by James Corden
Alan had been incredibly encouraging when it came to me writing comedy. He would often tell me that I was funny and that he believed I could write. Quite near the beginning, I’d told him I was working on a script with Ruth and he would always ask about it, and we’d talk about the characters and possible scenarios. He was incredibly supportive, and said that he would always be on the end of the phone should I need any help or advice, which went way beyond the call of duty.
Fast-forward a few years to the night when episode one of Gavin & Stacey eventually aired on BBC3. (Don’t worry, no spoilers here. You can read on.) As the end credits rolled, I was sitting there waiting for him to call. I knew he would’ve watched it – he’d told me he was looking forward to it – but nothing came. Maybe he’ll call tomorrow, I thought to myself, or he’s taped it and he’ll watch it in the week. But no, episode after episode, week after week, I heard nothing from Alan. I had resigned myself to the fact that he must hate the show and would rather not call if he had nothing nice to say about it. It got me down a bit, to be honest. Alan was one of the people I really wanted to like it.
And then, as the final episode of the series finished, the phone rang.
It was Alan. ‘Hello, James.’ I tingled at the sound of his voice. ‘I’ve just watched the last episode and I enjoyed it so much, I feel a little sad that it’s over. You both wrote it with such love that it made me care about every single character. You should be very proud tonight.’ You would not believe how happy that made me. I told Alan how relieved I was that he’d called and how I’d been worried he didn’t like the show because I hadn’t heard from him, and he said simply, ‘Well, I wanted to watch the whole show. It’s a series and I wanted to call when I’d watched it until the end.’
And that’s the thing about Alan – he just makes sense. He has a way of saying things and holding himself that is so together and so precise, and yet he is completely unaware of how profound he’s being. He’ll be so embarrassed if he ever reads that.
(And we’re back.) As we got nearer to the opening of the show, we moved out of the rehearsal room and onto the stage to begin the tech rehearsal. This is one of the most exciting times when you’re putting on a play. It suddenly becomes much more real, and you start to imagine all the possible outcomes, both good and bad – the fear of everything that could go wrong, along with the excitement of everything going right. When you’ve been rehearsing for six weeks, you more or less lose all judgement as to whether what you’re doing is any good or not: the play, your part in the play, the set, the lighting, everything. After that long, you just can’t tell.
Eventually, though, all you’re longing for is to get out in front of an audience. We were doing ten preview shows before press night. Nick says, to this day, that The History Boys had the best first preview he’s ever seen. It was absolutely electric. Waves and waves of laughter in response to jokes we didn’t even realise were jokes. The French scene was such a hit that Richard had to stop and wait for the laughs to die down before repeating a line that had been lost amongst the noise.
The play was a hit with the audience, no question but, as happy as we all were with how it had all gone, there was that nagging thought at the back of my mind – Martin Guerre had been a smash with the audience, too, and look what had happened there. Remember that saying ‘Don’t judge anything by an audience’? Well, it’s totally true. We just had to hope the critics liked it.
Press night came. Both Alan and Nick wrote lovely cards to each and every cast member, and there were flowers and champagne and hundreds of notes from well-wishers all over the backstage area. The nerves were setting in. The funny thing is, the show was already sold out for the entire run, so I’m not entirely sure why we were all so nervous. Well, I do kind of know – the critics.
The funny thing about reviews is that they really are only one person’s opinion. Of course, we take it to mean so much more than that because they’re printed in national newspapers and lots of people’s opinions will be determined by what the critic thinks. A couple of nights before we opened, I asked Nick what he thought the reviews might be like. Taking each one in turn, he went through the eight or nine critics who were coming and said who would like it, who would enjoy it but find negatives and who would be the one to hate it.
And, sure enough, he was absolutely right. The show opened to – by and large – the most sensational reviews you could possibly imagine. One critic described it as Alan’s finest work, another picked out Richard’s performance as being the best on the London stage, and one critic, the one Nick had been so sure would hate it, said it was awful and boring. I found it astounding that Nick could be so on the money with his predictions; then again, he had called it right every single step of the way.
The show was a sure-fire hit. It’s so rare to be part of something that both critics and audiences enjoy in equal measure. So often it’s one or the other. But here we were, twelve actors, us eight boys and the four teachers, having the time of our lives.
The only real challenge in a long run is keeping the boredom at bay. The routine can get pretty monotonous: the same words, the same action, passing people in the wings at exactly the same point, every single night. It can sometimes feel as though you’re getting stuck on the treadmill – except, that is, when you’re working with seven other boys who are rapidly becoming your best friends. If you happen to be doing that, well, then you embrace the boredom.
It’s fair to say that for every person who enjoyed having us at the National that summer, there were two others who hated it. I can understand why – we took over the place. The canteen, the bar, but most of all the dressing rooms. The dressing rooms at the National are all in a quadrant, with the windows facing in on each other, so, at various points throughout the day, actors from different companies will be leaning out of windows talking to each other or walking around the air-conditioning units having a crafty cigarette (though never Frances de la Tour, who would literally blow smoke into the ‘No Smoking’ signs inside the dressing rooms).
The great thing about the whole area is it belongs to the actors and they totally make it their own. You’ll see some of the strangest things you could ever see while accepting them as completely normal, like a man dressed as a First World War soldier with a gunshot wound oozing blood from his face, moaning about the fact his agent doesn’t return his calls, or a dancer who’s wearing a full Egyptian headpiece with tracksuit bottoms. Strange, to say the least.
I shared a room with Andy, Zammo and Sacha. Dominic was next door and Russell, Sam and Jamie were directly below us. Our room became the hub of all things History Boys. We would eat there together, play darts (until the dartboard was confiscated), play indoor football (until the football was confiscated), play indoor squash (you get the idea) and generally hang out.
The play was on for just over a year at the National, so we saw lots of other productions come and go over that time. For a couple of months the great Antony Sher was doing a one-man play in the Cottesloe, which had been directed by Richard Wilson of One Foot in the Grave fame. Our room looked directly into Mr Sher’s; one night he and Richard Wilson were both in there and seemed to be very animated and passionate about something they were discussing. They were both so engrossed that they completely missed six of the eight history boys hanging out of the windows trying to listen to what they were saying. It was at this point that Andy had an idea. He bet Sacha a tenner to walk round and knock on Antony Sher’s door and, when either he or Richard answered, to stare at both of them and say, as loud as he possibly could, ‘I don’t believe it!’
Classic. At that exact moment, this seemed like the funniest thing that anyone could do. Ever. Sacha wasn’t doing it, though, and so, to make it more interesting, the money kept on going up and up. Finally it stood at £300. Three hundred pounds, for just one boy – any boy – to go, knock and say the immortal line to Richard and Sher.
I bit the bullet. ‘I’m gonna do it,’ I said.
The boys w
ent hysterical. Sacha was saying that this was definitely a terrible idea, whereas Russell was egging me on, telling me that Richard Wilson loves it when people say it to him. Andy and Dominic nodded in agreement. ‘If anything, it’s a mark of respect,’ Dom said. Like a fool, I thought this would be something fun, and might even become a nice little anecdote for my memoir.
I started to walk round the corner towards their room, the other boys giggling and scurrying around a few feet behind. ‘Sshhhh,’ said Jamie, who had now heard what was going on via text message and rushed up from the shower to the corridor wearing just a towel. We were close now, almost at the door, and I wanted to make sure that the money on offer was legit.
‘Yeah, yeah, money’s in the bank. Get on with it,’ said Zammo. ‘You gotta do it properly, though. A full-on Victor Meldrew.’
I looked at the door and raised my hand to knock … when suddenly it swung open. I stood there like a rabbit in the headlights, completely frozen. He must’ve heard us talking. I hadn’t even knocked.
‘Yes?’ said Richard Wilson, and all the boys ran off down the corridor. Jamie was the last as he was trying to pick his towel up off the floor without showing his bare arse. I took my cue.
‘Look at that,’ I said, pointing towards Jamie’s rear end. ‘I don’t believe it, do you?’
Now, I think I said it casually enough that he didn’t even realise. I carried on looking down the corridor as Jamie’s feet slid round the corner, and then I tutted, in a ‘can-you-believe-the-youth-of-today?’ type of way. Richard rolled his eyes and shut the door. And I just walked away.
Needless to say, I never saw a pound of the cash. In fact, not one of the boys said they even remembered money being mentioned. Weak. The next time I saw Richard Wilson after that, he looked at me with a face that told me exactly what he was thinking: Don’t, whatever you do, come and speak to me.
I couldn’t believe it.
CHAPTER 15
BEST MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT:
‘Run’ by Stephen Fretwell
BEST FILM TO WATCH ALONGSIDE:
any episode of Gavin & Stacey
BEST ENJOYED WITH:
a refreshing, ice-cool glass of water
AS THE PLAY became more and more successful, the eight history boys also became more and more in demand. Every day, Dominic was coming into work with a different film script, Sam Barnett was constantly out being wined and dined by sexy new American agents and Sacha was auditioning for epic TV dramas. Everyone, in fact, was having a good time professionally and looked as if they had a bright future after the play. Everyone, that was, except me.
I just wasn’t being seen for any of the big jobs going around. I remember one day Andy, Russell and I all came into work with the same script. It was a film about two young British guys who go travelling in Thailand and end up with a girl who subsequently gets kidnapped; then they’re falsely accused of her murder. It was a decent script and all three of us wanted to land one of the two lead parts. We started reading the script through together, bouncing off each other, and it was only then that we realised there weren’t just the two main boys (the funny, charismatic leads in the film); there was also the ‘newsagent’, who had three lines on page six. I had a proper look at the note that had come with the script that told me which part I should prepare. I’m sure it’s not hard to guess which one it was …
I tried to brush it off as being funny, but Andy and Russell must have known deep down how much it upset me. Why wasn’t I being seen for the proper parts in any of these films? Why was I near the bottom of the casting ladder when I thought, after all the success the show was having, I’d be nearer the top? As I said earlier, I knew that my size would make some roles difficult to get, but it surely couldn’t keep me from every decent part out there. The cast of The History Boys was probably the most supportive group of actors I’ve ever met, but at that time, and especially at that moment, I remember feeling really competitive. Not with the guys so much, more with the whole business of acting. It felt as if I was in a rut, as if someone somewhere had decided I had already reached the pinnacle of my career. Hit play, good TV drama, that’s your lot: thank you and goodnight.
It seemed pretty clear what I needed to do if I was ever going to achieve anything close to the dreams I had – I was going to have to start putting the hours in and make stuff happen myself. Scripts weren’t going to just land on my doorstep with wonderful parts to play. Every night, Dominic and Stephen would have their big dramatic scene near the end of Act Two and I would stand watching in the wings, wishing that it was me out there. I knew both their lines by heart. I still feel like that now, to be honest: it hasn’t gone away, that desire to have a go at playing the more dramatic roles – not in Hollywood or even the West End, just … somewhere. I’d love someone to see that potential in me again. I’m not sure it’s going to happen anytime soon, as currently I’m not sure people even think of me as an actor at all. These days, I’m a comedian (despite never having done stand-up or ever having professed to be one) or a ‘tawdry celebrity’, which was the pleasant way a journalist described me the other day. Anyway, more of that later.
So, I was on a mission and the first thing I did was call Ruth Jones to speak more about writing together and fix times when we’d both be in London. We believed in the idea we had, and the more we talked about the characters and scenarios, the more we felt we really had something.
It was around this time that I parted company with Jacquie. I think we both recognised that, although I was in this hit play, I was also in something of a rut, and that a change wouldn’t be a bad thing. She was incredibly honest about the time her bigger clients were taking up and told me that she didn’t want that to be a negative for me. Generously, she agreed that she’d look after me until I found someone new. We hugged and said our goodbyes and I left her office feeling a little daunted about what was going to happen next.
I met with a few different agents, and got along with them all, but then someone suggested I should meet Ruth Young at United Agents. Believe it or not, Ruth was the agent at the top of my list. She had – and still has – an incredible reputation, and the list of names the agency represented read like a who’s who of British acting talent: James McAvoy, Ewan McGregor, Keira Knightley, Kate Winslet and loads more, way too many to mention here. United Agents was where I wanted to be.
I told my dad I was going in to see Ruth and he was, as ever, optimistic: ‘Won’t you just be at the bottom of a long list?’ he said.
‘I’m not sure that’s how it works,’ I said, hoping he was wrong.
‘Well, just don’t get your hopes up.’
So, bolstered by Dad’s words of encouragement, I went to meet Ruth at her offices. (I’d like to take a quick time out to apologise for the ridiculous number of significant people in this book named Ruth. Sorry!) I was immediately taken by how large the agency was. Walking down the long corridors, all you can see are film posters and endless awards and, as I passed one window, I saw Kate Winslet deep in conversation with two cool guys in suits. I looked down at my scruffy jeans and trainers and thought it probably best to give her my number another time.
(I imagine if she’s reading this, which I’m pretty sure she will be, given she’s clearly obsessed with me, she’ll be slightly disappointed that I didn’t step up then. Honestly, anytime I’ve been in a room with her – four times in total – she’s been so dumbstruck by my being there that she’s not been able to utter one word to me. It’s weird. It’s like she can feel the chemistry but is actively making a choice to pretend I’m not there. Our eyes catch and she looks the other way. How different it all could’ve been.)
I got to Ruth’s office and waited for her to come in. Her assistant, Heloise, asked if I’d like anything to drink and I said thanks, but I was fine, which was stupid because I was really thirsty. In fact, I was so thirsty that when I was walking from the Tube to the office, I remember thinking that I wouldn’t buy a drink to quench my thirst because the cha
nces were that I’d be offered a drink once I got there. They were a big swanky agency with loads of huge stars and they’d probably have posh juices and iced teas, or iced mochachinos. ‘I really want an iced mochachino,’ I distinctly remember saying to myself.
So why didn’t I get a drink? I blame Winslet. Every time I’ve been near her this has happened. The last time I saw her at a party, she brushed past me and I spilt a vodka cranberry all over my white shirt. I was so busy looking at her, I literally missed my mouth and poured it onto my chest. She knows what she’s doing; she’s playing the long game with me and it’s messing with my mind.
This whole being-thirsty-and-not-drinking thing was only making me more parched. I sat looking around the office. There were posters signed by James McAvoy and lots of others, advertising films I’d never heard of, with those arched gold-leaf things at the bottom that tell you they had played at film festivals and so must be good.
And then Ruth walked in. ‘Hi James,’ she said in her lovely Scottish accent that immediately puts you at your ease. ‘Have you been offered a drink or anything?’