May I Have Your Attention Please?

by James Corden

  Peter Fincham really got the idea and, once we’d calmed a few of his nerves about my lack of presenting experience, he told us he was up for it. We came up with an idea that we’d try and film an activity with each of the England team. It was a tricky one to navigate as we didn’t know who was going to make the final squad, but we had to get as many in the can as possible. We cooked with Rio Ferdinand, golfed with Steven Gerrard, boxed with Jermain Defoe, bowled with Michael Carrick, practised Pilates with Rob Green, and did loads of other crazy things with the rest of the squad. The players were brilliant. They all wanted to be involved and the only demand they made was that their appearance fee would be donated to a charity of their choice.

  They were all fantastic company, and really warm, genuine nice guys. I can’t tell you how many times I would look around and see them helping members of the crew move filming equipment from one location to the next. They are often painted as money-grabbing mercenaries who couldn’t care less about the game or the fans. But from where I’ve been standing, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  CHAPTER 22

  BEST MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT:

  ‘Ooh La La’ by the Faces

  BEST FILM TO WATCH ALONGSIDE:

  Back to the Future (not the third one)

  BEST ENJOYED WITH:

  rusks and milk

  SO THIS IS it, the last chapter of the book. The publisher has just told me that I’m already 5,000 words over the required amount, which I can’t quite believe. Imagine telling my teachers at school – like Mr Graham or Mr Hopkins – that I’d been set an essay and not only finished it, and handed it in, but had written more words than was contractually required!

  This last chapter has come at just the right time. At this moment, as I’m sitting at my kitchen table typing, it’s 7 a.m. and I’m all alone in the house. However, in two hours’ time I shall be picking Jules and my newborn son up from the hospital to bring them home and, for the first time, we’ll be here as a family. I’m so nervous about it. It does make me wonder about the future and quite how it’s all going to change. It also makes me think of what may become of me professionally: I have responsibilities now, mouths to feed. The last year has been really good to me. As well as the things I’ve already told you about, I’ve shot another three series of A League of Their Own, which keeps getting bigger and better and remains the same brilliant fun. Oh yeah, and I’ve had a number one single in the charts with Dizzee Rascal – I know, ridiculous! Who would ever’ve thought?

  Here’s how it happened: at the National Television Awards, Simon Cowell came over and talked to me about the idea of doing a World Cup song. I’d been asked to do a few World Cup songs before and turned them down, but this was Simon and he is incredibly difficult to say no to. We talked some more on the phone and he told me he had a song that he’d like his A & R guy Nick Raymond to come over and play to me. I agreed, and a couple of days later I was in my kitchen listening to the song with Nick. It was a catchy little tune – a mix of samples from Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’ with ‘Shout’ by Tears for Fears. In between there was this rap – nothing to do with football, just a rap laid down on the track.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ I asked him.

  ‘The rap,’ Nick said. ‘We want you to do the rap.’

  ‘You’re joking. Are you mad? I can’t rap.’

  ‘Sure you can. We’ve seen you do it on Gavin & Stacey.’

  ‘Yeah, but come on,’ I said. ‘That’s a very different thing. I mean, a character rapping on a TV show is one thing, but releasing a record – I can’t do that, I just can’t.’

  ‘James –’ he was looking hard at me now – ‘Simon told me I’m not allowed to leave here until you agree.’

  At this point I got up to make a cup of tea. ‘Nick,’ I said, ‘you have to understand, I know we’re talking about Simon Cowell, but I will never rap on your record. It would be awful for you. It would be awful for me. It would be awful for music generally. I like Simon, I do, but it’s just not going to happen.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I can appreciate that, but what if I get a rapper to do it with you?’

  ‘A rapper?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘The only rapper you could get would be Dizzee Rascal. He’s the only person with the right sense of humour, the only one who could pull it off and the only guy I’d do it with.’ I’d met Dizzee a few times and really liked him.

  ‘All right then,’ Nick said, as I guided him to the door. ‘So you’re telling me that if we get Dizzee, you’re in. I can tell Simon that, can I?’

  ‘Yeah, you can tell him that,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘Good luck, Nick. You’ll never get him.’

  Closing the door, I grinned at Jules and Ben, who had been there during the meeting. ‘Well, we swerved that one, didn’t we?’ I said, confident that this was the last we’d hear of it.

  Two weeks later I was in a studio with Dizzee Rascal, recording Simon’s song for the World Cup. The power of the Cowell.

  The record came out and, before I knew it, I was performing on Britain’s Got Talent with Dizzee. It was the live final, with 20 million people tuning in. I remember scratching my head and thinking back to that moment in my flat when I managed to ‘swerve’ this moment so effectively. It was number one for two weeks. And I’m glad I did it. I had a brilliant time on Britain’s Got Talent, and it was great fun working with Dizzee and Simon Cowell. I’d been reticent at first – with good reason: I ain’t no rapper – but once we agreed to give the money to Great Ormond Street Hospital, it was a no-brainer.

  After World Cup Live was finished, I went out to shoot another big-budget film, The Three Musketeers, which, at the time of writing, I’ve yet to see, but the trailer looks good and it was great filming it. I play the musketeers’ servant, so I basically walked behind some really good-looking guys carrying their bags. I’ve no idea how my part will come out in the edit, but working with Paul W. S. Anderson, the director, was a great experience. I also filmed two episodes of Doctor Who, which is something I’m incredibly proud to have been part of. If I had my way, I’d work with Matt Smith every day of the week. He is the most splendid company. I hosted the Brits again and have been asked back to do it in 2012. I had a silly spat with Patrick Stewart at an awards do, which lots of people went crazy over, but we’re all made up now. We are, we hugged and everything. And now, as I write this, I’m about to go back to the National Theatre to do a play for six months. It’s called One Man, Two Guvnors, and Nicholas Hytner – who is now actually Sir Nicholas Hytner – is going to direct it. He called me whilst I was doing World Cup Live and the conversation went like this:

  ‘Hi James,’ he said.

  ‘Hi Sir Nicholas,’ I replied respectfully.

  ‘Ha!’ he laughed. ‘Listen, would you like to do a play next year at the National Theatre?’

  I thought for half a second. ‘Are you directing it?’

  ‘If you do it, then I most probably will—’

  I didn’t even wait for him to carry on speaking. ‘YES,’ I said.

  ‘Do you not want to know what play it is?’

  ‘I don’t care. If it’s with you at the National Theatre, then I would love to do it.’

  Some people have said that I was mad to commit to something I’d not read or crazy to not take more time about the decision. But I think all eight of the history boys have a romantic attachment to Nick and that building, and would bite someone’s arm off to be back there, working with him again. The play is a new adaptation of an Italian farce called The Servant of Two Masters. I hope it’s going to be funny. It certainly feels so, but you never quite know how these things are going to pan out. I’m excited about doing it, though – and about being in a rehearsal room again.

  People have asked me what I’d like to do in the future and I guess when I really sit down and think about it, the answer’s quite boringly simple: I’m just hoping for more of the same. I feel so pri
vileged to be able to do so many different things. Actually, I’m not sure if ‘able’ is the word here: many people are ‘able’ to do different things, but for one reason or another, they aren’t allowed to do them. I feel incredibly fortunate that I’m in a position to do such varied things professionally. One of the questions I get asked most is whether we’ll make any more Gavin & Stacey. I hope one day we’ll find the time to make a one-off special. I don’t think Ruth and I will ever make another series, but we do often talk about the characters and where we might find them if we did make a special. One day, we would definitely like to try and write something else together, whether that be a film or a new television series. The thought of being back in a room with her again makes me so excited. Ruth, me and a laptop, it doesn’t get more fun than that.

  In my personal life, I couldn’t be happier. A few months ago, on a cold, icy Christmas Day morning, I asked Jules to marry me. It was a moment I will never forget. I knelt down, looking up at her, my eyes filling with tears, with a ring I’d designed myself shaking in my left hand. She said yes! I cannot wait to marry her. I already see her as my wife and it’ll be lush to make it official.

  Now, if you don’t mind, if you have time, I’d just like to share one more story with you. It’s something else I get asked about a lot, so it would feel odd not to include it in this book. A couple of months ago I made one more sketch for Comic Relief. Since the success of the previous two Smithy outings, Comic Relief asked if I’d be able to make another one. Ben, Gabe and I felt as though we’d possibly peaked with the last Sports Relief one, and to make another seemed risky. Clyde, however, felt we should definitely give it a try so, although we wouldn’t fully commit to doing it, we said we’d certainly explore the possibilities of making one. We talked about maybe Smithy doing something in America, him being a life coach, or retiring from public life and going to live with Emma Watson. Clyde and Gabe wrote a script that required four full days filming with Tom Cruise. Ben and I agreed that this might be a touch ambitious. We got to a point where we were all having ideas that were totally unrealistic. We’d been so lucky before, because Smithy had essentially walked into rooms that were full of the people we wanted to film with. All we had to do was turn up and switch the camera on. Now we wanted to do something where we had as impressive a cast list, but didn’t know how we could get them all together at the same time. Whichever way we imagined it, we couldn’t make it work, and I felt as though we should probably put it to bed. And then the genius that is Suzi Aplin had a brainwave.

  She was producing Comic Relief this year, and she sent us over a video link of a sketch from an American TV show. It was Jimmy Kimmel’s post-Oscar-night sketch called ‘The Handsome Men’s Club’. It featured a really impressive cast list – Ethan Hawke, Rob Lowe, Matt Damon, Sting and a few more – and was shot round a table where they had made it appear as if everyone was sitting together. This showed us how technically it was possible to shoot the biggest and best cast we could assemble and still make it work round everyone’s schedules.

  We set about trying to write a script and decided, as we had before, that we’d write it for the biggest people that we could think of, and if they said no, we’d adjust the script accordingly. The main premise for the script was a group of celebrities seated round a table at Comic Relief HQ, arguing about who they thought should go to Africa and shoot the appeal film. They all wanted to do it, but each time they put themselves forward, they’d be gazumped by the opinions of a more famous person sitting at the table with them. It would be a series of reveals, where the fame levels would just keep rising and rising, getting more and more ridiculous. We’d learnt from having done a couple of these before that we needed to start at the end – find one or two bona fide famous people to say yes and then everyone else would most likely fall into place. And we decided that the biggest and best person we could approach had to be Sir Paul McCartney.

  We chose to ask him first as I had already been lucky enough to have some contact with him. When we were doing World Cup Live the summer before, I’d got a phone call telling me that Paul McCartney wanted to speak to me. At first I thought it was a wind-up by one of the boys in the production office. A day earlier I’d thrown a bit of a tantrum, saying that the guests being booked for the show weren’t big enough. I thought this was some sweet payback. I soon realised it was real when I got a call from one of his people telling me that Paul would be calling at 11.30 a.m. I had no idea what he wanted or why he would want to speak to me but, as you can imagine, I was incredibly excited. Maybe he’d got hold of a Twice Shy demo tape and wanted to talk about collaborating on some tracks.

  At 11.10 a.m. the phone rang; it was another of Paul’s people asking me if I was near the phone. ‘Erm … yeah. I’m holding it in my hand now. That’s how I’m able to speak to you,’ I said to the polite young lady.

  ‘No, I know,’ she said. ‘I know you’re near it now. I just wanted to check that you’re not about to go into any tunnels or lose signal.’

  ‘No. I’ll be right here. I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘Even if you need the toilet, you’ll still take the phone with you, right?’ she added.

  ‘Yes,’ I chuckled. ‘In fact, I’m waiting till I get on the phone to the legend that is Sir Paul McCartney so that I can be sitting on the toilet when I speak to him.’

  ‘Good. Well, that’s great. Just wanted to check.’ Not sure she got the gag.

  I waited by the phone and, as it turned eleven thirty, it rang. ‘Withheld number’ flashed up on my phone.

  ‘Hello?’ I said tentatively.

  ‘Hi, James, it’s Paul,’ said Paul McCartney in the soft Liverpudlian lilt you’ve heard a million times but never, ever expect to hear over the phone.

  ‘Hello, sir, how are you?’ I said, and then tried a little small talk. ‘What have you been up to?’

  Paul told me that he’d just flown home from Washington DC where he’d been honoured for his contribution to American arts and culture. The award had come from the Kennedy Center and had been bestowed on him by President Barack Obama. Sir Paul was the first non-American ever to receive the award and, after the ceremony, he had played a private gig at the White House. Jerry Seinfeld had compèred the evening and Paul said it was a really special night. It was followed by a personal tour of the West Wing from Obama himself. It had been one of the very best nights of his entire life, and he was telling me all about it on the phone. I was so amazed at how open he was. However, once he’d finished telling me about his week, he asked me what I’d been up to. I had no idea what to say. I mean, how do you follow the story he’d just told me? Flustered, but trying to sound cool, I said, ‘Oh, er … I’m doing this World Cup show and we just came up with a game called “How many Peter Joneses?”’

  ‘Oh right,’ said Sir Paul, very politely sounding interested.

  ‘Well, erm … you have to guess how many … well, Peter Joneses it would take to get from, say … Wembley to South Africa. That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing.’

  We talked about how lovely Peter Jones was in real life, and then I asked Paul what it was he wanted to speak to me about. He went on to tell me how much he’d enjoyed the Sports Relief sketch and had watched and liked various other things I’d done and that he wanted me, as Smithy, to introduce him on stage at the Isle of Wight Festival in a couple of weeks’ time. He thought it would go down really well with the crowd and, if I was up for it, he’d love me to do it.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Paul McCartney wanted me to introduce him on stage? I told him I was blown away that he had even seen anything I had done and promised that I would do everything in my power to make it happen.

  Once I was off the phone, I skipped straight into Ben’s office and told him the news. He was as shocked as I was. While I was excitedly pacing around, Ben took a moment to look at the diary and delivered the bombshell. ‘We’ve got a show that night, James. You can’t do it. Sorry, dude.’

  H
e was right, I couldn’t do it. I even rang ITV and asked if we could do the show live from backstage at the festival, which, of course, they didn’t even consider. I remember saying to anyone who would listen, ‘But it’s Paul McCartney! He was in the Beatles!’ So, after a bit more whining, I called up Paul’s people and delivered the news and told them how upset I was that I couldn’t do it, but if Paul was still looking for an intro, I could film something that he could play on the screens. Paul said that would be great, so I filmed a big build-up for him. When I saw him at an event a week or so later, he thanked me and told me it had gone down well with the crowd.

  So, with a favour in the bag, I thought we had a good shot at trying to get Sir Paul. We knew he liked the last Comic Relief sketch; plus we’d got on well when we met before. Clyde got in touch with his people, who told me I was to call Paul at midday. I jokingly asked Clyde if he’d call at 11.45 and ask Paul if he was by the phone, but he immediately told me to stop being a dick. This was big time, and I had to be prepared and know exactly what I was going to say. When midday came, I called Paul and explained the rough outline of the script. I told him the names of some of the people we were hoping would be involved, and then I launched into full charity-grovel mode. I told him that we would make the whole experience as fun and painless as possible, that we’d shoot it whenever was good for him and that, because now the sketches could be bought as digital downloads, it could make a decent chunk of money that would go towards people all over the world who desperately needed it. I then played the trump card: the simple fact of his involvement in the sketch would, without question, change people’s lives. He paused and I could hear the smile come into his voice. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve gotta tell you, James. I’ve heard some grovelling in my time, but that was the best yet. Have you got that written down?’