by Nick Hornby
Her character was called Polly, and she was the one that the central character, the husband with the prim, grim wife, was prevented from making love to, over and over again. She sat down at one of the tables in the dingy little club, and the director, a tired man in his sixties with nicotine-stained silver hair, read in for Barbara’s scenes. She started to deliver her lines – with some confidence, she thought, and a bit of snap.
‘ “We can’t do it here. Not with your wife upstairs.” ’
But he started shaking his head immediately, the moment she’d opened her mouth.
‘Is that actually you, or are you trying something?’
She’d never been in a room with someone as posh as him. Her father would take this meeting alone as evidence that Barbara’s life in London was an astonishing social triumph.
She started again, without doing anything different, because she didn’t know what he was talking about.
‘It is you, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘That.’ He nodded at her mouth. ‘The accent.’
‘It’s not an accent. It’s how I talk.’
‘In the theatre, that’s an accent.’
He sighed and rubbed his eyes.
‘I’m sixty-three years old,’ he said. ‘I was the second-youngest director ever to work at the Bristol Old Vic. This is the worst play I’ve ever read. We meet at perhaps the lowest point of my professional life, and there is no evidence to suggest that there are better days ahead. I could be forgiven for not caring, I’m sure you’d agree. And yet I do care. And if I cast you, it would show that I’d given up, d’you see?’
She didn’t, and she said so.
‘Why are you resisting?’
‘I’m not.’
‘In the play. You’re resisting. And before I go on, I should say, yes, yes, Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Richard Burton, kitchen sink, marvellous, marvellous. But there isn’t a kitchen sink to be seen, unfortunately. The play is called In My Lady’s Chamber. So. Why are you resisting? You sound as though you’ve spent your life selling tuppenny bags of chips. You’d let a man like Nigel have whatever he wants, surely? I need the audience to believe, you see. I’m doomed, I know. I’m a dinosaur. These things are important to me.’
She was shaking with rage, but, for reasons that remained opaque to her, she didn’t want him to see.
‘Anyway. You were a darling to come in and try.’
She wanted to remember this man. She had a feeling that she’d never see him again, because he was tired and old and useless, and she wasn’t. But she needed to know the name, in case she was ever in a position to stamp on his hand when he was dangling perilously from his chosen profession.
‘Sorry,’ she said sweetly. ‘I didn’t catch your name?’
‘Sorry. Very rude of me. Julian Squires.’
He offered a limp hand, but she didn’t take it. She had that much pride, at least.
She went to see Brian and she burst into tears. He sighed, and shook his head, and then rummaged in his desk drawer until he found a red folder with the words VOICE IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME written on the cover in large letters. It looked a bit like the book Eamonn Andrews consulted in This Is Your Life.
‘This won’t do you any harm whatever happens,’ he said. ‘I’ve recommended it to a lot of actresses. It’s very good, apparently. Michael Aspel and Jean Metcalfe. How Now Brown Cow and all that. She does speak beautifully.’
Her father loved Jean Metcalfe. She was on the radio, and she spoke in the sort of BBC voice that nobody in the whole of England, north or south, had in real life.
‘I could never sound like her in a million years.’
‘You don’t have to sound exactly like her. Just … a little bit … less like you. If that’s what you want. And if it isn’t, then let someone take all your clothes off and kill you by spraying gold paint all over you. You break my heart. Every girl on my books would kill to have your assets. And you want to ignore them.’
‘They’re not going anywhere. Can’t I be funny and have assets?’
‘It’s not me, you know that. It’s them.’
She examined the Voice Improvement Programme. She was the one who wanted to act, and acting was all about turning yourself into someone else, so what did it matter if she did that even before anyone gave her a job?
‘And while we’re about it,’ said Brian, ‘I wonder whether it’s time to stop being Barbara from Blackpool.’
He was thinking about the next phase of her career, of course. Nobody making a BBC play about unwed mothers down a coal mine would care whether she was called Barbara. But Sabrina had once been Norma Sykes. Steps had to be taken.
‘I thought that was what we were talking about.’
‘We’re talking about the Blackpool bit. We’re not talking about the Barbara bit.’
‘What can I do about that?’
‘You don’t have to be Barbara.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Not … deadly serious.’
‘I’ll leave it, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘A bit deadly, then. Not … life-threateningly. But intimidatingly.’
‘You want me to change my name?’
‘You can always change it back, if it doesn’t work out.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
That was all it took for her to decide that she never wanted to be Barbara again: it would be a mark of failure, and she wasn’t going to fail. It didn’t matter. She could change her name and change her voice and she would still be her, because she was a burning blue flame and nothing else, and the flame would burn her up unless it could find its way out.
‘Have you got a name for me already?’
‘Of course not. I’m not that much of a little Hitler. We choose it together.’
So Barbara chose Honor and Cathy from The Avengers, Glynis and Vivien and Yvonne from the movies, even Lucy from the television. And when all the names she liked had been turned down, they settled for Brian’s very first suggestion, Sophie Straw. Sophie sounded posh, she understood that.
‘Why Straw?’
‘Sandie Shaw. Sophie Straw. It sounds good.’
‘But why not Sophie Simpson?’
‘The shorter the better.’
‘Smith, then.’
‘What’s wrong with Straw?’
‘What do you like about it?’
‘I’m a happily married man.’
‘You’ve told me before.’
‘But if even I, a happily married man, somehow end up thinking about rolls in the hay, imagine how all the unhappily married men will feel.’
Sophie Straw wrinkled up her nose.
‘That’s a bit creepy.’
‘I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, my sweet. But there are some aspects of this business that are a bit creepy.’
The following day, Brian sent Sophie Straw up for a part as a young housewife in a soap commercial. She was pretty sure that he was trying to break her spirit. She’d spent the evening listening to Brian’s elocution records on Marjorie’s record player and practising her best Jean Metcalfe voice, but this time they stopped her even before she was asked to speak. A man from the soap manufacturers was sitting in the room with the director, and he smiled and shook his head.
‘I’m sorry, Sophie,’ said the director. ‘Not this time.’
‘Can I ask why not?’
The man from the soap manufacturers whispered into the director’s ear and the director shrugged.
‘He says you’re nobody’s idea of a housewife. You’re too pretty, and your shape is all wrong.’
‘What’s wrong with my shape?’
The soap man laughed. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s wrong with it. We’re looking for something a little mumsier.’
She remembered the mayor of Blackpool: kiddies and cream buns, kiddies and cream buns.
‘I could have just got married recently,’ she said, and once again she was sickened by her ow
n hunger. She should have walked out, tipped the table over, spat at them; instead she was begging.
‘It’s an advertisement for soap, darling. We haven’t got time to explain how long you’ve been married and where you met your husband and how you’re still watching your figure.’
‘Thanks for coming in anyway,’ said the director. ‘I’ll certainly remember you if I’m doing something that’s a better match.’
‘What would that be?’ she asked.
‘Oh, you know. A glamorous drink. Babycham, Dubonnet, that sort of thing. Maybe cigarettes. Something that isn’t, you know, the opposite of you.’
‘I’m the opposite of soap?’
‘No, no. I’m sure you’re lovely and clean. You’re the opposite of domestic, though, aren’t you?’
‘Am I?’
‘Are you married, Sophie?’
‘Well. No. But I think I could pretend to be married, for two minutes, in a soap advertisement.’
‘I’ll walk you out,’ said the soap man.
The director smiled to himself and shook his head gently.
When they were out of earshot, the soap man asked her out to dinner. He was wearing a wedding ring, of course.
She was approaching the end of her third week of unemployment. She had failed to convince men in studios, clubs and theatres all over the West End that she could be a housewife, a teacher, a policewoman, a secretary … She had even failed an audition for a part as a stripper, despite being more or less told by everybody else that she looked like one. She looked too much like an actress playing a stripper, apparently. The irony of this particular obstacle to employment as an actress was lost on them. The rejections, it seemed to her, were becoming more and more inventive, more and more humiliating, and Brian didn’t have a lot left for her anyway. Everything he made her go up for seemed to prove him right. She wasn’t cut out for this. And anyway, if she was prepared to play strippers in horrible little theatres, she could hardly pretend that Brian’s plans for her were sordid. There wasn’t much difference between playing strippers in vulgar plays and stripping.
‘There must be something.’
‘The only script I’ve been sent that even contains a young female is a Comedy Playhouse.’
Comedy Playhouse was a series of one-off half-hour shows that the BBC used as a launching pad for new comedies. If the crits were good and the BBC were happy, then sometimes the shows became a series. Steptoe and Son had started on Comedy Playhouse and look what had happened to that.
‘I’d love to do a Comedy Playhouse,’ said Sophie.
‘Yes,’ said Brian. ‘I can imagine you might.’
‘So why not?’
‘It’s the lead.’
‘I’d love not to get a lead. It would be a step up from not getting Secretary Two.’
‘And it’s not very you.’
He went through the very small pile on his desk, found the script and began to read.
‘ “Cicely is well spoken, petite, varsity-educated, the daughter of a vicar. She is utterly unprepared for married life, and struggles even to boil an egg.” Shall I go on?’
‘That’s me. I struggle even to boil an egg. What’s it about?’
‘It’s about … Well, not much, really. Marriage. She’s married to a man. They make a bit of a mess of everything but they muddle through. It’s called Wedded Bliss?’
‘Does it really have a question mark, or are you just saying it like that?’
‘It really does have a question mark.’
‘You wouldn’t think people could be unfunny with punctuation, would you?’
‘It’s pretty wretched stuff, I’m afraid. The sad thing is, the writers are actually quite good. Do you ever listen to The Awkward Squad on the radio?’
‘I love The Awkward Squad.’
She hadn’t heard it since she left home, and she felt a sharp pang of homesickness: she loved listening with her father to the Sunday lunchtime repeat. It was the only programme on television or radio that they both found funny. They tried to time the washing-up for 1.30, and for thirty minutes they were perfectly happy, probably the only family in Britain – if two people could qualify as a family – who enjoyed cleaning the plates more than they enjoyed eating off them. Neither of them could cook a roast, but they could scrub the crusted pans with Brillo pads and laugh. The Awkward Squad was about a group of men who’d ended up working in the same factory after doing National Service together, and replicating the roles that they’d carved out for themselves in the army. The chinless, clueless captain was their boss, the owner’s son, and the loud, dim sergeant major worked as the foreman. The lads on the shop floor were shiftless or dreamy or crooked or militant. There wasn’t a single woman in the programme, of course, which was probably why Barbara’s father loved it, but Barbara forgave them that. It might even have been one of the reasons why Barbara loved it too: most female characters in comedy series depressed her. She couldn’t put her finger on how they managed it, but it seemed like each episode of The Awkward Squad was about something. There were daft jokes and silly voices and complicated con tricks, but the characters lived in a country she knew, even though nobody in it was from up north.
‘The Awkward Squad was written by Tony Holmes and Bill Gardiner, and produced by Dennis Maxwell-Bishop,’ she said, in her best BBC announcer’s voice. ‘The part of Captain Smythe was played by Clive Richardson, Sparky was –’
‘All right, all right,’ said Brian. ‘Can you do that for every show on the radio?’
She reckoned she probably could. Why wouldn’t she? Other girls dreamed of meeting Elvis Presley or Rock Hudson; she had always wanted half an hour alone with Dennis Maxwell-Bishop. It was not a fantasy she could share with many people.
‘That one just sticks in my mind, for some reason.’
‘Well, this is the same lot,’ said Brian. ‘The writers, Dennis, Clive –’
‘And if I went to the audition they’d be there?’ she said.
‘In person?’ said Brian. ‘Good Lord, no. They’re much too grand for that.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Sophie.
‘I was being sarcastic,’ said Brian. ‘Yes, Tony Holmes and Bill Gardiner, the obscure radio writers, will be there, in person. And Dennis Maxwell-Bishop the junior comedy producer. And Clive Richardson is playing the part of the husband, so he’ll be there to read. They’re trying to launch him as a TV star, apparently.’
‘Then I want to go,’ said Sophie.
‘It’s a rotten script and you’re completely wrong for it. But if you really have nothing better to do, be my guest. Next week you’re mine.’
She took the script home and read it through three times. It was even worse than Brian had made it sound, but when she was back at home doing the washing-up, probably in a couple of months’ time, she’d be able to tell her father that she’d met the writers of The Awkward Squad. It would be the only memory of London worth keeping.
The auditions for Wedded Bliss? were in a church hall in Shepherd’s Bush, just around the corner from the BBC. There were four men in the room, and two of them looked at each other and burst out laughing when Sophie walked in.
If this had been any other audition, she would have turned straight round and walked out, but she couldn’t tell her father she’d met Tony Holmes, Bill Gardiner or Dennis Maxwell-Bishop until all three of them had looked her in the eye.
‘Charming,’ she said instead of leaving.
One of the two who had managed to keep a straight face looked pained. He was the oldest of the four, she guessed, although he probably wasn’t even thirty. He had spectacles and a beard, and he was smoking a pipe.
‘What on earth has got into you two idiots? I’m so sorry, Sophie.’
‘It’s not what you’re thinking,’ said one of the idiots.
‘What am I thinking?’ said Sophie.
‘Good point,’ said the other idiot. ‘What was she thinking, idiot?’
Both idiots had London accents, which
made Sophie warm to them, despite the unpromising start. They couldn’t throw her out because she was common, at least.
‘She was thinking, Oh, they’re laughing at me because I look so wrong for the part. But it wasn’t that at all.’
‘What was it, then?’ said Sophie.
‘You look like someone we know.’
The fourth man, who was neither idiot nor pipe-smoker, looked at her properly for the first time. Up until that point he’d been smoking and doing the crossword in the newspaper.
‘She was probably too distracted to be wondering why you were all laughing,’ he said.
‘We weren’t all laughing, thank you very much,’ said the pipe-smoker.
Sophie had sorted out who was who, to her own satisfaction anyway. The crossword-puzzler was Clive Richardson, the pipe-smoker was Dennis the producer, the idiots were Tony and Bill, although she didn’t know which one was which.
‘Why was I distracted, then?’ said Sophie.
‘Because you were too busy worrying about how wrong you look for the part.’
‘You’re Clive, aren’t you?’ said Sophie.
‘How did you know that?’
‘I recognized your voice. Because of Captain Smythe.’
Captain Smythe from The Awkward Squad, the factory owner’s dim-witted, public-school-educated son, spoke in a ridiculous voice, like the Queen if she’d been born simple.
This time all three of the other men laughed, although Clive was clearly stung.
‘Have you actually read your own work?’ he said to the idiots. ‘ “Well spoken, petite, varsity-educated, the daughter of a vicar”.’
‘You don’t think I’m petite?’ said Sophie. ‘This duffel coat makes me look bigger than I actually am.’
She made her Lancashire accent broader, just to make sure she got the laugh. She did, from three of the four. Clive, on the other hand, looked as though he might never laugh again.
‘All this laughter,’ said Clive. ‘It’s ironic, really, considering the script we have in front of us.’
‘Here we go,’ said Tony or Bill.
‘Excuse me,’ said Sophie. ‘Which one are you? Bill or Tony?’