May I Have Your Attention Please?

by James Corden

  The kids were split into pools of ten, with two boys or girls from each pool being selected to play one of the children in alternate performances. The director kicked it off by having us sing ‘Do-Re-Mi’. We would start together, then he would point at one of us, everyone else would stop and that child would carry on by themselves. He pointed to me just as we hit the line ‘Sew, a needle pulling thread …’ and I went for it, I sang my heart out. To this day, I wonder if anyone has sung that line with more determination.

  While I was in there singing, Dad was with the other parents outside, waiting. And he hated it; he couldn’t stand the way everyone would go on and on about their skiing holidays or how they couldn’t get all their stuff into their estate car so they’d had to buy a bigger one.

  They were living in such a different world to ours. With me going to Jackie Palmer’s twice a week, the financial strain on Mum and Dad was massive, so he didn’t have a huge amount of time for small estates and too much snow and all the other crap the other parents were moaning about. Taking me to one side in between auditions, he said, ‘Look, James, if it’s OK with you, I’m going to wait in the car. It’s just outside the stage door, though, so I’m not far away, all right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s fine, Dad. But are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, I’m great, mate,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s just that …’ He looked past my shoulder to a couple of mums and rolled his eyes as one of them proudly announced that her darling Anastasia was down to the last two for some advert for paint stripper.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said, and told him I’d see him afterwards.

  This was The Sound of Music and, standing there in the dusty corridor, nervously waiting around to be called, I couldn’t help but dream about playing to a packed theatre, listening to the applause, taking the bow at the finale. I’d been singing these songs all day, getting myself psyched up, and as far as I was concerned there was nothing else in the entire world at that moment except the part.

  Decision time came, and while the director and his assistants deliberated, I stood outside the rehearsal room on my own. With my throat dry from hitting the high notes, I was trying to shove a straw through the hole in a Capri-Sun sachet that Dad had bought me while he was waiting down in the car chewing his nails. For three years we’d been doing this, audition after audition, part after part. I’d never been selected.

  I made it through every single cut that day. At the end of every audition round, they would call out the names of the kids who could leave; if you were asked to stay, you were still in with a chance of landing the part. It got to a point when there were just three of us left. Three boys and two parts.

  Finishing my Capri-Sun, I walked back into the room, shaking like a leaf. We all lined up – thirteen of us, ten girls and us three boys – and the casting director started reading out the names of the unlucky ones who hadn’t made it. It was the girls’ turn first and, as the names came, it was hard not to feel sorry for the ones sloping off the stage; a couple of them burst into tears. After about four or five names, she hadn’t yet got to the boys and I was amazed to be still standing there, fingers crossed behind my back, hoping. And then it came, the words I’d been longing not to hear: ‘and James Corden. Thank you very much, everyone, you’ve been great.’

  My shoulders sank and once again the cloud of disappointment descended. Meanwhile, the two boys who had been chosen were leaping around and punching the air as if they’d just lost their virginity. Their mums had run in from where they were listening at the door and were hugging them, all whooping and yelping, while I just ambled out of the rehearsal room. Dad was at the bottom of the stairs waiting for me, and I remember walking down feeling the weight of it all once again. I didn’t burst into tears or anything; there was no great drama. I just felt disappointed. I could hear the cacophony of noise still coming from the room above, the director’s voice lifting above it all. ‘We start in three weeks,’ he was saying. ‘We’re going to have the best time. It’s really going to be just amazing.’

  As we got in the car, Dad sat there with the engine switched off for a moment and then, finally, looked round at me. ‘James,’ he said with a sigh, ‘try not to worry about it. What will be, will be – that’s the way life is. You’ve just got to learn from it like all the others. You did so well to get to this stage, you …’ His voice just petered away. We’d had these chats before. He’d tried to pick me up after previous letdowns but, today, there was something in his tone that I hadn’t heard before: a sort of weariness and resignation.

  ‘Why don’t you just knock it on the head?’ he suggested. ‘I don’t mean stop going to the lessons or anything, but these auditions. I’m so fed up of seeing you this disappointed all the time. You don’t even have to go to Jackie Palmer’s any more if you don’t want. There’s all sorts of stuff you can do: amateur dramatics, local youth theatre. Why don’t you just knock the auditions on the head and call it a day?’

  For a long moment I continued to stare out of the windscreen. And then I shook my head. ‘I can’t do that, Dad,’ I said. ‘It’s what I’ve got to do.’

  Being a professional actor is all about rejection. Rejection is – ultimately – what separates a professional from an amateur. If you’re an amateur actor taking part in your local theatre company, what you’re doing isn’t that different from rehearsing and performing in a professional show. Sure, the sets may be bigger and the tickets more expensive, but the detail and effort you put in to playing your part isn’t all that different to what anyone in the West End does. The real difference is that some of those people in the West End have been rejected hundreds of times before getting there. I realised quite early on that I wasn’t going to be one of those people who are handed everything at the first ask.

  I don’t really remember that conversation with Dad. He reminded me of it when I told him I’d be writing about that part of my life. I wonder if he remembers it so well because it was at that moment he realised how serious I was about making it. How, no matter what happened, I wasn’t going to give up.

  Driving home back down the A40 that evening, I would forget about The Sound of Music and start to daydream once more of the other ways I could perform. And it was around that time that I came to learn a lesson that’s kind of been with me ever since. If it wasn’t going to happen for me through auditioning or other people looking out for me, then I was going to have to go out and make it happen myself, in whatever way I could. So, over the next two years, I got myself on television (well, my voice at least), got my first job and decided a new career path was the way to get myself noticed. I was going to form my first band.

  CHAPTER 3

  BEST MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT:

  ‘Pray’ by Take That

  BEST FILM TO WATCH ALONGSIDE:

  Almost Famous

  BEST ENJOYED WITH:

  large popcorn

  I WAS THIRTEEN now and, after the complete non-shock of failing my 12+, I had joined Holmer Green Upper School. It was the school my sister Andrea went to, and she was two years above me. It was a pretty ordinary school about a mile, or a fifteen-minute walk, from our house. Most of my friends from middle school came along with me, so it didn’t feel that different. The good news was that there were lots of new girls, and girls had recently become much more interesting to me.

  It felt as if, having broken up for the summer holidays, by the end of those six weeks, everything I cared about had changed. It was as though girls suddenly came into focus. They’d always been there – sort of blurred out by Panini stickers or games of headers and volleys – but now, as I entered upper school, they were all I could see. They were amazing. Girls like Nina Woods or Beth Goody or Claire Wyatt, all of them became the objects of my desire. (I wasn’t picky.) I took down my West Ham posters and replaced them with pictures of Elle Macpherson or Cindy Crawford. From now on, life was all about getting girls.

  The only problem is, if you look like me, girls don’t really feel the same wa
y. I didn’t seem to have the same effect on them as they had on me. This was distressing, to say the least. Even though I so desperately wanted to be, I was never going to be the guy that girls fought over. I have honestly lost count of the number of times I’ve heard the phrase ‘I like you, but as a friend.’ So I needed to find a way to make myself more attractive to girls. I realised quite quickly that being funny was something girls warmed to; they liked being around someone who would make them laugh, but most of my jokes would have me as the butt and, as much as this worked (I had a couple of snogs and fumbles here and there), it wasn’t going to push me into stud mode, and it was stud mode that I was after.

  One day I was walking through the assembly hall when I saw a guy from the year above playing the piano. He was brilliant. His name was Matt Lanchester, but he was known to some of the school as ‘Database’. This was on account of him being a bit of a computer whizz-kid. I stood at the other end of the hall and listened as he played the most beautiful music, gobsmacked by how good he was. I walked nearer to where he was sitting and, as I did, a plan dawned on me, a perfect plan to secure stud credentials – we could form a band! I didn’t know it at the time, but I had happened across one of life’s great truths: it doesn’t matter what you look like, if you’re in a band, girls will always fancy you.

  I asked Matt what he was playing and he told me it was Queen. (I later found out that Matt is the biggest Queen fan on earth, a true super-fan, and so it was Queen who would form the bedrock of our new band’s back catalogue.) I then asked Matt whether he was up for the challenge of being the first multi-platinum-selling band Holmer Green Upper had ever produced and, kind of weirded out, he said, ‘Why not?’ So, with the two of us on board, we set about finding our other members.

  Matt told me about a friend of his called Richard Morris who played drums. We spoke to him and he was in. So we had Matt on keyboards, Richard on drums and me on vocals. Now I know what you’re thinking. What we need now – especially if we’re going to do Queen songs – is a lead guitar and bass. I mean, definitely a bass. You really can’t form a band without a bass, can you? Well, you can, and we did. We recruited one other member of the band and that was Paul Chalwin, who would also be on vocals. Yeah, that’s right. We were the first ever two-vocalist, keyboard and drum combo. And let me tell you this: we loved it.

  Every lunch hour would be spent rehearsing. It was great; we thought ‘we’ were great. Before long we imagined record companies knocking on our door and so we decided we’d better come up with a name for the band. We took this very seriously. This name was going to be on album sleeves and tour posters, possibly around the world, and so it had to send out the right message. Before long we decided on a name.

  We called ourselves …

  Wait for it …

  TWICE SHY.

  BOOM! Yeah, big time. It was, we thought, the perfect name for a band. It was seamless because, as Paul pointed out, ‘We’ll call the first album Once Bitten.’ That sealed it. We were Twice Shy and the whole world was about to hear about us.

  Except you didn’t. I mean, you are now, but I doubt whether this book is even reaching the whole world. More than likely it’ll be you, my mum and a friend of hers from work. Probably Linda. She likes autobiographies apparently.

  No, after a couple of lunchtime concerts and one set at the school fete, Twice Shy broke up. It wasn’t so much due to musical differences, as to me realising that I still wasn’t getting the attention of girls. And, let’s remember, this was a major factor in me wanting to be a pop star. No, I realised that even if Twice Shy did attract the attention of females around the world, it would be the sort of ladies who spend a lot of their lives going to watch Savage Garden or Meat Loaf – both very good artists, but I think you know what I’m saying. If this was really going to take off, and make me an irresistible stud, it needed to be sexy, it needed to be cool, it needed to be … a boy band.

  For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved Take That. Love them. I’m not one of these Johnny-come-lately types who got on board since ‘Patience’ or ‘Greatest Day’. No, I was there at the very start. They were the first band I ever really got into. I thought, and still very much do think, that they were brilliant. I used to watch their live concerts all the time and daydream about what it must be like to have that many people screaming and shouting for you, calling out your name. Most days when I’d come home from school I’d push the sofas and coffee tables in our lounge up against the walls, create my own stage and pretend to be a member of Take That. Sometimes I’d be Robbie, other times Mark, Jason or Howard, but mostly I’d be Gary. I studied them so much that I knew every single moment of every single routine. I still know a couple of the routines even now. I know this because I showed them to Take That themselves.

  Three years ago when we were filming the third series of Gavin & Stacey in Cardiff, Take That were playing at the Millennium Stadium on their Circus tour. Joanna Page, who played Stacey, and I got tickets, and were incredibly excited at the prospect of seeing them live. This would be the fifteenth time I’d seen them, but it had been a few years since I’d last been to one of their gigs. We got to the stadium and were sitting in our seats waiting for the concert to start when a lady came over and tapped me on the shoulder and asked if we could follow her. We stood up and made our way out of the arena and ended up walking through a maze of corridors backstage. Jo turned to me and said, ‘James, where are we going?’

  ‘I think we might be about to meet Take That,’ I whispered back quietly, not wanting to jinx it. Jo did a sort of silent squeal and then pulled herself together. Before long, sure enough, we were there, standing outside Take That’s dressing room. The door opened and Gary was right in front of me.

  ‘Hiya James,’ he said in his soft northern lilt, ‘come in.’ And so Jo and I followed him into the room. I was doing my absolute best to try and hold it together. Mark, Jason and Howard came over and we talked about the tour and how it was all going, and then I did it. I had to. I blurted out, ‘This is the fifteenth time I’ll have seen you. Everyone at school used to take the piss out of me for liking you, but I’m so happy you’re back together.’ They all laughed and thanked me for my support. And then I went one step further: ‘I can dance the first twenty minutes of the Live in Berlin video.’

  Jason cracked up. ‘You can’t? What? Even now? I can’t remember what songs we did at the opening of the Berlin show.’ I’m proud to say that I took this as an invitation to show Take That exactly what they couldn’t remember.

  ‘It was “You Are the One”,’ I said. And then, right there in the dressing room, before they were about to play to 75,000 people, I did the dance. For about thirty seconds. Howard couldn’t believe it, Mark was laughing and, when I finished, Jason said he now remembered it and had forgotten what a complex routine it was. I guess, if I was cool, I should now say how embarrassed I am that I did this. But I’m not cool. I loved it! They are such warm, kind and generous guys that they didn’t make me feel a fool.

  Just as we were being ushered out of the room, Gary leant in and said words that even now make me happy to remember. He said, ‘Do you mind if we get a photo?’ I smiled wide and said, ‘It would make my day.’ And so me and Take That had a photo together. It was great.

  Now, I don’t know if this is true, but I’m pretty sure it is, but it was only when Robbie saw that photo that he decided to rejoin the band. I think he recognised that there could be a new fifth member to take his place. I’ve asked him about it countless times since, but he denies all knowledge of the photo and says that the band have never talked about meeting us that day in Cardiff. Yeah, right. I think all five of us felt it that day and know it to be true even now – that if it hadn’t worked so incredibly well with Rob, then I definitely would’ve been asked to join Take That. Just stating facts.

  Joking aside, I’ve been lucky enough to meet all five members of the band privately over the last few years and I’ve managed to keep my cool a lot better than
I did that day in Cardiff. They are, to a man, incredibly lovely. Just this morning Rob sent me an email with a quote from Abraham Lincoln wishing me luck for a play I’m about to start. I even saw Howard in Nando’s a few months ago. And I’d just like to take this moment to say a massive thank you to each of them for always being so nice to me. They’ll never know how much it’s meant.

  So where was I? That’s right – forming my own version of Take That. Putting together a boy band became my major ambition. I was still going to auditions fairly regularly and still not getting any acting work, but it didn’t matter because I’d started to think that fate was telling me to be the next Gary Barlow.

  I knew I had to form the band with way more precision than I had with Twice Shy. I had to surround myself with the right guys to make sure we could actually become a global phenomenon. What I needed were people who could sing and dance and who, most of all, were good-looking. And where could I find two such guys? I knew exactly where: the Jackie Palmer Stage School. James Wilson and Tom Goodridge were, and still very much are, two incredibly good-looking guys. They were good singers and fantastic dancers, and they could both do back flips. They were perfect. I was determined that we’d be a five-piece just like my favourite group, so I went to my two oldest friends, Gavin and Jason from the Salvation Army. Jason was a brilliant singer and Gavin was small and cute, with some pretty cool moves of his own. So, between the five of us, I really felt we had something.