May I Have Your Attention Please?

by James Corden

  Now, this was very interesting. It reminded me of Julian and John Keats back in college. He was talking about your ‘targets’ as an actor. I don’t mean goals or ambitions or anything like that; I mean ‘targets’ you’re aiming for when you’re acting. It’s quite technical, but I’ll give you a quick example: imagine you’re sitting here with me now and I ask you what you had for breakfast. You’ll hear the question, unconsciously glance away, with just your eyes, look back at me again and then you’ll tell me. Try it with someone, see if I’m right. I bet that’s how they respond. They’ll listen to the question, look away and sort of visualise the answer, and then come back with it. People do it all the time. So a ‘target’ is something to really bring your character to life.

  I know I’m going on about it and I guess you could argue I was only seventeen and this was my first proper job, but I really did feel out of my depth. From time to time, other older members of the cast would crack up at some of the stuff Declan was saying; I never seemed to get the joke. I had no idea what they were laughing about, but I laughed anyway because I thought I’d look stupid if I didn’t. Looking back, I wonder if anyone knew what we were laughing about, or if everyone else’s nerves were just as frayed as mine and laughing seemed the best way to hide them.

  We rehearsed for three months solid. Obviously as I only had the one line (‘Roast the meats’) most of my time was spent hidden away at the back, watching how the actors in the bigger parts were working, but the longer rehearsals went on, the more I was getting into it. I was getting comfortable now, and with every day that slipped by the excitement around the show seemed to grow that bit more. Everyone was saying that this was going to be the biggest thing anyone had ever seen and already making comparisons with Les Misérables and Miss Saigon. It was difficult not to believe the hype when you looked at all the talent involved: we were on to another massive hit.

  Before we knew it, opening night was upon us. I’d had them before with a few school plays, but nothing could prepare me for this. The buzz around the theatre was ludicrous – I thought a florist had moved in, along with a mobile champagne cellar. Backstage we were swamped with corks and bubbles and flowers of every shape, smell and colour.

  It was like the school play, the bubble of attention that had created, only magnified a thousand times. I had ‘Roast the meats’ down to a science and I couldn’t wait to get out on stage. And it wasn’t just the performance we had to look forward to: there was the after-show party. Cameron Mackintosh is renowned for throwing one hell of a first-night party and, for Martin Guerre, he went really big. He hired Bedford Square in London – the whole place, the entire square. It was done up to look like an eighteenth-century fair. There was an old-fashioned helter-skelter, loads of marquees, goblets instead of glasses of wine and in the middle there was this massive hog roast. The attention to detail was crazy.

  Mum and Dad were going to come to the party with me, which was great – I love having my family with me on really important nights. But we lived in High Wycombe, which is a good hour away, and they wouldn’t want to stay at the party as long as me. That meant my ride home would be leaving before me. I had to find myself somewhere else to stay.

  Becky, one of the girls in the show, told me about this great bohemian couple called Sheila and John who lived in a big old Victorian house in Shepherds Bush. As they had been in plays and shows themselves in days gone by, they liked to rent rooms to visiting actors. It was a really good deal: people in touring shows could stay with John and Sheila for about £12 a night.

  Becky was sure they would rent me a room. The house was in one of the side streets and must have been very grand in its day, but by this point was a little run down – ‘shabby chic’, to put it nicely. Still, though, it had a great atmosphere: theatrical posters lining the walls above the staircase, loads of well-thumbed old hardbacks, the place just seemed to echo with the past.

  Sheila was totally lovely and said I could have a room. I only got to the house on the afternoon of opening night, so I quickly unpacked my stuff and, as I made for the door, she asked me what time I was likely to get in.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘About three maybe. I think the party wraps about two. Is that OK?’

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said. She was a slender woman with long greying hair, who had obviously been seriously attractive in her time. ‘We don’t like to give keys out too readily, but whatever time you get here, don’t worry, just knock on the door and somebody will come down.’ She gave me a peck on the cheek. ‘Have the best time, dearie, and don’t worry – we’re used to people coming back at all hours.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ I said.

  ‘Of course. Go on, break a leg.’

  So, the first night. How was it? Live up to expectations? Well, yes! It was amazing, brilliant, like nothing I’d experienced before. The place was packed and, as the curtain fell, everyone was on their feet, cheering and applauding. It was about as good a reception as you could get. And after the show finished, there was still the party to come.

  Walking round to Bedford Square with Mum and Dad was such a special moment. Dad said he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen and Mum grasped my hand. She had been sat next to Gloria Hunniford and because she was crying so much, Gloria had given her a tissue. The party was incredible. I’d never been to anything like it. I’d never really been much of a drinker because, growing up in the Salvation Army, you’re not allowed to drink. That night, though, I went a bit overboard with the goblets: red, white, the two together, whatever I could get my hands on. I got plastered – the first time in my life I’d ever been blind drunk: mixing the grapes like that. Well, I didn’t know, did I? Mum and Dad left at around 12.30 a.m. but I stayed on till the bitter end.

  So there I was, staggering around at half past two in the morning. Somehow I found a cab and showed the driver the name of the road and the number of the house, which I’d had the foresight to write down on a piece of paper. Just as well as by that point I couldn’t handle talking.

  A little while later he dropped me off at the house. I weaved up to the front door and, at about the sixth attempt, managed to press the bell. I waited a bit, swaying like a drunk tree, but nobody came. So I rang the bell again and at last the door opened. There was Sheila in her dressing gown, hair loose to her shoulders, looking surprisingly awake.

  We got inside the hallway, and even though I was totally out of it, I could tell that Sheila looked a little flushed. She was hovering at the door to the front room as if she was guarding it.

  ‘So, how was the party?’

  “Mazing. Yeah, really great. Opening night, yeah, fantastic. I think I had a little too much to drink.’ I remember at that moment I hung on to the banister at the bottom of the stairs and sneezed and farted at the same time.

  ‘That’s OK. Now, do you want anything else, some water or anything?’

  ‘No. I am ju … just going to bed.’

  ‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’

  “K. Goodnight.’

  With that, Sheila made her way down the hall and disappeared into the dining room. I kicked my shoes off and started up the stairs, but I’d forgotten the carpet was up and – ‘OW!’ – I trod on some little spikes poking up from the gripper rod on the edge.

  ‘Shit, shit. Ow.’ Slumping down, I felt my sock and my hand came away wet and bloody.

  It was bleeding quite a lot and, even though my brain was barely functioning, I knew I ought to at least try and find a plaster. I didn’t want to get blood all over their sheets, not at £12 a night. So I hobbled down the stairs and made my way along the hall to the dining room where Sheila had disappeared a few minutes earlier. The light was on and I thought she’d be reading or something.

  What I didn’t realise was that the wall that divided the dining room and the front room had been knocked through, so they’d become one big room, separated by an archway. And, as I stepped through the dining-room door and looked into the front room, I came face to
face with Sheila’s naked back.

  Naked back, naked bum, naked legs, naked everything. She was sitting astride a pair of meaty-looking thighs, long grey hair flying, arms over her head, moaning in ecstasy: ‘Ooh, ah, oh my God, oh my God. Go, go, go. Yessssss.’

  I was literally six feet from where she was grinding up and down, her hands flailing around her, her head rocking from side to side.

  I just froze.

  ‘Ooh, ah, ooh.’

  I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I should get the hell out of this room. I slowly tried to make my way out of the room, but the floorboards creaked as I moved. Shit! I froze again – watching, waiting to be discovered. But Sheila just carried on.

  ‘Ooh ooh, yes. That’s it. Yes! Ooh, aah, ooh!’

  I took another step: creak. Another: creak, creak.

  Then, all at once, the writhing stopped. I was stood just behind the wall and for a few seconds there was silence. And then they started up again, really going for it. I couldn’t move as every single floorboard surrounding me would make a noise. I didn’t know what to do. Sheila was getting louder now, so I made a choice, and to this day I don’t know why I thought this was the right thing to do. I sat down. There was a chair next to me, and I sat down on it. Just a few feet from Sheila and John having sex.

  I tried not to move. My breathing became shorter, more panicked. What the hell was I going to do? Sheila and John were really getting into a rhythm now and worst of all Sheila was starting to talk.

  ‘That’s it. Go on! Go on! Yeeeaaahhh! Oh God, yeah!’

  I was feeling less and less drunk with every second that ticked by. I decided this could go on for hours, so I had to get out of there. I peeked round the arch and all I could see was Sheila throwing her long grey hair round and round in circles. The noises were getting louder. I shuffled in my seat to try and stand without setting off the creaking floorboards, when out of nowhere a cat jumped up onto my lap! He seemed all too familiar with this routine and just curled up on my thighs and started purring away. I closed my eyes and started stroking the cat. What could I do? I just sat there with the cat on my lap while I prayed to God that they would just finish, turn the light off, leave through the other door and I could forget about the plaster and creep up to bed.

  They did finish, and it was the most orgasmic climax I’ve ever heard. Not that I’d heard many of course. I mean, none that weren’t to do with me. It was cries of ecstasy, pants of pain almost. It went on and on until with a wail of unadulterated passion, it was finally over.

  Thank God. This was it: they would go up to bed now and I would remain undiscovered. But they didn’t go up to bed. Instead of switching off the light and slipping away, Sheila climbed off the pair of meaty thighs, turned round and looked right at me.

  I just stared at her – what else could I do when she was naked with her big grey bush all in my face? She gave a short squeal – Oooh! – tried to cover up with her dressing gown and then she started shouting, ‘What the hell are you doing? Jesus Christ! How long have you been there?’

  I was still transfixed by the bush. ‘What?’ I said, looking up.

  ‘What the HELL do you think you’re doing?!’ she shouted.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to, sorry. I was … I cut my foot.’ I was mumbling. ‘On the stairs, I cut my foot. I need a …’ I was about to say ‘plaster’ but before I could get the words out, John stood up from where he had been recovering his strength on the sofa.

  Only it wasn’t John. It was a young guy, a hunk; he looked as though he’d just walked out of a Calvin Klein underwear ad: all six-pack and biceps. Completely naked, he looked at me as he rolled a condom off his manhood. Seriously, this is how it happened. ‘All right, mate,’ he said, and languidly tied a knot in the condom to stop it dripping.

  By now Sheila had her dressing gown fastened and went to fetch a plaster. Meanwhile, I was sitting there still stroking the cat while the ridiculously endowed Adonis casually reached for his clothes. He bent over to pick up his pants and I didn’t know whether to look away or shout, ‘Timber!’ as it all swung about.

  ‘Good night, was it?’ he asked. ‘You went to a party, right?’

  Still I stroked the cat. ‘Yeah, a party. Yeah, it was good.’

  Sheila came back, red-faced and muttering. I sat there, as embarrassed as I’d ever been, as she fumbled through putting the plaster on my foot. The only person totally unfazed was the young dude holding the used condom.

  I don’t remember making it to bed. I don’t remember anything but waking the following morning to a plaster on my foot and my head in a vice. I made my way downstairs to find the three of them eating breakfast in the dining room: John, Sheila and Calvin.

  It all seemed very polite, so whether John was in on any of what had gone on or just didn’t care, I’ll never know. I didn’t stick around to ask. I skipped breakfast and settled up, said my goodbyes and headed for WH Smith and the morning papers. I did look back, though, just the once, and I swear I saw that cat wink at me from where it was sitting in the front-room window.

  CHAPTER 8

  BEST MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT:

  ‘Ziggy Stardust’ by David Bowie

  BEST FILM TO WATCH ALONGSIDE:

  Superbad

  BEST ENJOYED WITH:

  a big block of Jarlsberg

  IN WH SMITH I read the reviews of the show and they weren’t very good. Actually, they were awful. After all the hype, the expectation, last night’s party and everything, I was aware of a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I remember calling Dad and telling him that I was mystified because the whole place had been on its feet last night. Dad’s reply was as wise as ever: ‘You can never tell a thing from an audience of friends and family.’ He was right. Two-thirds of the theatre audience that day were probably connected to the show in some capacity. We’d been seduced by an audience who wanted us to do well. Reviews are very important, and a critic’s opinion can literally make or break a show, and these were as bad as anything anyone had ever read. I knew then it was going to be a long, hard slog.

  Looking back on that first foray into the West End, I made some good friends and I did enjoy it to some extent, but it was never quite what I’d hoped it would be. I suppose it taught me that – even after dreaming about it so much while growing up – I didn’t actually want to be in a West End musical after all. Not just standing at the back, anyway. For so long it felt as though all I’d wanted was to appear in the West End, but the reality of doing a show eight times a week is that it can quickly become really boring.

  After doing the show for a year, I learnt that loads of the actors just seemed to move from one West End chorus to the next. I didn’t want to end up like that, and I knew how easy it would be to get stuck on that kind of treadmill, so I decided to talk to my agent about the possibilities of doing other things.

  To get the really good jobs, whether on stage, TV or in films, I knew I needed to have a bigger profile. No one was going to take me seriously as an actor unless I put my head above the parapet. I kept my options as open as I could and, towards the end of that first year of Martin Guerre, Marilyn phoned about an audition for a British film called The Church of Alan Darcy, by two unknown writers, Shane Meadows and Paul Fraser. Shane was a young guy from the Midlands; although I wasn’t too familiar with him at the time, he would go on to become one of the most exciting directors this country has ever produced.

  The film was set around a failing boxing club in Nottingham, and they were casting boys mostly from that area, particularly from a place called the Carlton Theatre Workshop. Shane wanted lads who hadn’t really worked that much before so he could develop what he saw as a raw kind of edge.

  Bob Hoskins was playing the lead. Bob is one of the iconic British film actors of the last thirty years; the thought of appearing in a film with him was just mind-blowing. He was playing the boxing trainer who was desperately trying to set up a gym so that local lads would have somewhere to go and not end up on
the streets. Shane had cast an actor called Frank Harper to play the cockney backer who helps out financially, on the proviso that his chubby son, Tonka, can train at the club. I was auditioning for the part of Tonka.

  The audition was an improvisation with the casting director in London and it went really well. The tape was sent to Shane and, after watching it a few times, he liked it enough to offer me the job. I just couldn’t believe it; it felt totally unreal. My second job – a film with Bob Hoskins. It was huge! However, I was still contracted to Martin Guerre and had to get their permission to allow me to shoot the film. After much toing and froing it all got worked out and I was allowed to do it, so I went up to Nottingham to meet everyone and rehearse.

  The annoying thing was that I had to make it up and back in the same day as I had a show to do that night. We rehearsed in a cinema called the Scala, and that was where I met Shane for the first time. A young guy, twenty-four, and a skinhead, he came up to me and in his Midlands accent he just said, ‘All right, mate. I’m Shane. Loved your tape by the way. Thanks so much for doing this.’

  He introduced me to the other lads: Darren, Johann, Karl and Danny. For the first time I really felt like an actor. I’d been in Martin Guerre for months now and at no point had I ever really felt like an actor. I felt more like a warm prop, or something, whereas there was a vibe about the film that everyone could feel. Shane knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what he wanted. I don’t know if I believe in genius but, having worked with him, I’d say Shane is as close as it gets. He’s just got a gift. There’s a purity to how he works; he thinks and talks in terms of story and character. And he’s a minimalist. I mean, if Shane could tell his story in a single photograph, he’d just take that photograph.

  He’s an incredibly inspiring man to be around, and he made me feel welcome and at ease right from the first moment I walked into the Scala. In some respects he’s a bit like me: he wasn’t that interested in school; was never particularly academic. In fact, he only got into film-making because he was put on community service for stealing a breast pump from a chemist’s in Nottingham. He told me he spent the community service cleaning a hall in a school somewhere and as he was working he spotted an old video camera. He asked the supervisors if he could borrow it and they told him that, if he was interested, rather than clean the hall every day, he could make a film for his community service instead. That was some kind of offer and he didn’t hesitate. Over a few weeks he put together a short film where he played all the characters himself because he was too embarrassed to tell his mates what he was doing and rope them in. He would put on a wig to play one part, then switch the camera round and dress differently to play another. For one part of the film, he wanted to get a shot of himself coming out of a door onto the street, so he placed the camera on its tripod on the other side of the road and left it recording. As he opened the door, however, he spotted two lads running off up the road with it. He had to bolt after them to get it back. And, like I said, he’s a big guy with no hair so, yeah, he got his camera back.