescribable. The only thing that distinguished him from the archetypal man in the street was the huge amount of money he made from his well-tried writing formula. But since he never spent any of it, even the money was hardly distinctive.

  ‘Sadie,’ he said in his toneless voice, ‘while there’s a lull. I wonder if you could just give a note to Scott. In the Estate Agent’s Office scene, I think it’d be better if the Colonel said, “Not in these trousers”, rather than “Not in this suit”.’

  ‘What?’ demanded Sadie scaldingly.

  ‘Should have thought of it before,’ Rod Tisdale continued, impervious and without inflection. ‘Old rule of comedy – suits aren’t funny, trousers are. See what Scott thinks.’

  ‘Suits, trousers – what does it matter?’

  ‘Oh, it matters a lot, Sadie. One’s a joke, one isn’t.’

  ‘Well, don’t bother me with it. Tell your “joke” to little Jane. Maybe she’ll write it down in her immaculate shorthand – there must be something she can do.’ Sadie turned to leave, but thought of one more parting shot. ‘Maybe sometime, Rod, you’ll point out the other jokes in this script to me – I was damned if I could see any!’

  And she stalked off majestically to the Production Control. The atmosphere relaxed. Charles Paris suddenly was again aware of how much he wanted to do a pee.

  But too late. Robin Laughton leapt forward on a cue from his earpiece and cried, ‘Okay, we are in a Dress Run situation. We’ll take the opening titles as read to save time, and go straight to the Sitting Room scene. Strutters and Removal Men – Okay? And it’s only a short scene, so stand by in the Golf Club Bar.’

  Oh damn, thought Charles, have to use a bit of self-control.

  George Birkitt and Aurelia Howarth took up their opening positions outside the Sitting Room door. On the set the two Removal Men, played by a couple of those character actors who are never out of work, prepared to deliver Rod Tisdale’s computerised jokes.

  ‘Okay, bit of hush,’ bellowed Robin Laughton. ‘This is a Dress Run situation. Good luck, boys and girls. Imagine titles, music, dum-de-dum-de-dum – and cue!’

  ‘Hey, Fred,’ said the First Removal Man looking at a cut-glass decanter with a gummed label on it, ‘What does F-R-A-G-I-L-E mean?’

  But before the Second Removal Man could say, ‘I don’t know. Chuck it over here and I’ll have a look’, a new figure bounced on to the studio floor, and, with a cheery cry, ensured that they had to start again.

  It was Peter Lipscombe, the show’s boyish producer. ‘Hello, everyone.’ he said. ‘Everything okay?’

  In spite of their earlier anxiety, they completed the Dress Run in good time. One of the reasons why Rod Tisdale made so much money out of his scripts was that they were always very simple technically. Scott Newton, as a new young director with aspirations, had planned all kinds of clever shots over shoulders, through flower vases and looking down from cranes, but as rehearsals progressed, it had become clear that there was only one way to shoot a Rod Tisdale script, and that was to follow the predictability of the jokes. So the camera script had become a sequence of three linked shots – MCU (Mid-Close-Up) of Character A setting up joke, MCU of Character B delivering pay-off, CU (Close-Up) of reaction from Character A to milk audience laughter. Very little else was needed.

  So they finished at five to six, having played their show to the sycophantic laughter of the Producer, the Casting Director (a dramatic ex-actress called Tilly Lake) and the warm-up man, a minor comedian called Charlie Hook, whom Charles Paris remembered, though with little warmth, from a previous pilot he had made for West End Television, The New Barber and Pole Show.

  Scott Newton bustled out of the Production Control at five to six, with Sadie Wainwright in tow, and Jane Lewis punctiliously following her. ‘Right, a few notes,’ he said rather feebly.

  He didn’t look well. The day was proving a strain and he patently wasn’t getting the moral support a director can usually count on from his PA. He had only been freelance for about six months, having left a cosy niche in BBC Schools Department for the higher earning potential of the commercial world. Like many others of his age in television, he had recently been divorced, and was finding that the demands of maintenance payments inhibited the glamorous life-style he thought appropriate to a young television director.

  The Strutters was his first big show, and he didn’t appear to be enjoying it. ‘A few notes,’ he repeated with even less conviction.

  ‘Okay, boys and girls,’ Robin Laughton bellowed, as if testing a famous, but distant, echo. ‘We are in a note-giving situation. Could all artists assemble in the Sitting Room set.’

  Damn. Charles Paris had been half way out of the studio door on his way to the Gents. Reluctantly, he came back. The pressure on his bladder was almost intolerable.

  The cast assembled with indifferent grace in the Sitting Room set. ‘Right now, notes,’ said Scott Newton slowly.

  ‘Come on, hurry up,’ urged Sadie. ‘I’ve got a lot to do. And we’ll have to get out of the studio when they start the Line-up at six.’

  ‘Okay, okay, sure. Now, notes. George and Aurelia, in that first scene –’

  Peter Lipscombe bounced up again, Tigger-like. ‘Hello, everything okay?’

  ‘Yes, yes, fine, thank you, Peter. Just giving a few notes. Er, George and Aurelia, in that –’

  ‘Sorry, love,’ interrupted Robin Laughton. ‘Can we release cameras and sound? Sound Supervisor just asked me. They’ve got this union meeting.’

  ‘Yes, sure. Um, George and Aurelia, could you . . .’

  ‘Oh, I can’t wait while you dither around,’ snapped Sadie. ‘I’ve got to go and give Telecine all the revised cues. Here are the notes.’ She thrust a clipboard at Scott and marched off.

  Charles saw his opportunity. What had been an urgent need was now an absolute necessity. ‘Just got to nip to the Gents. Be back in a –’

  ‘I’m not surprised, the amount you drink,’ Sadie tossed savagely over her shoulder, as she barged out of the studio.

  ‘Okay, Charles,’ said Scott Newton, though there was no chance of the actor waiting for permission. ‘We’ll continue notes in the Control box if we have to move out of here.’

  Charles Paris moved swiftly across the studio, trying not to break into the indignity of a run. As he went, he heard Scott continue, ‘Now, George and Aurelia –’

  ‘Scott darling,’ fluted Aurel
ia Howarth’s cultured elderly voice, ‘I am a little worried about Cocky. The poor darling’s in the Quick Change Room. I wonder if . . .’

  ‘Yes, just a –’

  ‘Okay, boys and girls,’ bellowed Robin Laughton. ‘Six o’clock. We are in a Line-up situation. Clear the studio.’

  After the blessed relief of the Gents, Charles splashed water from the basin over his face. Sober up a bit before the next onslaught. It was a long break, an hour and three-quarters, before they were due to start recording. And that would inevitably mean one or two more drinks.

  He looked at himself in the mirror. Dressed in the golf club blazer selected by Wardrobe, he looked more respectable than usual. Not in bad nick really for a man of fifty-two. And in work. In work! With the strong possibility of more work. Life felt good.

  He walked out of the Gents and started instinctively towards the bar. Sadie Wainwright, in a rare moment of charity, had shown him a quick way up a fire escape on the outside of the building, which avoided waiting for slow lifts. He started up the metal steps, thinking what a flimsy structure it was on the outside of a comparatively modern block. He looked down to the car park some forty feet below.

  He was half way up before he remembered the notes. Of course, he must remember that being in work did involve actually doing the job as well as drinking amiably in the bar. He started back down the metal fire escape.

  The Production Control box was empty when he got there. All the banks of monitor screens were either blank or showing test cards. There was no one visible through the glass to the left in Vision Control, or to the right in Sound Control. They must be doing the notes elsewhere.

  As he turned to go, he heard a voice clearly from one of the speakers. It was a familiar voice, recognisable from its South African twang, and even more recognisable from its tone of contempt.

  He only heard two sentences, before the Sound Controller appeared in the box to his right and switched off the sound.

  The two sentences were: ‘You couldn’t kill me. You haven’t got it in you.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘EVERYTHING OKAY, Charles?’ asked Peter Lipscombe from his position at the bar.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ Then, feeling that some comment was required, Charles offered the opinion that the recording had gone all right.

  The producer confided that he thought it was very exciting, but very exciting. That wasn’t exactly the word Charles would have used for the evening but, since the next question was what he would like to drink, he didn’t discuss it. The importance of most things diminished when he had a large Bell’s in his hand.

  Because he had only been in costume above the waist (barmen always being shot with their bottom half obscured by the bar), because he hadn’t bothered to remove his make-up, and because he knew the short cut up the fire escape, Charles had managed to be the first of the cast to arrive in the bar. (He didn’t pride himself on many abilities, but, in all modesty, had to recognise that he had few rivals in speed of getting to bars after performances.) He sat down with his drink and watched the rest of the actors and crew assemble.

  As he did so, he witnessed a transformation of Peter Lipscombe. Whereas during the week of rehearsal the producer had been little in evidence and, when present, unobtrusive and diffident, he was now showing real dynamism in the business of taking people’s orders for drinks and putting them through to the barman. Charles wondered whether he had finally answered a question that had puzzled him in all his previous dealings with television comedy. While the director’s function, taking rehearsals and organising cameras, was obvious, what on earth was the producer there for? Peter Lipscombe’s proficiency as a waiter suggested that at last the function had been explained.

  ‘I think you may have to cope with a success for the first time in your life, Charles.’

  The actor looked up to the familiar voice and saw the perfectly groomed figure of his friend Gerald Venables. He had forgotten that the solicitor had asked for a ticket for the recording. Though they had first met at Oxford in the OUDS, for whom Gerald had been an assiduous and commercially successful treasurer, he had never shown much interest in Charles’s subsequent theatrical career, except when it involved television. The actor secretly believed that this was because commercial television was the medium whose values were closest to Gerald’s own – those being that the sole aim of the arts is to make as much money as possible. The solicitor had certainly followed this tenet in his own show-biz practice, which was one of the reasons why he always walked around looking like the ideal executive in an American Express advertisement. On this occasion he favoured a dark blue double-breasted suit with a nuance of a chalk stripe, a blue-and-red paisley silk tie, and black patent-leather shoes restrained by a redundant strip of metal. The silver hair was trendily coiffed, and the tan would suggest to the uninitiated regular winter use of the sunlamp, but to those who knew Gerald’s habits, a recent return from skiing in Verbier.

  Charles, now back in his customary sports jacket (described once by a fellow actor as ‘a sack with an identity problem’), reflected again on the incongruity of the friendship, as he offered Gerald a drink.

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks. Just been talking to the Head of Contracts and he bought me one.’

  ‘And you really think this show’ll work?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely. It has all the hallmarks of a successful situation comedy.’

  ‘What, you mean total witlessness, exaggerated performances and the perpetuation of harmful prejudices?’

  ‘Now, Charles, you must curb your cynicism. Not only does this offer you more chance of making money than you’ve ever had in your so-called career, it is also a perfectly adequate, well crafted and well cast little show, which should be good for at least three series.’

  ‘Sorry, I can never judge this sort of comedy. Enumerate its virtues for me, would you?’

  ‘Okay. One, it’s a good, simple situation – old fogey from the days of Empire, discipline, National Service, etc. reacting to the slackness of modern life. Two, the script has jokes in the right places and in the right frequency.’

  ‘But they’re pretty old ones.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Audiences like recognition. Old jokes make them feel cosy. Three, it has a very good cast. George Birkitt is a real find. I think that crusty pig-headedness could catch on just like Alf Garnett. The rest of the cast is perfectly adequate . . .’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Charles with some acidity. The word had unfortunate associations for him. One of the high-spots of his theatrical career, his performance of a major Shakespearean role at Colchester, had been hailed in the Eastern Daily Press with the sentence, ‘Charles Paris provides an adequate Macbeth.’

  Gerald continued, unperturbed, ‘What is more, the show has a secret ingredient, that little spark of magic which will raise it from the ranks of the commonplace.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It has Aurelia Howarth, my childhood idol. And, though it would have hurt me to admit it at the time, she was not just my idol. The whole country was in love with her – and always has been. Right from those revues back in the Twenties – which, before you make any snide remarks, I was too young to see. But then with all those wonderful movies in the Thirties, and all her work during the war and . . . and everything. She’s absolutely inspired casting. Who thought of her? Was it the producer?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. Mind you, he’s probably capable of buying her a drink.’

  ‘Anyway, as I say, I think you’re on to a winner.’

  Charles Paris smiled, gratified. ‘Well, I hope you’re right. And thank you very much for coming to see me.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t come to see you,’ said Gerald Venables. ‘I only came because I thought you could introduce me to Aurelia Howarth.’

  At this moment the object of the solicitor’s adoration appeared at the main entrance to the bar. (Charles noticed with satisfaction that nobody else seemed to know about the short cut up the fire escape.)r />
  In describing Aurelia Howarth, it was impossible to avoid the words ‘well preserved’. Though she was of the generation who thought it impolite to define a lady’s age with too much precision, sheer logic and a knowledge of her theatrical achievements made it impossible for the most gallant admirer to put her birth much later than 1904, which made her at least seventy-five when the pilot of The Strutters was recorded. But, with the help of skilled couturiers and a lifetime’s practice of make-up, she carried her years gracefully. Even as she entered the bar, encumbered by a huge bouquet under one arm and the odious Cocky under the other, her poise did not desert her. Though she had none of the egocentricity of the prima donna, she could never help making an entrance. Now she paused in the doorway, as if anticipating the applause of recognition. It was not a calculated gesture, just something that was instinctive to her.

  She still had the slightness so familiar from early publicity photographs, and still enhanced it by wearing dresses skilfully draped about with diaphanous hangings. These, together with an aureole of pale golden hair (surely not natural, but so subtly coloured as to deny artifice), gave her a blurred outline, as if she was always viewed through soft focus. The skin of her face still had a softness, probably the result of a lifelong application of skin creams, and, though it sagged a little round her eyes and neck, remained commendably taut, but without that synthetic shininess which is the legacy of facelifts.

  The eyes retained the pure blue clarity which had been remarked by Sacha Guitry, Jack Buchanan and Noel Coward, and the unfocused, abstracted stare which the pre-war public had found so sexy. They reinforced the aura of charming vagueness, which her manner of speech did nothing to dispel.

  She did not have to wait long in the doorway for her appearance to register. Peter Lipscombe gambolled across from the bar, asked, ‘Everything okay, Aurelia?’ and took her order for a drink. At a slower pace, a very elderly man inched towards her and greeted her effusively.

  He was eccentrically dressed in a blue blazer with an elaborate heraldic badge, and what appeared to have been white cricket flannels. His black shoes had the highly polished gloss of a previous generation. An open white flannel shirt revealed a blue, yellow and green cravat, fixed with a pearl-headed pin. The looseness of the cravat accentuated the thinness of a tortoise neck, on which an almost hairless head bobbled uneasily. Face and hands showed the stark contours of the bone beneath, their flesh eroded by the steady wash of age.