Benedetti: ‘Well let’s go and see where the hell it came from. This is ridiculous.’
[Music accompanies the two men striding purposefully up ten or so flights of steps. They arrive on the roof of Priory Square to find it deserted. A sign says: Coming soon! UTOPIA SQUARE.]
Benedetti: ‘Whoever it was…’
Rocaster: ‘Probably a builder, Mr Benedetti.’
Benedetti: ‘Definitely a builder.’
[The pair of them stride over to the edge of the deck and peer out. The view is masked by careful camera angles so as not to show any building from later than the mid 1960s.]
[The older man looks rueful.]
Benedetti: ‘Does anyone in this city actually appreciate what we’re doing for them, Rocaster? Do they share our goals? Do they desire a better environment for their children? Do they realise that order, progress and the segregation of different road users can create an urban utopia? An urban utopia like… like this one we’re building – Utopia Square. Designed by you, Rocaster, and planned by me!’
Rocaster: ‘I don’t believe they do, Mr Benedetti.’
Benedetti: ‘Your buildings, Rocaster, and my big plans. Together we’ll build a new Birmingham. I’ve got no time for old ways or old buildings. Anyone – or anything – that isn’t with me gets the chop.’
[Benedetti pulls out a pipe and starts to tamp it, his eyes looking warm and greedy.]
Benedetti: ‘You see, Rocaster…’
[Rocaster rolls his eyes towards camera.]
Benedetti: ‘…planning and city-building – these aren’t jobs for artists; they’re jobs for engineers. What I learned at civil engineering school taught me much about how to build a proper city. You level it all out, sweep away the muck, install sewers and roads, zone it and neatly lay out blocks of flats or offices at nice right angles. Subways connect everything up. Utopia’s not an abstract concern, is it? It can be planned and a correct end result established.’
[Rocaster rolls his eyes towards camera again.]
Rocaster: ‘No, sir, not abstract.’
Benedetti: ‘Exactly. Utopia is an achievable goal, the end result of hard work and lots of chaps looking at lots of plans and using lots of red pens and rulers to get that plan finalised. This is the rigorous, modern city of the future!’
[Benedetti notices something way down on the ground. Two men walk into shot. The two builders from earlier.]
Benedetti: ‘Who’s on site today, Rocaster?’
Rocaster: ‘It’s a day off, Mr Benedetti. Just the two overtimers, the union wouldn’t let anyone else come on site.’
[Benedetti is getting increasingly irate.]
Benedetti: ‘Just the two overtimers, eh? Not doing much for their extra shilling are they, the little buggers?’
[The ‘Zzzzp’ noise of a zip being undone.]
Rocaster: ‘Mr Benedetti, are you…?’
Benedetti: ‘Yes, I bloody well am.’
[Cut to the two builders at ground level, out of breath from running down the flights of stairs, chatting and giggling, but we can’t hear about what.]
[Shocked] Harris: ‘Bloody hell, Seddon, is it raining?’
[We see both builders assailed by a stream of hot liquid, golden in colour. They look up, mouths agape.]
Seddon: ‘I don’t think so! Ewww.’
[A gruff, indistinct voice yelling from the roof. Sounds like it must be Benedetti.]
‘Get back to work, you lazy buggers!’
*
The words deposited themselves in my ears like tar. The jokes as welcome as a Christmas present from an unloved aunt. It wasn’t that I thought Big Plans was shit, it was just that I knew someone had thought it was shit. Shit enough, in that particular someone’s opinion, to ensure that people in other regions would never get the chance to watch it. Maybe if I’d just set it in London?
All the same, it amused me. I hated myself for the puerile pleasure I got from gags I’d written about pissing and wanking. This was stuff a ten-year-old lad would consider beneath him. I mean, this was satire. Light satire. But I couldn’t resist my schoolboy urges – the occasional bit of scatology amused me. When I sat writing in my house or at Mids in some quiet corner, I used to think that if I could make myself laugh then that meant a few other people would be laughing too. You never really knew with a sitcom like this. In the studio, in front of an audience, you could see and hear them laughing along (or not) to the gags – whether they were watching the real thing or a VT. Like when we had the audiences in for Welcome To The Masshouse – they were so wound up by the warm-up guy and so pissed on their pints that they laughed at almost everything. As instructed. On cue. With programmes like this, I only knew it was funny – really funny – if I could see people sitting in front of their own tellies laughing at grown men urinating off the top of half-built buildings. And it was very seldom that I found myself in someone else’s living room, watching them watching Mids TV. In fact, it was only at Christmas. When I took the kind of delight you reserve for visits to the zoo in watching this odd, greedy species in its natural habitat, arse on sofa, eyes on the bloody gogglebox, hand in a bag of crisps. Foul stench ’n’ all. Same old story too: the more the creature has consumed from a cold can filled with frothy idiot-juice, the heartier the laughs. So was my writing making them laugh – or was their booze?
*
Ten Brutalist Buildings
By Belinda Schneider
Introduction
A new way of seeing, a new way of thinking
Let me tell you about a new way of seeing, a new way of thinking. What if a building, like an idea or a book or a painting, wasn’t easy to ‘get’? What if it was dramatic and tumultuous, aggressive or pointed, exciting and unfamiliar? Brutalist buildings challenge us. But they’re not ugly if you undo what you have in mind to be ugly. Why is concrete, sculpted and extravagant and spread over many levels, considered ‘ugly’ anyway? A place you can explore any time you want. A place that draws you in and makes you puzzle. A place with hidden depths and shapes that verge on sublime? That’s beautiful, isn’t it?
20
1992
‘Well… thisss a… bloody party, ishn’t it?’ Bob was spreadeagled on the floor. ‘This… is a bloody party.’ He stayed quiet for a minute. I bent down to see if he was still alive. I hoped he wasn’t.
‘Bob?’
‘Fetch-a me a whisky. Go on, son.’
My body sprang up. Belinda was giggling. ‘He needs some water. Shouldn’t you be in that state by now?’
‘Too professional, that’s my problem.’
Some moaning noises came from Bob’s mouth but I ignored them.
‘Another white wine spritzer?’
‘Why thank you, kind sir.’
‘My pleasure.’
The barmaid was polishing a glass and regarding Bob with a sneer. ‘I’ll have to fowking kick him roight out if he doesn’t gerris backside off that bloody carpet in five minutes flat. An another thing – he’s gonna gerris wallet taxed. I can see it poking out of his arse pocket.’ She scowled. ‘Whatchavin’?’
‘White wine spritzer and a pint of Birmingham Bitter, please.’
‘Why are you lot ’ere? You’re all from Mids TV, roight? Ain’t there somewhere more glamorous you can go? Some wine bar?’
‘It’s plenty glamorous enough for me. It’s the wrap party for my sitcom, Big Plans. I mean, I wrote it. Have you read about it? There was a quarter-page preview in the Midlands edition of TV This Week magazine this week.’
‘Nope.’
‘Ah well, OK. My boss…’ I pointed towards Bob and he farted. Did he do that deliberately? ‘Him. He said I could have four hundred quid behind any bar for the wrap party. So…’
‘So you chose here. Verrry nice. More for your money than in town, eh? Don’t get many celebrities in Moseley. Are any o’ you lot celebrities?’
‘Well…’ I pointed to Bob again. Dribble had begun to run down his chin. A real river of saliva. ‘Do you recognise the
host of I Love My Dog!? And he’s been in Welcome To The Masshouse. In fact, so have I.’
‘Hmmm, really? Dunno either o’ them. I watch repeats o’ that one set in the ’otel but that’s about it to be honest. Can they not stop the sodding sets wobbling though? We don’t gerr earthquakes in Brum.’ A pronounced sigh. ‘Bloody ’ell. I’m in ’ere every night these days, no time to watch the box.’
‘How much have we got left behind there before I’ve gotta get my coppers out?’
‘Er, about fifty quid.’
‘Thanks for the drinks.’
Silence.
I walked back over towards Bob and looked up to see Baxter conversing with my girlfriend. As soon as I arrived he stopped talking and looked at me, directly into my eyes. It was harrowing. ‘Don,’ he said, before shuffling off elsewhere. I watched him walk away, and as soon as he reached the other side of the bar he paused and turned round, looking at Bel, thinking I wouldn’t see. Staring at her. I should put him in the ground.
‘He’s a funny fish, isn’t he? Cheeky sod’s looking at you. If he keeps doing that…’
She seemed strangely unfazed by him. She didn’t actually like him, did she? ‘Clever but very odd. There’s something a bit German about him. He’s so serious. I knew a lot of people like that in Berlin. People who were a bit detached, a bit aloof. I like some of his arts programmes though. The ones he’s presented about architecture aren’t too bad actually.’
‘Fucking awful guy,’ I said, feeling more antagonistic towards him now, sipping my pint, checking what he was up to. He seemed to have joined a conversation, in the sense that he just stood there, next to a group of people, but not speaking. Just listening.
Bel chinked her glass against mine and planted a kiss on my cheek, changing the subject, winching me up from my grump. ‘Well done. You made it. This is all for you!’
‘Well if it’s all for me, why don’t you get back behind the bar? The service was so much friendlier when you used to work here. Do you know the barmaid who’s here now?’
Bel looked over at her. ‘God, no. Giving you hassle?’
‘You could say. Why aren’t there more barmaids that look like you working here now?’
‘Oi.’ She punched my right arm. I didn’t flinch.
‘I’m so glad you’re here. I wanted to show you off.’
Bel adopted a tone of mock rage. ‘I’m not a fucking doll. You can’t parade me around.’
‘Watch me.’
Bob made another moaning noise. The barmaid yelled out, ‘Can someone gerrim of the fowkin’ carpet, please? We can’t have that sorrof thing in ’ere. What if the bloody council or the cops come in? We’ll lose our sodding licence.’
Bel kneeled down. ‘Are you OK, Bob?’
‘I think… um… waaa… I am now I can see you, love. Stay here with an old man, will you?’
Bel patted him on the head as you would an attention-seeking golden retriever. She stood back up and spun round. She seemed to make eye contact with Baxter for a second. He was standing across the room, silent, looking at her. She inhaled and spoke dramatically, as if trying to distract me. ‘Oh look, it’s Kate over there. Let’s go and say hi to her.’ Bel waved to Kate, and then we walked over towards her. Kate was being chatted up by the actors who played Rocaster and Benedetti. The actors greeted us theatrically. It was strange to see them dressed down and camp. They started regaling us with stories from their time doing plays at Birmingham Rep. But I was distracted. It looked like the guy who played Seddon the builder was chancing his arm with the barmaid. He leaned over and blew cigarette smoke over her. She cackled.
I went outside to get some peace. The crisp night air pricked my cheeks. I stood on the pavement watching the traffic swarm down the hill from Moseley. The constant procession of high-powered beams gave me a headache. As each car or bus passed, it made its own unique whooshing sound.
I felt fingers creep around my face and cover my eyes, hot breath on my neck. ‘Guess who?’
‘Bob?’
‘Shut up!’ Bel ran her hands over my chest, proudly stroking. She clamped her hands together and squeezed. I could feel her head resting sideways against my back. She seemed content.
‘Got a cigarette?’
‘For the lady, of course.’
‘When we’ve finished these shall we get out of here? I want you to myself.’
‘I don’t even have to think about that one.’
‘Good. Let’s go.’
‘Good.’
‘I love you, Donald.’
‘I love you more.’
21
1993
A yellow meniscus stretched several feet in every direction. The reason for this soon became clear. The studio floor was soaking with urine. I bent down and breathed in. The tang of urea shot straight up my nostrils. I heard some panting and felt a creature knocking into my arse.
‘Bob?’ I turned round.
A poodle was nuzzling me, its stupid tongue drooping out of its mouth like ham on a butcher’s counter. I couldn’t see into the creature’s eyes because of all the fur crowding around them. It squawked a sort of ‘Hello’. It was urinating as it stood there. I recognised the mutt from the episode we’d just filmed. Clouds of steam rose into the air as if from New York sidewalks.
‘What do you want?’
It squawked again, concluded its business, and began dancing on its hind legs.
An attractive young woman with long legs and brown hair, wearing a burlesque costume and high heels, picked her way across the studio floor, between the puddles of piss. She walked towards the far wall of the studio. Pinned up on that wall was an oversized piece of cardboard shaped like a bone, and on that bone it said I Love My Dog!
‘I wish animals had more dignity,’ I said to the poodle. I bent down, parted the fur from its eyes and stared right into them. ‘My dog’s just like you. And the one we had when I was a kid was just the bloody same. Both of them, making a tit of themselves for one lousy corner of a bacon sandwich. Can’t you… you… people, just for once be a bit aloof, a bit fucking standoffish?’
It squawked twice more, at a lower pitch and volume, as if agreeing with what I’d just said, perhaps even atoning for its brothers and sisters, for their simplicity; maybe even trying to say sorry.
‘Rocaster! Rocaster!’
I sighed.
‘Rocaster! Daddy’s here.’
A chap wearing a brown corduroy blazer flounced towards me and the dog, feet slapping against the wet, black floor.
‘Rocaster, my baby!’
Just before he arrived, his right foot completely missed its intended connection with the ground and he pancaked onto the studio floor with a dull thud. His momentum, allied to the newly slick floor, kept him sliding towards me. He ground to a halt a few inches short of me, like a human curling stone that had been delivered with aplomb.
He panted. The dog panted. It licked his face. He sat up and looked at me. ‘Oh, I can’t thank you enough for finding Rocaster. I thought I was going to have to go back to Worcester tonight without him.’ The man looked genuinely pained. ‘Do you work on the show? Thanks so much for having Rocaster on. He might not have won, but he’ll treasure these memories forever. He can’t wait to see himself on TV next month, can he? Can he?’ The man made an extended ‘Ooh’ noise and played with the dog’s salivary jowls.
I looked at the dog, then at its owner. ‘So Rocaster – I thought he might be named… after someone?’
‘Yes, look at me. Such a telly addict. I Love My Dog! is obviously my favourite programme on Mids, but my second favourite is Big Plans. I just can’t get enough of Rocaster and Benedetti. I’ve got a collie at home called Benedetti.’
This made me smile. ‘Have you now? And if you could meet the person who wrote that series, what would you say to him? Or her?’
‘That they’ve written a great Midlands sitcom. That’s what. A lovely great satire about Brum and its eccentricities. With two cheeky main cha
racters. What would you say to them?’
‘That he or she needs to write better… funnier jokes.’
‘I think the jokes are, argh, quite good,’ said the man, hauling himself up. ‘I need to go and clean my trousers,’ he bleated. ‘Come on, Rocaster, come with Daddy to clean his pantaloons in the loos.’ He looked up. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘You too.’
Animal and human bumbled off out of the studio.
22
2008
We were due in Yorkshire to shoot more of Ten Brutalist Buildings. Leeds first, then down to Sheffield. I drove to the studios, where Kate had organised for some transport to pick us up. I was early so I went up to the production offices. It was empty. Apart from Kate. She was leaning out of the window, puffing on a fag.
‘Where is everybody?’
‘Lay-offs. We’re all on borrowed time.’
Some shouting from… somewhere.
‘What’s happening?’ I said, dropping my overnight bag on Kate’s messy desk, sending papers and empty pre-packed falafel wrap cartons flying.
She motioned towards Bob’s office. I could hear some muffled swearing, then a large clatter came a second after a black shadow shot across Bob’s office window. More yelling. I peered inside and saw Baxter throw a chair across the room. Bob sidestepped the flying piece of furniture with the most casual nonchalance. It whizzed past his head and flew straight into a giant buzzer we’d used on I Love My Dog! It hit the big button, and a load of lights started flashing and high-volume barking noises began emanating from it. Bob exited the office and closed the door behind him. From behind the door the sound of frenzy continued – smashing and growling and banging and woofing and dinging noises. Baxter was going crazy like a caged bear.
‘Don! How are you this fine morning?’ Bob looked as carefree as if it were the first day of summer.
‘How’s Baxter?’ I saw him smashing a chair against a giant fluffy dachshund.
The Wall in the Head Page 12