Simon Brett - Star Trap

But Christopher Milton was worried. His anxiety was not apparent to the audience, but to Charles, who knew the performance well, the fear showed. There was a hesitancy in delivery, a certain stiffness in dancing that betrayed the inward unrest. It came to a head in the Liberty Hall number. This involved a parodic country dance for Tony Lumpkin and the dancers. It was a well-choreographed routine, which started with heavy deliberation and speeded up until Christopher Milton was spinning giddily on a rostrum centre stage, from which he did a final jump to a kneeling position, an inevitable cue for applause.

He’d done it perfectly in rehearsal, but on the first night he mis-timed it. He came out of the spin into the jump and landed untidily on one leg. It was not a serious error and certainly did not hurt him, but it was messy. The audience realised it had gone wrong, lost their own natural timing and did not come in with instantaneous applause.

The pause was tiny, the audience goodwill to clap was there, but the mistake had thrown them. Christopher Milton felt the hiatus and came in quickly with the line, ‘Ooh, I done it all wrong.’

This time the reaction was enormous. An instant laugh, the loudest of the evening, which melted naturally into vigorous clapping, as if the audience wanted to make up for missing their first cue.

As a professional Charles could recognise Christopher Milton’s immaculate timing of the line, but it was not that which struck him most about it. It was the voice in which it had been delivered. The star had not used his own voice, nor that of Tony Lumpkin. The line had been spoken by Lionel Wilkins of the television series Straight up, Guv.

And from that point on, Lionel Wilkins took over. For the next ten minutes or so, Tony Lumpkin fought a desultory rearguard action, but he was defeated before he started. The rustic burr was replaced by a London whine. The brown frock coat was thrown into the wings and the part was played in timeless shirtsleeves. Oliver Goldsmith, who had probably done a few gyrations in his grave over the previous weeks, must by now have been turning fast enough to power the National Grid. One of the central themes of his play, the contrast between Town and Country, had just vanished. The plot lost yet another of its tenuous links with sense.

And the audience loved it. Familiarity gave them the confidence they needed to express their enthusiasm. It may have been a bit difficult to follow the twists and exposition of an old-fashioned story, but to be presented with an instantly recognisable character from their television screens, that made it all simple. Charles watched from the fly gallery in amazement. ‘What the hell is he doing?’ he murmured to Spike, who was leaning on the rail beside him.

‘His own thing,’ Spike grunted. ‘Never does anything else.’

‘What will David Humdrum say?’

Charles knew the answer to his question, but Spike supplied it ‘He’ll say, “Fine”.’

And he did. Charles saw the encounter between star and director in the green room at the interval. ‘Christ, this needs a lot more work,’ said the star.

‘It’s going fine, Christopher, just fine,’ soothed the director.

‘That Liberty Hall number will have to come out for a start. I always thought it was a load of crap.’

‘I’m sure, with a bit more rehearsal — ’

‘Shut up! It’s coming out.’ Christopher Milton went up to his dressing-room.

Charles decided that it was in his interests as the show’s secret watchdog to keep his eyes on the movements of Kevin McMahon. If the writer lived up to half of his drunken threats, there was going to be trouble.

The trouble started as soon as the curtain had come down on the final call. Kevin McMahon was in the green room to greet the cast as they came offstage. He went straight up to Christopher Milton and shouted, ‘What the hell do you mean by performing my stuff like that? This isn’t one of your tatty TV comedies!’

The star seemed to look through him and greeted a man with greasy swept-back hair and a cheap suede zip-up jacket. ‘Hello, Wally. What did you think?’

‘Good bits, bad bits,’ said Wally Wilson in broad Cockney.

‘Never mind. Nothing that can’t be changed.’

‘Too right. Soon be up to the Straight Up, Guv standard!’

‘Now you bloody listen to me, Mr Christopher Bloody Milton….’ Kevin began belligerently.

The response came back like a whip-lash. ‘Shut up, I’m talking to a writer.’

The implication was too much for Kevin McMahon. With a cry of fury, he drew his fist back for a blow.

Christopher Milton moved fast. He side-stepped with a dancer’s ease. Kevin swung himself off balance and at that moment Dickie Peck, who had moved from the doorway at amazing speed when the fracas started, flicked up Kevin’s head with his left forearm and smashed a hard right knuckle into the writer’s mouth. The knees gave, the body crumpled and blood welled from a cut lip. ‘Don’t you ever dare lay a finger on him,’ Dickie Peck hissed.

The action had all been so quick that it left behind a shocked silence. The unexpectedness of the fight paled into insignificance compared to the transformation of Dickie Peck, suddenly converted from a middle-aged joke figure to a bruiser. Charles recollected a distant rumour that the agent had started his career as a boxer.

Christopher Milton broke the silence. He continued in an even tone, as if nothing had happened. ‘Wally, come up to my dressing-room and have a chat.’

‘Love to.’ Wall’s casualness was more studied.

‘Um, er, Mr Milton.’ A young man who had been hovering uneasily round the edges of the green room, stepped forward, blushing furiously.

‘What?’

‘I’m, er, um… my name is Bates and, er, I’m representing Mr Katzmann, who, as you know, is, er, the general manager of the theatre and — ’

‘What the hell are you burbling about?’

‘Well, er, as you know, the; er… the, er…’ He ran out of syntax. ‘The Friends.’

‘Are you coming, Wally?’

‘Mr Milton.’ Panic made the young man articulate again, and he blurted out his message. ‘The Friends of the Palace Theatre are about to hold their discussion of the show on stage and, as Mr Katzmann arranged, you and the other members of the cast will be joining in the discussion.’

‘I bloody won’t. It’s the first I’ve heard of it. If you think I’m going to piss around talking crap to old ladies, you can forget it.’

‘But — ’

Dickie Peck cut the young man short with a gesture and again took control. ‘Has this been advertised?’

‘Yes. Mr Katzmann arranged it months ago.’

‘Not through me, he didn’t. You’d better do it, Chris.’

‘Look, I’ve just done a bloody performance, I’ve just been assaulted by a lunatic hack-writer, I’m not going to — ’

Dickie Peck raised his hand and the voice petered out. ‘You’ve got to do it, Chris. It’s a bloody lumber and — ’ with a glance at Mr Bates, who trembled visibly — ‘there’ll be hell to pay for someone in the morning when I find out who made the cock-up. But if it’s been advertised, you can’t afford to get the reputation of someone who jacks out of that sort of thing.’

Christopher Milton swore obscenely and loud, but accepted the logic of the argument. He went upstairs to take off his make-up and, as often happened when he left the room, the atmosphere relaxed. People started to drift away. Charles went across to Kevin McMahon, who had dragged himself quietly to a sofa and was dabbing at his lip with a handkerchief. ‘I think it’s time to take the money and run, Kevin. Put this down to bad experience. Reckon that it’s just a grant of money to buy you time to go off and write what you really want to.’