All to Play For

by Heather Peace

  Please don’t think I resent the ease with which he strolled through his career. On second thoughts, you can think that if you like. Seeing how it’s true.

  What about the other bloke, you’re probably thinking. What’s he up to? Chris was a General Trainee, which is BBC-speak for potential senior manager. (George Orwell worked at the BBC, you know. Do you think that’s where he got the idea for Newspeak?) Up to now Chris had neither distinguished himself nor blotted his copybook. He was on the lookout for something that would put him ahead of his peers in the dog-eat-dog race to the top. Appropriately enough, he’d just been given an office in the brand new building on the site of the old White City Greyhound Stadium. Perhaps the frantic rivalry of the dogs lingered on, trapped and circulating round the state-of-the-art air conditioning system.

  BBC: the Best of British Culture! Chris wrote on his A4 pad, smiling with satisfaction. He underlined it and made a row of dots below, bullet points as they were called. Americans had such a clear, assertive way of doing things, and Chris loved to be on the ball with the latest management methods.

  • Newsnight.

  • David Attenborough.

  • Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective. (Not the other stuff.)

  • Fawlty Towers.

  He paused: these were their best shows, he believed, but bizarrely, he couldn’t call any other great shows to mind. He tutted, annoyed with himself. He’d have to do some research. How silly, after working there over ten years – the thing was, he didn’t often switch his own telly on.

  He tapped his pen on his pad, and stared out of the tinted window as a pigeon flapped down onto a branch of a huge plane tree. He couldn’t ask his new secretary for this sort of information, it wouldn’t look good. Best to wait for her to collate a list of every series broadcast since the last license renewal, nine years ago, which would refresh his memory. He leaned back in his creaking office chair, wishing he had one of the new leather jobs with upholstered armrests, and castors that rolled. The Orwellian charm of the new White City building did not extend to its interior – which was more Kafkaesque. A massive cube of glass and steel, the new building was a hundred yards up the road from Television Centre. Inside it felt like a cross between an airport shopping centre and the set for Fritz Lang’s silent film, Metropolis. The building was far from finished, and only one half of one floor was occupied, so it was a bleak and lonely work environment for the moment. He didn’t plan to stay there once his current job was finished.

  He missed his office in Television Centre where he’d felt part of the department, a cog in the real production machine, developing ideas and features for Current Affairs. Well, a feature. As a General Trainee he rarely spent more than a year in any job, since the aim was to pick up as broad a range of experience as he could, on the fast track to senior management. He had joined the BBC straight after achieving a First at Oxford, and intended to rise as high as he could in the corporation. He regretted the speed of his rise, in a way – he’d have liked to become a successful programme maker first – nothing like a couple of BAFTAs to earn you the respect of the staff. But you couldn’t get a proper overview from the shop floor, he reminded himself, and overview was what really counted in management.

  So he’d accepted a role on the License Renewal Committee without question, it was only for a year or so, and it was a vital task: persuading the government to grant the BBC another ten years of the license fee, at the rate they needed, without too many compromises. He had to review their whole output over the last nine years, and report his conclusions to the committee next week. While his secretary collated the list of programmes he was jotting down some thoughts, and mentally trying them out: you couldn’t be too prepared for a boardroom presentation. He wanted to come up with some radical ideas that would make the top brass sit up and notice him – but right now, he hadn’t any.

  *

  That evening Chris and his partner Catherine crunched up the gravel drive of their university friends, and neighbours, Sebastian and Emma. They rang the doorbell and turned to survey the small but beautifully landscaped front garden.

  “I think this is the nicest garden in our road,” said Catherine. “One of the best in Chiswick. The wisteria’s just lovely, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” agreed Chris, sniffing the bulky mauve tresses dangling fragrantly from the wooden porch. The door swung open.

  “Aha! The man from Auntie, if I’m not mistaken, and his good lady wife!” exclaimed Sebastian. “Enter, enter!” He kissed Catherine on both cheeks and shook Chris’ hand warmly. “Shortest journey, last to arrive!” He joshed, leading them into the drawing room where two other couples were sipping martinis. “You know Cosmo and Bella, of course. “This is my old school chum Toby, and his wife Jessica.”

  “Glad to meet you,” said Chris, shaking their hands.

  “Okay chaps, chat amongst yourselves like well-behaved guests, won’t you? I’ve just got to go and tickle the roast, or some such.” He wandered out towards the kitchen.

  “To what the roast?”

  “Ignore him, Catherine,” said Cosmo. “I always do! Ha!”

  Twenty minutes later the six guests had covered all the preparatory ground: property prices, reputable builders, the distribution of babies amongst them, intended schools, and nanny alternatives. They were embarking on a comparison of holiday villas in Provence and Tuscany when Emma appeared in the doorway, wearing a huge blue and white striped apron and a slightly flustered face.

  “Do come through, everyone!”

  They strolled enthusiastically into the pleasant dining room with French windows opening onto a York stone patio and lawn, and exclaimed at the lovely table setting and flower arrangement. Each guest sat down to a large white dish containing a little pile of pasta balanced on a cushion of leaves.

  “It’s fresh spinach and goat’s cheese ravioli, with wild rocket and pine nuts. Help yourselves to balsamic vinegar and olive oil.”

  “Absolutely delicious, Emma!” said Catherine. “I don’t know how you do it all.”

  “Sebastian’s taken care of the main course, so watch out… Oh he’s pretty competent – on a good day! I know he’s a rung up on the average pater familias. I cheated with the pasta – Selfridges food hall, I’m afraid – but I made the dessert with my own fair hands.”

  “If I had four children I’d be sending Chris out to the chip shop, I expect!” Catherine exclaimed, and the other women added heart-felt murmurs of support as they nibbled daintily.

  “Champagne, everyone?” boomed Sebastian. “’Fraid the lamb’s going to take a bit longer than expected. The Aga wasn’t really hot enough.” Emma raised her eyes. “That’s enough from you!” Sebastian countered, and she gesticulated her sense of outraged injustice. The guests chuckled happily at this familiar double act.

  “Now then Chris, tell us some juicy tales of the BBC,” Sebastian commanded. “We city sloggers love a bit of gossip, our lives are so damned dull.”

  “Traipsing from St James’ to St Moritz, and then rushing back in time for Ascot – must be so tiresome for you” replied Chris easily.

  “I often wish I’d taken the artistic route, like you. I envy you your little garret at the BBC: having ideas, meeting actors, all that sort of thing.”

  “Why didn’t you, then?” asked Emma. “As if we didn’t know.”

  “Man cannot live by bread alone,” Sebastian looked pious for a second. “He needs a good brie and a bottle of plonk to wash it down. Someone’s got to make the money that pays the taxes which pay your salary, Chris me old pal. Not that I resent it. Not at all. Delighted to subsidise the old goggle box, what would the kiddies do without the Magic Roundabout and all that?”

  “Oh do shut up Sebbie, you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. That finished years ago.”

  “Anything good coming up, Chris?” asked Cosmo.

  “Of course, as always!”

  “Shame I can’t invest, like I do in the West End.”

&
nbsp; “Cosmo’s an Angel. And amazingly, he’s made quite a lot of money. Mainly through Andrew of course,” explained his wife Bella.

  “You can’t beat a good musical,” Cosmo nodded. “Cost a fortune to mount, but the returns are phenomenal.”

  “Sounds like Emma,” remarked Sebastian thoughtfully, and they all guffawed as she narrowed her eyes at him. Sebastian picked up her hand and tenderly kissed it.

  “Seriously,” said Cosmo. “There ought to be room for private investment in the BBC.”

  Chris grimaced. “It’s very difficult. Although the government would love it, they daren’t.”

  “Dear Mrs T, how did we live before she came along?”

  “Did you see Spitting Image?”

  “Yes! Hilarious.”

  “I detest that show. It’s revolting!”

  “Thank goodness the BBC doesn’t do anything so nasty. At least you can always count on them to maintain standards of decency.”

  “I’ve just bought shares in a little Californian outfit called Pixar,” announced Toby, “they specialise in CGI.”

  “What’s that when it’s at home?”

  “Computer-generated imagery – the next big thing.” Toby tapped his nose. “You heard it here first.”

  “Really?” asked Chris. “Are you talking about that little film with the anglepoise lamp?”

  “Doesn’t sound terribly promising,” commented Sebastian, as all eyes turned to Toby, the quietest man at the table and by common consent, the cleverest – he had his own management consultancy firm, and even understood how computers worked.

  “The potential is huge, absolutely massive.”

  “Not just cartoons, then?”

  “Not at all. The digital revolution’s only just beginning,” Toby assured him. Chris nodded, listening intently.

  “I’m buggered if I can make our bloody computer do what I want,” moaned Sebastian. “Takes me half an hour to switch the damn thing on.”

  “He’s banned,” said Emma. “Ever since he spilt coffee over the keyboard. Two hundred pounds to fix it!”

  “We’re computerising the Beeb, it’s a bit of a nightmare,” said Chris. “Resistance is terrible in some quarters. Not from the technical bods, of course – but the typing pool’s days are numbered, that’s for sure. And we shan’t need half the number of journalists we’ve got at the moment.”

  “The inevitable march of progress.”

  “Indeed.”

  They all paused to contemplate the changing times.

  “At least you’re safe at the BBC, I hear all the ITV companies are having to bid for their new contracts!”

  “That’s right. Sealed bids. Mrs T’s idea; they hate it, and who can blame them?”

  “I suppose you still have to make the government love you though, or no license fee.”

  “Absolutely. She was on our backs about overmanning and wastage from the minute she walked into Number Ten, and we sent a twelve-man crew to film the interview.”

  “Twelve?”

  “Yes, three would have done, she was completely right.” Chris smiled ruefully. “She did us a favour, the unions had us over a barrel till then. We’ve changed a lot since. We’re pretty cost-effective now.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Toby. “But are you leading the field? Seems to me it’s all up for grabs. It won’t be long till we have hundreds of channels like they do in the US. Where’s the BBC going to be then?”

  “Packed up in a boat and sent off down the river, I dare say!” declared Cosmo, “And good riddance! People should get out of the house of an evening, and see a bit of proper culture. Not sit about like a sofa-sandwich.”

  “Couch potato,” murmured Bella.

  “The future’s digital, no doubt about that,” Toby confirmed, quietly confident, and Chris took out his Filofax to make a few notes. Now he knew what to say to the License Renewal Committee.

  Catherine watched him fondly as he wrote, his brow slightly furrowed, the hint of a smile about his mouth. He was never off-duty, his attention never drifted far from his work. She had always admired that in him, there was something very reassuring about it.

  Chapter Five

  Reassurance is one of those personal qualities you rarely encounter nowadays, and when you do, you suspect it’s false, nothing more than a PR technique. David Cameron is a case in point. In the old days the wealthy middle class, doctors, lawyers and so on, all wore an air of relaxed certainty that totally convinced the rest of us that they had everything under control, and they knew exactly what they were doing. We trusted them blindly. Now we know better. The disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, the scandal of MPs expenses, the collapse of the banking system… there seems no end to the ways politicians and elite professionals let us down. Maybe the 21st century, global warming and all, will bring us to a new level of awareness: maybe we’ll finally grow up and learn to take responsibility for our actions. Better late than never, eh?

  Anyhow. Back to 1991. Little Nicky was still working his nuts off at Magenta, learning the business and doing rather well at it.

  “It’s a right old game, this television lark, ain’t it?” exclaimed Rex as he clinked glasses with Nicky across the restaurant table.

  “Here’s to Ten out of Ten,” said Haris, presenting his glass to the show’s host Geordie Boy, and inviting Rex and Nicky to join him in a toast.

  “We wouldn’t be where we are today without it,” affirmed Rex, clapping Geordie on the shoulder of his well-tailored sparkly suit.

  “Thanks man,” nodded Geordie, grinning broadly and tossing his beautiful bleach-blonde hair.

  The four men were celebrating in style with a slap-up dinner at the top media-frequented restaurant in the West End, because they had won the jackpot. The ITV regional broadcasting franchises had just been awarded by Mrs Thatcher’s government in a revolutionary process which required all applicant companies to submit sealed bids, the highest of which would win. It was a simple blind auction, which had caused no end of fuss in the industry amongst those who felt that broadcasting should not operate purely by market forces. Now it was all over; there were a handful of winners and a lot of losers, including one of Mrs Thatcher’s best friends, which was some consolation to many.

  Magenta Productions had tied itself in with the Midland Broadcasting bid, promising to supply 200 hours of daytime game shows to the standard of their successful quiz, Ten out of Ten . They had rustled up a few smart-sounding ideas, which the newly-promoted Head of Development Nicky Mason had tarted up with celebrity names, whilst Haris costed them as low as possible. That was it. A few days’ work followed by some schmoozing by Rex, and they were in the bid: Midland did all the hard graft. If the bid failed, Magenta stood to lose nothing at all. But it had won, Midland were now running one of the largest ITV regions, and Magenta had the daytime schedule sewn up. Their output was about to expand by at least eight hundred per cent. They were all euphoric.

  “It’s better than winning on the Grand National, ain’t it?” Rex chuckled throatily, lighting a huge cigar. “D’you think this makes me look like Lew Grade?”

  Haris viewed Rex through half-closed eyes as he struck a powerful attitude, and shook his head pityingly.

  “You’re right, Haris. I’ve got too much hair!” Rex laughed uproariously and the others enjoyed his delight, although they also felt he was being just a little too loud for the swanky place they were eating in.

  Nicky thought he had never been so happy. He had recently turned twenty-one, and Rex had thrown him a party at a top nightclub. Rex liked to joke about him being the son he never had, especially after Nicky told him how his father died in action during the Falklands war. (He’d almost come to believe this himself, having not spoken to his father in four years.) Rex had treated him well at Magenta, and had been a good boss. Nicky’s wages were low, and there was no money to pay overtime, so Rex never required Nicky to work more than forty hours a week. Nicky appreciated this so much that he often did, for no
pay, and Rex returned his commitment by sitting and chewing the fat with Nicky over a cigar and a whisky, discussing the business, the people they were negotiating with, ideas for shows and possible directions they could expand in. He believed that work should be fun, and he wanted to unite his life and his work so that the two were inseparable; his colleagues were his family. Nicky was more than happy to trade his old family for this one.

  Haris had no problem with Rex’s attitude and found it entirely appropriate for a forty-five year-old divorcee with two grown-up daughters. As an equal partner in the business, possessing most of the financial acumen, he himself worked the hours he saw fit, which were basically nine-to-five plus the occasional evening, because he had a wife and three children at home in Neasden. Their household was run on traditional Muslim lines, and Haris stepped nimbly between cultures on a daily basis. There was no conflict in his mind: his duty was to be a good son, husband and father when at home, and a good finance director when at work. He had never let either side down. Rex had failed as a husband and father, (divorce could only be seen as failure) but Haris didn’t judge him. Rex was an extraordinary person, as far as Haris was concerned. He admired his energy and optimism, his dynamic determination, his zest for life and shrewd business insight. Haris could see that he and Rex complemented each other extremely well, and by respecting each other’s fields of work and domesticity, they had sustained an effective working relationship for eight years.

  Nicky’s arrival had been valuable, but Haris hadn’t seen a great deal of him, since Rex had soon taken the boy under his wing and found more than enough for him to do. The Runner became the Personal Assistant in no time at all, so he appointed his own Finance Assistant, choosing a large, middle-aged Jewish matron, which Rex found perverse, given the availability of nubile young women. Haris was perfectly happy with his choice: the office ran very smoothly, and Essie’s calm feminine influence was needed in their all-male team. Essie’s outlook on life echoed his own, and they became fond of each other without feeling the slightest mutual attraction.