May I Have Your Attention Please?

by James Corden

  Working with Shane was a huge step forward. From the shadows of the Martin Guerre chorus I’d managed to end up on the set of a major British film. The problem was, I was still in Martin Guerre. I’d only had that one day at the Scala for rehearsal, but there was a whole movie to shoot and somehow I’d have to juggle the time. The show owed me some holiday, though, so with that, and a couple of arranged days, I could give Shane a decent-sized chunk of shooting time and the rest I would fit around the Martin Guerre schedule.

  I’m not gonna lie to you – being in a West End show and shooting a film at the same time wasn’t easy. It felt as if I was never anywhere but on stage or on the set, with barely any time for myself, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. In Nottingham, I’d be up at six o’clock in the morning, film all day, then I’d get on the train at half past four and be in London at six thirty that evening. Then I’d hit the stage at seven thirty, then straight afterwards, around elevenish, get another train back to Nottingham, get up the next day and do it all over again. It was tough, but I was making a film with Bob Hoskins so I wasn’t going to start complaining; plus I was pocketing two pay cheques. For the first time in my life, I had some spending money of my own.

  The title of the film was changed to Twenty Four Seven as the producers thought it would be more commercial. Shane and Paul had written a great script, the first I’d read where the characters actually talked the way my friends and I did. They sounded normal, not fake or filmy, and there was a real heart and soul in the writing that I hadn’t come across before. Every decision Shane made turned out right – especially filming it in black and white. It really pulled into focus the starkness and rawness of the town without losing any of the joy or humour in the script.

  There were parts in the script where Bob Hoskins’s character narrated in voiceover while a scene or montage was playing out. One paragraph in particular has always stayed with me; it’s such a fantastic piece of writing. Bob says something like: ‘Imagine there was a museum where a blue and green coloured football was suspended in the middle of a room, surrounded by gas so it floats. And if you look closely at the green bits, you’d see tiny people walking around, going about their day, making each other laugh and looking after each other. You could watch them, observe them: people would flock from miles around just to come and stare at these little people. Each one of them, unique and magnificent. That’s what we are. That’s us walking around and we can never lose sight of how amazing it is just to wake up, walk around and see things.’ Those aren’t the exact words, but it’s close. It says so much about Shane and Paul that at such a young age they would have that kind of insight.

  Bob Hoskins was the experienced old head you need to hold a film like that together, but over time he became like all the rest of us: just one of the lads. There’s no better example of that than the day that Bob borrowed Ian Smith’s hat.

  I remember we were in the middle of filming an amazing sequence in the Lake District, which in the film is set to the Charlatans’ ‘North Country Boy’. Ian used to wear a woolly hat all the time; it was his trademark. You could recognise him by it. That morning he was sitting on a chair with his back to us. All us young lads were there, waiting for Shane to decide how he wanted to shoot the next scene. Justin, who played Gadget, was in one of those moods. He got up, shot me a wink, casually sauntered over to where Ian was sitting and cocked his leg over his head like a dog. Then he let rip with the loudest bomber you’ve ever heard, right on top of Ian’s head.

  For a moment nothing happened; the rest of us were wetting ourselves as Justin ambled back to his chair. Ian remained where he was, though – motionless, taking it all in. Then slowly, he turned his head round and stared down Justin, who turned white as a sheet.

  It was Bob. BAFTA Award-winning, Oscar-nominated, British screen legend Bob Hoskins, sitting in a cloud of Justin’s air cheese.

  You could cut the atmosphere – and the air – with a knife. Justin, squirming under Bob’s icy glare. And then Bob’s face creased into a shallow smile; the smile got wider and wider until he started wetting himself laughing and we all just fell about.

  All the time we were filming, it was like that, us lads laughing the whole time. It was just a wonderful, wonderful time and I could hardly believe it when the last day of filming came around. Looking back, I was lucky. I still had about three weeks to go in Martin Guerre so I never experienced that real low that can happen at the end of a shoot. I remember speaking to the other boys in the cast about how lots of them got really upset after we wrapped the film. It’s understandable, really: making that kind of film is so personal and, living and working together for weeks on end, the group becomes such a tight-knit community. The film becomes your entire world and then, suddenly, it’s all over. You finish filming on Saturday, have the wrap party on Saturday night, deal with the hangover on Sunday, then Monday comes around and everyone goes their separate ways. In our case the crew went off to work on other films, Shane went to the edit suite, but the cast, the group of lads who’d become such close friends, suddenly had nothing to do.

  I realised then just how lucky I’d been that the producers of Martin Guerre had allowed me to do the two things together. But I didn’t escape it entirely: the slump for me came when I finished performing in Martin Guerre, because I’d decided not to carry on my contract beyond that first year. Most of the cast left at the same time, and though it was sad leaving it, eight shows a week for a year had pretty much taken it out of me. It was time to stop.

  When I left the show I had nothing to do. I went back to lazing around at home, playing computer games, eating Quavers and just knocking about. I would ring Marilyn and ask if there was any work around, but it seemed that there wasn’t a mass of parts for someone who looked like me at the time. I did have a few auditions, but not many, and I didn’t get any of them. Very quickly the money I’d earned from Twenty Four Seven and Martin Guerre was gone. I remember being £30 overdrawn and realising that this was it, the life of an actor: feast or famine. I had to find myself a normal job.

  (OK, you’re now going to hear the story of Ziggy, the mini-mart and the hard lads who wanted beer. This happened when I was fourteen years old, so I know it comes out of sequence in terms of the story, but stay with me, because I learn something incredibly important at the end of it. And it’s also quite silly. Promise.)

  The only other job I’d had was working on Saturdays at the local mini-supermarket down the road from my house. I got the job because Gemma, one of the girls I really fancied, worked on the fruit and veg stall. She had a boyfriend who was a couple of years older than me called Big Trev, who used to drive a red Ford Escort. It was just a regular Escort, but Big Trev thought he could fool everyone by stealing an XR3i badge and putting it on his car. He was a knob.

  He was always parked outside the school gates waiting to pick up Gemma, the girl I thought I was going to marry. She was besotted with him and spent all her time outside of school hanging out with him. The only way I’d see her is if I went to the mini-mart and bought fruit and veg. As you can imagine, this led to some strange scenarios – Mum would often be bemused as I walked into the kitchen and handed her some broccoli and mangetout I’d bought from Gemma earlier – but I’d do anything just to talk to her. She was really funny and I used to love being around her. One day, when I was in, casually fondling a bunch of bananas, she told me that there was a Saturday job going. I knew what she was telling me – she clearly wanted me around. She wanted me where Big Trev couldn’t come between us. I spoke to the manager, who said the job was mine if I wanted it. I was over the moon: not only would I now have some money coming in, I’d get to spend whole days with Gemma. She’d fall in love with me, of course, and I’d have to have a quiet word with Big Trev, but he’d understand when he saw how much in love we were.

  I arrived the following Saturday at 8 a.m., ready to spend my day making double entendres about big cucumbers and avocados with Gemma, when the manager took me
aside and introduced me to Ziggy. Now, Ziggy had worked at the mini-mart for as long as I could remember. He’d just always been there. So the boss turned to me and said, ‘This is Chris, but call him Ziggy. He’ll show you the ropes.’ And he did. Except none of the ropes he was showing me seemed to be out on the shop floor near Gemma. We were stuck in the stockroom moving massive boxes of food around. It wasn’t what I’d had in mind. And all Ziggy seemed to show me was how to steal things without being caught. He once bragged about how he’d stolen his family’s Christmas turkey for the last three years. I asked him how one might go about stealing a fourteen-pound frozen turkey without anyone noticing, and he said, ‘I just walked out of the shop and put it in Mum’s car. If you’re doing it wrong, do it strong.’ I liked Ziggy; he was full of no-nonsense sayings like that.

  One time, after we’d been working together for three or four Saturdays, we were sitting on the back wall in the storage room, eating our way through a couple of Kinder eggs and a pack of Jelly Babies that Ziggy had nicked just minutes earlier, and I asked him why people called him Ziggy when his real name was Chris. He thought for a moment, lifted his head from the Kinder-egg car he was trying to put together and said, very matter-of-factly, “Cos Ziggy plays guitar.’

  ‘Oh,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t know you played the guitar.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘But Ziggy does.’ And with that he stepped down and carried on with his day.

  Working with Ziggy for a while had a bad and lasting effect on me. He’d shown me how easy it was to steal stuff from the shop, so it was only a matter of time before I started slipping the odd bag of Minstrels into my pocket. Except it didn’t stop at Minstrels. If it had, I’d have been fine, but one Friday at school, I heard there was a big house party happening at Jo Toulson’s house. I got on pretty well with Jo and was annoyed not to have been invited, especially as it seemed a lot of the slightly older, cooler boys were going. That afternoon in Science, a few of them were huddled around a Bunsen burner and I overheard them talking about the party, trying to work out how they were going to get alcohol. That was my way in.

  ‘Hey guys, what you talking about?’ I said, strolling over, playing it cool.

  ‘None of your business, Corden,’ said Greg Wright.

  ‘Yeah, piss off, you fat twat,’ added Alex Carver to chuckles from the rest.

  ‘Oh, I thought you were trying to get booze,’ I replied breezily. ‘I can get you all the drink you want and it won’t cost you a penny.’

  They all turned to look at me and ushered me into the group, and I told them about my job at the mini-mart and how I could easily steal them a crate of beer. I know it seems silly that I was so keen to impress this group of unambitious, nasty berks, but I was. For some reason, my whole life I’ve always wanted to be around the cool guys, and it’s only now, ages later, that I’ve realised that the cool group ultimately consists of people who are terrified of not being cool any more. I wish I’d not tried so hard so many times. It got me nowhere, and this particular jaunt was no different (as you’ll find out in a bit), but I was determined to go to this party, and if all I had to do to get in was steal a crate of beer, which, as Ziggy had shown me, was easily done, then that’s what I’d have to do. The prize was worth it.

  I woke up that Saturday morning and was hit by the fear of what I was about to try and achieve. I hadn’t thought it through: how the hell would I get a crate of beer out of the shop? How would I get it home on my bike? Alex Carver’s last words as we left the school gates on Friday were ringing in my ears. ‘You’d better get those beers, Corden, or you’re dead.’ Thanks dude.

  I walked into work that day with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I kept on repeating Ziggy’s mantra to myself to try and get some confidence. ‘If you’re doing it wrong, do it strong. If you’re doing it wrong, do it strong …’

  My first job of the day was to move five boxes of Munch Bunch yoghurts upstairs to the big fridge. I used to hate the big fridge because, every time I’d go in, one of the butchers would slam the door behind me and I’d be left in pitch-black darkness trying to find the glow-in-the-dark light switch that had ceased to glow in the dark many, many years ago. It was horrible. I’d walk into lamb’s carcasses and pig’s heads hanging on spikes. It was gross, like something out of a torture porn movie. One time I found Ziggy in there smoking. Honestly, smoking in amongst the raw meat. I asked what he was doing and he just said, ‘It’s too hot to smoke outside.’

  The Munch Bunch trip went as expected. I walked into the big fridge and – surprise, surprise – they all slammed the door behind me. I could hear them all cackling away while I fumbled around, simultaneously trying not to drop the Munch Bunch yoghurts and find the light. This wasn’t helping my nerves. The day was ticking by and I’d still not got anywhere near the beers. None of my jobs was taking me near the part of the stockroom where they were kept. For some reason, all I was doing was taking endless boxes of Findus Crispy Pancakes out onto the shop floor. It got to ten to five in the afternoon and I was due to finish at half past. How was I gonna do this? I had to bite the bullet.

  I marched into the stockroom and strode purposefully over (‘If you’re doing it wrong, do it strong …’) to where the alcohol was kept. There were about ten crates of Carlsberg sitting there in front of me, but they were all wrapped together in cellophane. I tried to peel it away at the side of one crate, but it was tougher than I thought and I began to panic a little, worried that I wouldn’t be able to get it off. I must’ve looked demented, trying to rip it with my bare hands. Standing on my tiptoes, I focused on the top crate instead, which should come more easily, I thought, and, eventually, I tore enough away to be able to get hold of it with my fingertips. I was tentatively inching it nearer to me when suddenly I heard, ‘James? What’re you doing?’

  I froze. It was the boss, and there I was, on tiptoes, with both hands clutching a twenty-four-pack of Carlsberg, bang to rights. I knew that I had no other option but to confess everything, so I turned to him and opened my mouth to speak when, before I could say a word, he jumped in. ‘Jarlsberg, not Carlsberg! I told Ziggy we needed more Jarlsberg.’ I looked at him blankly. ‘You know, the cheese?’ I couldn’t believe what was happening, ‘God,’ he tutted. ‘If you want something doing …’ And with that he ushered me out of the stockroom and over towards the cheeses. I’ve always loved Jarlsberg, but never more than in that moment.

  Now, in one respect, this was a miracle: I’d been caught red-handed and totally got away with it. But, on the other hand, my problem still remained. My working day was done and I’d failed to complete my mission. I was gonna get beaten up good and proper.

  I’d arranged to meet Alex, Greg and all the other boneheads on pathway 74, a secluded path through the woods between my house and Jo Toulson’s. Basically, if you wanted to beat someone up, this would be the perfect place to do it. As I walked home, I couldn’t think of any scenario that would prevent a beating. Except one. Our next-door neighbour Mike, who shared our driveway. He had a box of twenty-four small, stubby French beers in his garage. Now, Mike didn’t like me. He thought I was trouble. I used to play football in the drive, kicking the ball against the wall to work on my touch, and using our garage as a goal. Although, as previously mentioned, I’m not very good at football, so I’d often miss our garage and hit his. One day, when I was about fourteen, he came out and threatened to smash my face in if my ball ever touched his garage again. He was a lovely man.

  Often, his garage door would be left open, and a few days earlier I’d spotted the beers on the shelf right at the back. This was it – my only chance. With ‘Doing it wrong, do it strong’ running through my head, I walked up our shared drive, took a look back towards our house and then over at Mike’s to see if anyone was looking out of the window. The coast was clear so, fast as I could, which wasn’t that fast, I lifted up his garage door, ran to the back, grabbed the case of foreign beers, ran back out, closed his garage door and ran down our d
rive, down the road, past all of our neighbours’ houses and into the woods. I’ve got no clue what any of my neighbours would’ve thought if they’d seen me, a fifteen-year-old Salvation Army boy, scampering down the street with a twenty-four-pack of beer. Once I got to pathway 74, I slowed down and checked over my shoulder to see if Mike was coming after me with an axe. No sign of him. Phew.

  I hid the beers in a bush and went back home to get changed for the big party. As I stood in the shower, it suddenly dawned on me what I’d just done. I was elated to have completed my mission, but I felt awful for even getting myself in this position. It was like that scene in The Crying Game, only without the … y’no.

  I felt incredibly guilty, I really did, but I rationalised it by telling myself that I’d done what I had to do to get to the party. I gelled my hair and got dressed into my coolest clothes – a pair of cream chinos, a lemon shirt and a brown waistcoat. In my head I looked like Gary Barlow in the ‘Pray’ video (but I probably looked more like Ken Barlow leading the prayers at church). I got back to where I’d hidden the beers and waited for the cool guys to show. After about half an hour, I heard some footsteps coming down the path: it was Alex, his older brother Christian and Greg. As soon they saw me, sitting on the crate of beers, Alex came rushing over and started celebrating, jumping up and down. ‘I told you he’d do it, didn’t I?’ he said to Christian. Christian was basically the reason everyone was scared of Alex. Alex was actually a bit of a weakling, but his big brother Christian was properly scary – he’s since been in prison for armed robbery – so no one messed with Alex because they knew they’d be messing with Christian.