Simon Brett - An Amateur Corpse

It was totally wrong, he cried. Far too patronizing, too light, it didn’t treat the product seriously enough, suggested that the whole sales campaign was a bit of a joke. Hugo and his associates held back their view that little fuzzy red figures called Wideawakes were not going to look very serious however funereal the voice that addressed them and said yes, of course he was right and they had rather suspected this might be a problem from the start and they’d go straight off and find another voice.

By coincidence, on the very evening of the meeting at which this decision had been made, Charles Paris was appearing in a television play. It was one of the few jobs he had had in a very lean year and he was playing an avuncular Victorian solicitor. His voice was somewhat deeper than usual because he had had a cold at the time of the recording.

Whether it was this odd voice quality or the fact that he had worn tailcoat and top-hat that made him seem to Hugo to be the ideal Mr. Bland, Charles never knew. Secretly he thought it was partly that Hugo knew that he would be easy to work with and that the Creative Director desperately needed to come up with something new. It was evident that Hugo, in a business that thrives on ideas, was beginning to run out of them.

He could feel the pressure from the inventive minds of younger copywriters and the task of finding the new voice for Mr. Bland was a competitive issue in the agency. There were other members of the staff with other candidates and the results of the voice-to-picture tests could well cause some realignment in the creative hierarchy of Mills Brown Mazzini.

So when the new Bland Brand Manager, Mr. Farrow, chose Charles Paris from the test, Hugo was over the moon. It was then that he had started the showing off and parading of his new discovery which had so annoyed Charles at the Backstagers’ party.

(For Charles the success was not without irony, because it involved getting one up on Christopher Milton, whose path he had crossed during the accident-haunted rehearsals for the musical Lumpkin!)

Charles was now familiar with the small commercial recording studio where he was to work. Through the glossy foyer with its low glass desks and low oatmeal couches, downstairs to the tiny Studio Two.

God knows what the building had been before conversion. A private house maybe, with the studio as a larder. The conversion had consisted mainly of sticking cork tiles on every available surface. In spite of the expensive recording hardware, the whole operation looked unfinished and temporary, as if all the cork could be stripped off and the studio equipment dismantled in half an hour so that the real owner would never know what his premises had been used for during his absence.

Hugo and Farrow were already sitting in the control cubicle. Hugo looked tired and nervous.

They started recording. The copy was so similar to the television version that any notes on performance given in those sessions were still applicable, but Farrow was determined to give them all again. Like all Brand Managers (indeed it is an essential qualification for the job), he was without artistic judgement.

Charles had now done enough of these sessions to know how to behave. Just take it, do as you’re told even if it’s wrong, don’t comment, don’t suggest, above all don’t try to put any of yourself into it. The agency and, indirectly, the client had hired his voice as a piece of machinery, and it was their right to use it as they thought fit, even if the owner of the machinery knew it wasn’t being used in the best way. At worst, there was the comfort that the session was only booked for an hour and he was being paid for it. Thirty-five quid basic, with possible repeats.

So, with his voice lowered an octave to recapture the coldy quality of his Victorian solicitor, Charles gave every possible reading of the lines. He hit each word in turn to satisfy Farrow. BLAND soothes away the day. Bland SOOTHES away the day. Bland soothes AWAY the day. Bland… It did seem a rather pointless exercise for a grown man.

Within half an hour all possible inflections of the lines had been recorded and Charles went from the studio into the control cubicle Farrow was still not happy. After some deliberation, he pronounced, ‘I think it may not be the actor’s fault this time.’ Charles found that charming. ‘No, I think it’s the copy that’s wrong.’

Hugo’s voice was extremely reasonable as he replied. ‘But you have already passed the copy as suitable for the television commercials, and I thought the idea was to keep the two the same.’

‘If so, the idea was wrong,’ said Farrow accusingly.

‘Well, it was your bloody idea,’ Hugo suddenly snapped.

Farrow looked at him in amazement, as if he must have misheard. In times when there was so much competition for big accounts, no member of an agency would dare to disagree with a client. After a pause, he continued as though Hugo had not spoken. ‘I’m afraid you advised us wrongly on that. The radio campaign must be entirely rethought. I can see it’s easy for you to use the same copy but I’m not the sort of man to take short cuts. I care about this product arid I’m looking for a campaign that’s going to be both effective from the sales point of view and also artistically satisfying.’

This was too much for Hugo. ‘Christ, now I’ve heard it all. Artistically satisfying — what the hell do you know what’s artistically satisfying? I’ve listened to enough crap from you and all the other jumped-up little commercial travellers who try to tell me how to do my job. Stick to what you’re good at — peddling pap to the masses — and leave me to get on with what I’m good at — making advertising.’

There was a long pause. Mr. Farrow collected together his papers and put them in his briefcase. Had he left the room in silence, it could have been a dignified exit. But he let it down by trying an exit line. ‘More powerful men than you, Mr. Mecken, have tried to beat me and failed.’

This delivered in his nasal London whine was suddenly unaccountably funny, and Charles and Hugo both erupted with laughter almost before the door had closed behind the aggrieved Brand Manager.

Hugo’s laughter was a short, nervous burst and when it had passed, he looked ghastly, drained of colour. ‘Oh shit I shouldn’t have done it. I’ll have to go after him and apologize. I wasn’t thinking — or I was thinking about other things. I just snapped.’

He rose to leave: Suddenly Charles was worried about him, he couldn’t forget their drunken conversation on the Saturday night. The outburst against Farrow had sounded like an overdue expression of home truths, but now he wondered if it had been a more fundamental breakdown of control.

Hugo stood dazed for a moment and then started for the door. ‘I’ve booked a table at the Trattoria for twelve-thirty. See you there. I’ll get along as soon as I can.’

Charles walked round Soho until it was time to go to the restaurant for another expense account meal. He gave Hugo’s name and was shown to a table where there were already two young men.

One he recognized as Ian Compton, a bright copy-writer of about twenty-four who was under Hugo at Mills Brown Mazzini. He was wearing a double-breasted gangster-striped suit over a pale blue T-shirt. Around his neck hung a selection of leather thongs, one for a biro, one for a packet of Gauloise, one for a Cricket lighter and others whose function was not immediately apparent. His lapels bristled with badges, gollies, teddy bears, a spilling tomato ketchup bottle and similar trendy kitsch.

The other was more soberly dressed in a dark jacket and open-necked brown shirt. ‘Diccon, this is Charles Paris. I told you about him.’ Ian’s tone implied that what he had told hadn’t been wholly enthusiastic. ‘This is Diccon Hudson.’