Ben Elton - Inconceivable

Nigel just said he didn’t think it was funny and George, damn him, said it was a very old joke and a pun to boot.

Anyway, I was just getting all heated and defensive as we writers do when Ewan really alarmed me by saying, “It doesn’t matter, anyway, we won’t be hearing the dialogue. I always play thrash metal music over my injection scenes. It’s a personal motif. I’m known for it. Have you ever heard of a Boston grunge band called One-Eyed Trouser Snake? They’d be perfect.”

A bit worrying, that, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Everyone knows that in movies the writer is lower than the make-up girl’s cat.

Anyway, then Nigel asked Ewan if he’d given any thought to casting.

“Well, the girl’s what? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?” Ewan replied.

I quickly interjected that in fact I’d been thinking early thirties and unbelievably Ewan just laughed! He could see he’d shocked me, so he tried to explain himself.

“Look, Sam. I think we’ll need to be pretty non-specific about the girl’s age. I mean obviously we’re not looking at teenage waifs but she’s got to be vaguely shaggable, for Christ’s sake. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll accept anything from an old-looking twenty-one-year-old to a young-looking twenty-eight.”

I couldn’t reply. His pragmatism (I might almost say cynicism) had temporarily rendered me speechless. There was worse to come.

“What about the man?” Nigel asked.

“I was thinking in terms of Carl Phipps,” Ewan replied.

I can’t write any more tonight. All I can say is that it’ll be over my dead body.

Dear Penny

I saw Carl Phipps again today for the first time since what I think we must describe as “that night”. It was a bit of a shock. I knew it would happen soon but I still didn’t find it easy. I mean it’s not as if I’ve suddenly stopped fancying him or liking him just because I’ve decided I must not do anything about it. Anyway, I don’t know if he was as flustered as I was because we avoided each other’s eye. He’d come in to talk to Sheila about a movie script that’s come through. It’s small-budget, mainly BBC money, but Sheila thinks it’s interesting.

“ It’s a pretty funny script,” she said, “although it hasn’t got an end yet for some reason. I’ve never heard of the author, but Ewan Proclaimer’s slated to direct and you can’t get any hotter than him.”

Carl enquired what the theme was and you could have knocked me down with a feather when Sheila said infertility.

“ It’s absolutely the theme of the moment,” she said. “Lucy you’re our expert on the subject. Would you like to cast an eye over this script for us? Tell Carl what you think.”

I wonder if there’s a scientific name for the depth of the colour of red I must have gone.

“ No thanks,” I replied with as much dignity as I could. “I can get all that at home.”

Dear Sam

We held auditions today for Rachel, which was very exciting and also most disconcerting since the casting director has definitely erred on the lower end of Ewan’s age range. The venue was a church hall near Goodge Street on the Tottenham Court Road. Ewan sat behind a long trestle table with Petra, also a PA with blue hair and an earnest-looking young man with a ponytail who is to be the second assistant director. George and I slunk around at the back trying not to ogle the actresses too much. Trevor had come down but had left again; he said he found me and George too sickening. George as usual could not resist doing battle.

“Look, Trevor, when I fancy a girl I just look at her. I don’t try and shag her behind a tree on Hampstead Heath.”

“We don’t all do that,” Trevor replied. He really will have to learn not to rise to it.

Ewan was getting the girls to read one of Rachel’s speeches, which I had basically lifted straight out of Lucy’s book. It’s from the bit where she tried a guided fantasy. Wonderful stuff. There were a couple of actresses who made it sound absolutely marvellous.

“‘I mean, why the hell should I have to imagine a baby? Why can’t I just have one! Far less nice people than me have lots. I know that’s a wicked thing to say but I know I’d be a better mum than half the women I see letting their children put sweets in the trolley at Sainsbury’s… I’d read my child Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh and the only glue it would ever get involved with would be flour and water for making collages.’”

Listening to it was both exhilarating and excruciating. I mean it works so well and yet of course it’s Lucy’s voice, Lucy’s feelings. I really have done a terrible thing. Standing there watching all these gorgeous young women, all ten years younger than Lucy, mouthing her thoughts, made me feel very awkward about myself indeed. But what’s done is done. It’ll be worth it for us both in the end. And I can’t go back now. George was thrilled.

“Very nice speech, Sam,” he said. “The woman’s voice is so much more clearly defined. You’ve obviously really unlocked something.”

That made me feel both better and worse.

Perhaps I should just tell Lucy, make a clean breast of it. But I can’t. Not while she’s all hormonally messed up with IVF. Besides, supposing she stopped me? This is my big break, my chance, and the BBC would probably sue me for the money they’ve already spent. Anyway, Lucy said to me that if I did this thing that I have done she’d leave me, so I can’t tell her, can I? Not yet.

There was one girl who I thought read particularly well. Her name was Tilda, I think. How is it that all these actresses have such ridiculous names? Darcy and Tilly and Saskia and the rest. They’re their real names, too. I don’t think they assume them. It’s as if their mothers know at birth that they’re going to be actresses and christen them accordingly. Or else possibly it’s the other way round and that any girl who has to go to school with a name like Darcy has to get so mouthy there’s nothing else for her but to become an actress.

Anyway, Ewan clearly thought that Tilda had talent, as did I, although like all the girls attending the audition she was ridiculously young for the part.

“Now then, Tilda,” Ewan said.

He was studying the script as he said it and did not even look up from it as he spoke. He did that to all the girls, just to show them how important he was. Power definitely does corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well you don’t get power more absolute than that of a movie director. In their own little world, they are absolute monarchs and it can lead to some pretty off-hand posturing, I can tell you. Especially where nervous quaking little twenty-one-year-old cuties are concerned.

“Now then, Tilda,” Ewan repeated. “Bearing in mind the nature of this story, I’m anxious to underline the fact that despite Rachel’s fears for her fertility she remains a sensual and a sexual being. Would you have any problem with that?”

Tilda was confused. So, actually, was I.

“Uhm, no, I don’t think so,” she said. “In what way exactly?”

“Well,” said Ewan. “I think it’s thematically absolutely essential that we see Rachel’s breasts.”

I must say I was nearly as taken aback as Tilda was. She went bright red, which was of course highly attractive, gulped a bit and replied, “Well… I don’t suppose I’d have a problem with that, probably, if the part really required it.”

“Good,” said Ewan perfunctorily and for a minute I thought he was going to ask her to get them out there and then. I could feel George craning forward in eager anticipation. Thank God he didn’t. I mean I bow to no one in my appreciation of the youthful female form, particularly the bosom, but there are limits.