May I Have Your Attention Please?

by James Corden

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Introduction Take 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Acknowledgements

  Picture Acknowledgements

  Picture Section

  Copyright

  About the Book

  So… my first book. The story of my life. I’ve often thought about this moment, about what it would be like to write my memoirs. I always thought it would make me feel important. It doesn’t. If anything it makes me feel a little strange.

  The truth is, I should never have been this guy. I wasn’t the cool, clever, good-looking boy at school. I was never supposed to be the person who writes books or TV shows, hosts award ceremonies or appears in films. Things like that shouldn’t happen to someone like me. But I always dreamt of it, hoped for it, longed for it: throughout school when I was disruptive and disinterested, in my teens when I tried to form my own boy band and through hundreds of auditions for parts which were met with constant rejection.

  Until finally I co-wrote a TV series called Gavin and Stacey. And my whole life changed. In every single way. Lots of it good and parts of it bad. Some of it funny and bits of it sad.

  This is that story. The story of how I found myself here, talking to you.

  About the Author

  Born in Buckinghamshire in 1978, James Corden is a British actor, television writer, producer and presenter. He is co-creator and star of the multi-award winning BBC comedy Gavin & Stacey. James lives in London with his girlfriend and newborn son.

  This is for all the people who have helped and supported me along the way, whoever you may be. Truly, thank you.

  INTRODUCTION

  I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT that the first few lines of any book would be the hardest to write. Where do I start? How do I begin to tell you, someone I don’t know, someone I’ve more than likely never met, about my life? My life? My story. How do I do this? I’m only thirty-two and, if I’m being completely honest, at least two of those thirty-two years were spent playing PlayStation and eating Crunchy Nut cornflakes. I could try and be clever and start in the middle and jump back and forth in time. Like The Social Network. Though that jumped between various courtrooms and depositions to Harvard University and the creation of a website that changed the way we socially interact. Mine would jump from my parents’ front room to my bedroom and all that would have happened in between is I’d have grabbed a bag of Quavers.

  I’ve just realised you may not have actually purchased this book and are doing what I do when buying a book and reading the first page to see if you like it. I’m guessing so far you’re not overly impressed. If this is the case, let me start by saying that you look and indeed smell incredible today. Are those new shoes? No? New-ish? Well, they’re a triumph. They really suit you. I tell you what, don’t look now but, as you’re reading this, everyone around you in the shop is checking you out and saying how hot you are. Seriously. There’s something about you holding this book that really brings out the best in you. Now I come to mention it, you look slimmer holding this book.

  The truth is, my head’s a little all over the place today. Yesterday was Tuesday 22 March, and it’s a day that will be etched in my memory for as long as I live. It was the day I became a father. My son weighed in at seven pounds eight ounces and it’s by far the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me. He’s a day old and so far seems like a good bloke, but as yet we don’t know what to call him. He came a week early, and although that’s brilliant, this was supposed to be my big week for writing this book. For really getting stuck in. So, with a heavy heart, I’ve left him and his mother sleeping peacefully at the hospital. There he lay, nestled in his mother’s arms, his head pressed to her chest, and as I looked back at him, I wondered what he might remember as his earliest memory.

  I remember mine clearly. I was four years old and it was so definitive it would shape the rest of my life. In a few days’ time my family will be coming home from the hospital and a new phase of life will begin. A new chapter: experiences I can’t even begin to contemplate. It feels like the right time to take stock of my old life, and that first memory feels like the right place to begin.

  I have two sisters: Andrea, who is three years older than me, and Ruth, who is four years younger. My mum, Margaret, is a social worker and my dad, Malcolm, used to be a musician in the Royal Air Force, but is now a Christian book salesman. I know, it’s not the most straightforward career path from being exceptionally good at saxophone, clarinet, flute and drums, and travelling the world with the Air Force to then suddenly selling the Bible and Christian worship CDs to little shops in the southeast. But the Church and Christianity were always a big part of my life growing up, even before Dad changed jobs. I say the Church, but to be more precise it was the Salvation Army. And it’s here, at the Salvation Army in High Wycombe, where my first memory takes place.

  It was my younger sister Ruth’s christening. Our family were very involved in all aspects of church life. Mum was in the Songsters (basically, the choir), Dad played in the brass band (basically the … well, brass band) and both wore the Salvation Army uniform. A hideous black suit that looked a bit like a policeman’s uniform. It was a Sunday morning service and the Salvation Army officer (basically the vicar or priest) had been talking for a couple of minutes when he asked our whole family to join him on the platform. I walked up holding Mum’s hand and approached the altar where he was speaking. Dad handed Ruth over to the vicar and as a family we formed a semicircle round him. Except, because of the configuration of the altar and where we were standing, it meant I couldn’t see Ruth being blessed at all. So the vicar grabbed a chair and said, ‘Come on, James, come and stand on here so you can see.’ I crawled up onto my knees and then up onto my feet, so that I was standing; and what I saw then, at that moment, changed something inside me for ever.

  This may sound incredibly dramatic and hard for you to believe, for a memory to be this vivid or important at such a young age, but I promise you. I remember this as if it was yesterday. I stood on that chair and looked out towards the congregation and saw row after row of people staring back at me. There were probably about forty or fifty people in the congregation that day, but to my four-year-old self it looked like a sea of millions. The whole point of me being on that chair was to see Ruth being blessed and the Devil being renounced from her soul; but from the moment I saw people looking at me, I don’t think I once looked at Ruth or what was happening on the platform. Because, in my eyes, this was no longer a platform. This was a stage.

  I started to pull faces and dance my arms around and a ripple of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the people watching turned into giggles, and giggles turned into laughs as I bent over and looked back at them through my legs. The longer I carried on, the more people were looking at me instead of watching the christening take place. Even the people on the platform were giggling, as I was by now pretending to sing into a microphone. I don’t know what happened to my insides up there, but they changed forever. This felt good. Really good. As the
blessing came to an end, the vicar welcomed Ruth into the church and then turned to me, ruffled my hair and said, ‘And thank you, young James. Quite the little performer.’ Dad handed Ruth to Mum and tried to hold my hand as he replied to the vicar, ‘Ha! Quite the little show-off more like.’ The congregation started to laugh again, which I took as a signal to raise my hands triumphantly in the air and jump off the chair like it was a climbing frame, ignoring my dad’s help. I landed on my feet to a healthy round of applause. As I stood there, looking out on the clapping audience, I realised – even at the age of four! – that this was the greatest feeling I had ever had. I walked down the steps back to my seat between Mum and Dad, smiling the biggest smile. It felt incredible. My whole body was tingling.

  What was that? What just happened? I thought to myself. And as I sat down between Mum and Dad, staring at the back of the person in front of me, I instantly became bored. I’d had a fix of something incredible, and, in a flash, it was gone. From invincible to normal in a few seconds. In my head it became simple: if people are looking at me, and only me, it feels amazing. And that was that. From that moment forward, every day became a quest to be noticed. To have the attention of people. Of you.

  INTRODUCTION TAKE 2

  OK, PHEW. ONE chapter down. Does what I just wrote count as a chapter? It does, doesn’t it? Hang on, should my chapters have titles? Isn’t that what these sorts of books do? Title each chapter with something either profound or witty? I fear mine will be neither.

  Hang on, let me ring Jack the publisher and ask him if the chapters should have names. Wait there …

  … Answerphone. ‘Hi, you’ve reached Jack …’ Why do people say that on answerphone messages? ‘Hi you’ve reached …’ Clearly I haven’t. The very reason you’re recording this message is because I haven’t reached you. I didn’t leave a voicemail. I’m hoping Jack will see a missed call from me and call straight back. He will, won’t he?

  I’m worried about this book.

  What should I say or not say? What if you don’t believe a word I’ve said? I’m only thinking this because I’ve read autobiographies before and found myself saying that. So far, everything I’ve told you happened actually did happen. The attention-seeking stuff at the christening, that’s completely true. Even though I was only four years old, from that moment I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to entertain people, to act, sing, dance; everything and anything that would mean people would look at me and smile.

  Teachers would say this to my mum and dad at parents’ evenings and repeat it in my end-of-term report. The end-of-term report – always a horrible day for me in our house because I would spend most of the term coming home from school and lying to my parents about my academic achievements.

  ‘How was your day at school, son?’ Dad would ask.

  ‘Oh, it was amazing, Dad. Mrs Aitkinson says I might get moved up a year because my maths work is so advanced,’ or something equally preposterous would be my reply.

  ‘Really?’ Dad would say, astonished.

  ‘Oh yeah, all the teachers have said that since the last parents’ evening you went to, when they told you about how disruptive I’d been and you came home, shouted at me and threatened to send me to boarding school if I didn’t improve, I’ve been much better and, get this, probably the best in my class.’

  Dad would ruffle my hair, tell me how proud he was and let me have a Club biscuit or a Trio from the biscuit barrel. I would carry on with these lies all term, mostly because I saw how happy they made my dad. It felt silly to come home and say, ‘Oh, Dad, I’m a nightmare. I know. I’m only ten, but I’m shit at school.’

  All my lies would’ve been fine had it not been for the end-of-term report, and the horrible, gut-clenching truth it brought. At our school, everyone used to be given their reports ten minutes before the end of term. They’d be sealed in an envelope and would remain that way until your parents opened them at home.

  Now, I’m going to let you in on a secret here, something I have never, ever confessed as long as I’ve been alive: I once – prepare yourselves – stole my own end-of-term report.

  God, that feels good. To get that off my chest. I’ve been living this lie for twenty-two years. I stole it and I’ve been keeping this dirty secret for that whole time. How did I do it? you ask. OK, I’ll tell you.

  If this book was a film, this bit would be like Ocean’s Eleven where you see exactly how the heist had taken place. If you can try and imagine that kind of music, y’no, a funky mix of brass and heavy bass. Except not in Vegas. No. In the Park County Middle School in a small, sleepy village outside High Wycombe.

  I was ten years old and it was the last day of term. Everyone seemed in a good mood because we were breaking up for Easter. Normally a good thing, two weeks off school. Well, two weeks and two days, to be precise, as we had some teacher-training days stuck on the end. (Ah, teacher-training days – hands down the best phrase you’ll ever hear at school. Well, that and frozen pipes. Both amount to the same thing: days off. Though frozen pipes edge it because they meant you’d probably get to go sledging instead of going to school. One year, at my secondary upper, our whole heating system got shut down because two pipes got smashed on the exact same day that three of the hardest fifth years had bought new sledges. An incredible coincidence? Sorry, I digress, let’s get back to Ocean’s Eleven, High Wycombe-style.) So I’m standing in the playground, a lone figure, my chubby frame stood stock-still in amongst the games of football and hopscotch off to my left and right. Everywhere I look, kids are having fun. Apart from me. In my eyes was fear: fear because this was school report day; extreme fear because the last school report day my dad shouted at me like never before. He shouted so much it made my mum cry.

  He’d lost it because, at just ten years old, teachers were writing me off. Not completely – there were glimmers of hope – but on the whole they said I was too disruptive, too attention-seeking; basically, too much to teach. I knew I’d been a bit better this term, but I also knew I’d not been good enough.

  The last parents’ evening had been so bad that late one night I woke up to hear the unfamiliar sound of my parents arguing. I walked out of my room and sat on the stairs in our humble semidetached, listening to Mum and Dad argue about me. It was a truly horrible thing to hear. Dad was repeatedly telling Mum that I’d fallen in with the wrong crowd of boys, that all the teachers said I was a bright kid, but that I was too lazy and needed a kick up the backside. In reply, Mum was saying that I was only ten and that I was a good kid, not a bully or an angry child, that this was a phase and it would pass. Their voices got louder and louder, the anger in both of them driving their opinions of what to do with this good-for-nothing child of theirs further and further apart.

  It got so heated, with Mum’s defence of me becoming ever more forceful, that in a real outburst, my dad said, ‘Sometimes I wish I was your son. You can see the bad in me all the time, but never in him!’

  Mum didn’t say anything; she just tried to take in what Dad had said. Did she only see the bad in Dad? What was he saying about them, and their marriage? I sat on the stairs, hiding behind the coats on the banister, knowing that this argument was all my fault. My parents, the two people who I loved more than anything in the world, the people who I owed everything to, were arguing and being driven apart by me. I stayed on the stairs as Mum and Dad reached the silent part of the row. They were still arguing, make no mistake about that, but they were doing that silent arguing where you pretend to do something like tidy up the newspapers or take the tea and coffee cups out to the kitchen, but actually you’ve just put the argument on pause. (And whilst we’re on pause, I should say that my parents rarely ever argued. That’s why this was even more harrowing.)

  After a while, Dad started to speak up, this time more measured. He said he was worried. Worried that if they, as parents, didn’t act now, I could be a lost cause; that I needed a stricter routine to get the best out of me. And slowly but surely the volume of their voic
es began to rise.

  ‘He’s not a bad kid, Malcolm!’ Mum shouted.

  ‘Not yet! But if he carries on the way he’s going, he will be!’ Dad screamed back.

  ‘What do you want to do then, Malc? Tell me. What’s the answer?’ Mum was sitting down on the sofa with her head in her hands. Dad went to the kitchen and returned with a brochure for an all-boys boarding school about ninety miles away from where we lived. Dad was a musician in the Royal Air Force, so he could send me to boarding school free of charge.

  ‘I’ve looked into this and I think it might be the best option.’ He handed it to Mum, who had a brief look and burst into tears.

  ‘How could you even consider sending James to boarding school? Separate him from his sisters! How could we do that?’ Mum said, aghast at the prospect.

  Dad explained that he’d only picked up a prospectus, that nothing was fixed as yet, and that Mum should calm down. Then came Mum’s final word, which encapsulated what had been festering for weeks and been on display for the last hour. She stood up, looked at Dad and, cool as ice, said, ‘If you ever mention sending James to live away from us again, I will leave you. I will. I will pack my bags and take the three kids with me. I will not allow you to split up this family.’ And with that, she left the room.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering how I’d caused such a mess. I wasn’t that bad, was I? Or maybe I was. It was around this time I started to tell the aforementioned ‘I’m the ideal pupil’ lies to Dad. Yeah, that’s right. Rather than actually improve at school, I chose to lie about it instead. I did try, honestly I did – hand on heart. I tried to be better at school, but showing off and being the class clown was like a drug to me. And an addictive drug at that.

  Every day I’d walk to school and have a pep talk with myself about how I had to remember how much I’d upset my parents and just concentrate on my schoolwork. That would last about two hours and then I’d get bored and want to make the class laugh again. For precisely this reason, I knew that whatever was written in that school report wasn’t going to be good. It might have been better than it had been last term, but it wouldn’t be good enough. I couldn’t bear the thought of upsetting Mum and Dad again, and the fact that I had been lying was only going to make it worse. Maybe my lying would be the final straw and Mum would agree with Dad and send me away to boarding school. There was only one thing for it: I had to get to that school report before they did.