We found a quiet table near the window overlooking the grim redbrick blocks of the White City council estate, and introduced ourselves. We hit it off pretty fast. After half a pint of draught Guinness and three Marlborough Lights, Maggie spilled her despair at the awful impression she’d made in the meeting, and I tried to make out it didn’t matter.
“It’s not that your opinions were unreasonable, it’s just the way you expressed them.”
“Too blunt?”
“Just a tad. People here don’t say what they think. Not like they do in Wales.”
“Nor in Yorkshire. A spade’s a fucking spade there.”
“Now Maggie, you’ve got to learn to think of it as a traditional implement for the manual rearrangement of the alluvial crust.”
She laughed. “You’ve got these southerners sussed, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been studying them for several years now. And keeping my ear to the ground.”
“Can you hear the cavalry?”
“Oh yes, I know exactly what they’re up to.”
Maggie looked at me with a sparkle in her eye and went to get the drinks in again. When she returned from the bar she launched into a deconstruction of Fenella’s management style. I contributed my own angle on BBC employment practice as I had observed it in operation.
“Did Fenella appoint you?” I asked.
“No, I was interviewed by someone else, who’d already moved on by the time I started.”
“That’s it then. Fenella’s not interested in you because you’ve been foisted on her.”
Maggie was puzzled. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“Just politics. She probably favours the other new girl, her sister’s friend from Cambridge, what’s her name – Sally.”
“Sally Farquar-Binns? I thought she’d been here ages.”
“Only a couple of months.”
Maggie was gobsmacked. “You mean – she’s no more experienced than I am?”
“Rather less, I should imagine.”
Maggie looked exasperated, and lit another cigarette. I watched sympathetically as reality emerged for her. Sally had none of Maggie’s knowledge of theatre and audiences and the practice of drama, but she had the social expertise to navigate the arcane traditions of the BBC. She knew the ropes, the rules, the manners, the language, and most importantly, the right people. She was a bona fide player while Maggie’s arse was glued to the subs’ bench. Fenella, whose job surely included responsibility for all the trainees, had no intention of furthering Maggie’s career in any way. She was probably hoping that Maggie would stumble off into the sunset after her contract expired. Eventually Maggie sighed and gave me a wry smile.
“What a prat I’ve been. I actually thought I had some sort of worker’s rights. I thought now I was on the payroll I could follow a career path of some kind.”
“It is a career path, of sorts. Think of it as a kind of outward-bound challenge. You’re on your own, you have to work out the rules of engagement for yourself, hack your way through the jungle with nothing but a knife and fork, and capture a tiny bit of territory by getting your own programme commissioned. Then you’re on the map. Unless they shoot you in the back first.”
Maggie nodded. “You’re right. It’s obvious, now you’ve said it. I’ve been spoiled, working in theatre. I was daft to imagine that the telly industry would be the same on a larger scale. I’ve been acting like a bull in a china shop, haven’t I?”
“I rather admire that, actually. I’m far too polite. I daren’t rock the boat. I’m so chuffed to be working here at all that I tend to keep my head down and get on with the job. It’s easy to do that when you’re on a show. Being in development’s a lot more complicated. I wouldn’t wait around for Fenella, if I were you. I’d go and pester all the producers, one of them might take a shine to you and take you on, you never know.”
Maggie’s face collapsed. “If only I hadn’t made such a tit of myself in front of them all this evening.”
“Don’t assume they all hate you. You’ve shown the courage of your convictions. That deserves respect. The whole thing was just about arse-licking, wasn’t it?”
“You what?” Maggie fixed me with a look of consternation.
“You must have noticed that the only show to get slagged off was the one without a producer in the room. No-one dared criticise anyone’s work to their face. Except you, of course! Some people love that. Stewart Walker does, for a start.”
“Really?”
“As long as you don’t become a bore, like poor Anthea.”
“I don’t know what to make of her. I don’t disagree with anything she says, but I can’t seem to get along with her. She’s closed off, somehow.”
“She’s got bitter. She’s been trying to get a trainee script editor’s contract for years, but they see her as a secretary and that’s that.”
Maggie’s face radiated another shaft of inner sunlight, and a faint smile lifted her expression at the thought of Anthea feeling envious of her own crummy contract. There was really someone in the department who was even more disadvantaged than Maggie – someone who wasn’t giving up. Anthea would continue to put her case until the BBC finally caught up with the rest of the arts world, which had treated equal opportunities and integrated casting as standard practice for a decade already. Maggie was suddenly filled with respect for Anthea.
“I wish I had her tenacity,” said Maggie. “I normally walk away from people I don’t respect. At speed.”
“Anthea’s got a bigger battle to fight than either of us.”
Maggie nodded. “The only other black faces you see here are serving in the tea bar.”
“Or cleaning the toilets.” We contemplated this grim fact in embarrassed silence.
“It really makes me angry.”
“Imagine how Anthea feels, then!”
“You know who annoys me the most? That Jonathan Proulx.”
“Basil Richardson’s script editor?”
“What sort of a name is Proulx, anyway? It’s ridiculous!” I surprised myself with this outburst; I hardly knew him. Maggie glanced at me quizzically.
“I suppose it must be French. Why don’t you like him?”
“He’s just so bloody tall and blonde and handsome, he’s straight out of Brideshead Revisited. Life is so easy for people like him; they glide through it on gold-plated roller skates. It drives me insane. He’s always surrounded by posh girls exactly like him. They’ve all got trust funds and families with three houses, and they’ve no need to earn a living at all – this is all just a game for them. To the rest of us it’s life or death! Well not exactly, but you know what I mean.”
Maggie laughed. “I agree. He’s a supercilious creep.”
“He epitomises everything we’re up against. The old boys’ network. They just carry on as they always have, they don’t really notice the rest of us at all.”
“Hmm, I think they’ve noticed me now. There must be something we can do. Let’s start a plot!” said Maggie ruefully.
“An old girls’ network!”
“That would be great, but there aren’t enough of us. What about a grammar school network?”
“Yes, but wouldn’t the men try to run it?”
“It’s all a distraction from what we’re really here for. I shan’t care once I’ve won my BAFTA.”
“Imagine beating Jonathan to a BAFTA!” A thrill of anticipated schadenfreude swept through me.
“Oh, wouldn’t that be satisfying?”
“There’s only one way to do it.”
“Make better shows.”
“Exactly. Beat them at their own game. Prove we’re as good as – we’re better than them.”
We discussed the kind of programmes we most wanted to make: Maggie was full of original ideas but they didn’t necessarily have mass appeal for a television audience. I’d never given serious thought to new projects, but I knew all about the practical needs of a production. We shared a deep admiration for p
rogrammes that mattered, that changed attitudes and became central to the national culture.
“Wouldn’t you like to make the definitive Welsh drama?” asked Maggie.
I shuddered. “I don’t want to be stuck away in a corner. I want to be part of the mainstream, accepted on the same terms as everyone else – not be the token Welshwoman.”
“You sound like Anthea now.”
“Yes, well we’ve got something in common, haven’t we?” I saw Maggie recoil as if she’d inadvertently stepped on my corn. I tried to hurry on, ashamed of reacting so chippily. “It’s a bit obvious, that’s all – I’m proud of being Welsh but it’s a bit parochial for me, you know what I mean?”
“Yes, of course.” Maggie smiled and said nothing more on the subject. She was beginning to learn the art of tact.
*
The meeting proved to be a turning point for Maggie. Once back at her desk she felt much clearer. She understood that she would probably never get a proper meeting with her boss, and she would have to find herself a new contract some other way. She had plenty of confidence in herself and her abilities, but very little where the institution of the BBC was concerned, and she wasn’t at all sure that she would remain there. Never mind. If they couldn’t see her finer qualities, they could get stuffed. The BBC wasn’t the only television company in the world, even if it was the best – that reputation wouldn’t necessarily last for ever, Maggie told herself, although she couldn’t really imagine a change momentous enough to shake the BBC from its towering position of superiority.
She rallied herself for an all-out assault. She planned out her remaining six weeks such that she could continue reading scripts and writing reports for Fenella at the same fast rate she had already established – she was determined not to give her boss an excuse for giving her a bad reference – and she also gave a lot of thought to projects she would like to develop, and writers she wanted to work with. She called the writer whose unsolicited script she had thought most promising and invited him in for a chat, and two other writers she had worked with in theatre, asking them if they had ideas they would like to develop with her. They all promised to think about it and meet her within a week.
Then she called various producers’ secretaries and succeeded in obtaining appointments to meet five producers for a brief chat, including to her amazement Stewart Walker, who called her back and spoke to her personally. He remembered her and was charming; he obviously bore no grudge, and wasn’t the kind of man who took criticism to heart. He raised her hopes by mentioning that he was looking for an editor for his next project, and Maggie resolved that, come what may, she would get that contract.
Finally, just in case, she wrote a letter to the executive producer of EastEnders, saying how she loved the show and her main ambition was to work on it, and obtained a huge number of video tapes of old and recent episodes from the film and video library so that she could catch up on the storylines and characters and discuss them intelligently if asked to do so.
The act of phoning a writer from the BBC forced Maggie to behave as if she were a real member of staff, whether or not she felt like one. Paul McEntee, who had received his rejected script from Fenella only four days beforehand, was very surprised when Maggie called, and couldn’t reconcile the two events. Maggie wondered if she was doing the right thing. She tried to explain that she had found his writing full of energy and truth, and that she would like to meet him to find out what he was interested in so that she could bear him in mind for future projects. As she talked she felt a fraud: it was quite possible that she would soon be out of a job. He agreed to come and meet her for a chat.
Maggie took Paul to a lively tea-bar she had discovered on the ground floor next to one of the recording studios. The fact that it was frequented by people actually making programmes gave it a much better atmosphere than the one on the fifth floor which was always full of people deep in thought. He was mixed race, still in his twenties, worked in a DHSS office and wrote in his spare time. Becoming a full-time writer was still a dream, but he was serious about it, and listened avidly to Maggie’s thoughts on his script. She was encouraging but frank about the odds against his getting an original idea commissioned; he might do better to try and get taken on by one of the soaps. Paul was quiet, and listened to Maggie as if she were a mentor, which made her feel uncomfortable, she was hardly in a position to be that. She decided to come clean.
“To be absolutely honest, Paul, I’m rather new here myself, and I’m not sure they’ll keep me on. I can’t give you any guarantees at all. I can only offer to put your ideas forward.”
“That’s okay. At least you’re being honest with me. And you’re the first person who’s ever given me any encouragement apart from my mum.” Maggie was charmed. She asked what subjects he would choose to write about given a clean slate, and he began talking about his complex family, which was split between Peckham, St Lucia, and Norfolk. His black mother’s family came from St Lucia and his white father had left him and his brother with her in Peckham in order to go off with a Scottish potter and live in the country. His step-mother had another two children, older than him, and now a new baby. His mother had subsequently had two more children herself, with a Rastafarian from Jamaica who had three more children back home. His full brother, Steve, was in prison doing twenty years for armed robbery, which Paul didn’t believe he was guilty of, although he had done smaller robberies. Because Steve had refused to take his punishment lying down, he had been in solitary five times in his first two years. He often had bruises when Paul visited him, and lived in fear of villains who thought he might grass them up.
Maggie was fascinated by this colourful story, and convinced there was great material here for a drama of some kind.
“I know they say you should write about what you know,” said Paul, “and I know a lot about culture clashes. But it’s very hard to use your own family for raw material. It doesn’t seem right. That’s why I haven’t done it before.”
“Unless you can use it to right a wrong, or to bring something unfair to the attention of the public,” Maggie suggested. “What about your brother?”
Paul smiled and shook his head. “I couldn’t risk putting him in an even worse situation.”
“It wouldn’t have to be his actual story, you could make it a parallel story and change all the details. No-one needs to know it’s based on him.”
“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”
Maggie said she would look forward to hearing from him soon, and took him back to Reception. He was genuinely grateful for the meeting, and she felt undeserved satisfaction. Maybe nothing would come of it, or maybe this writer would have the perseverance and talent to make it.
JoJo was completely different. Maggie had directed one of her plays four years previously, and had been vastly amused to discover JoJo’s background in street theatre had included a summer of anarchist stunts on the Edinburgh Fringe. She had been the punk girl reading The SCUM Manifesto who had caused Maggie and the rest of the audience to get arrested, and JoJo was delighted to meet one of her victims. She swore she had never meant for the police to come along, and was relieved they had come to no harm. The Manifesto was only meant to be a way of engaging people in debate; she had never taken it seriously. Regrettably, she said she had given up street theatre and was now trying to develop her creativity in directions which earned money, since it was no longer possible to live on the dole. Maggie and JoJo had become good friends.
As well as writing feminist plays JoJo was now a lesbian stand-up comedian. In her act she claimed that her aim was to make men laugh themselves to death, and if she couldn’t do that she would make women laugh themselves to murder. Completely fearless, she was game to try anything. Sitting in the club with her was a tonic in itself as far as Maggie was concerned, and this time her feelings of fraudulence were towards the BBC: fancy their paying her to get pissed with a mate and have a laugh. JoJo had a talent for getting people to like her. A combination of a cheeky
grin, diminutive physique, huge brown eyes and bright orange hair helped, but her ready wit was warm, and far less aggressive than she pretended in her act. Maggie felt she would come across well in an interview, if she could get a producer interested in meeting her, they might be in with a chance.
“I suppose there’s money for this masterpiece you want me to write?” asked JoJo, sipping a Becks.
“Ah. The money. Umm… ”
“I knew it. You don’t seriously expect me to do a whole script on spec?”
“Not a whole script, of course not. Just a treatment. A two-page proposal will do, then I can try and get it commissioned.”
“Fair enough. Actually I have got a story I want to write, but I don’t know whether they’ll like it here. It’s about a lesbian.” Maggie smiled. “Good.”
Jill Watkins was Maggie’s third hope. Ten or more years older than Maggie, Jill was no political firebrand but she had many years’ experience of writing plays for a wide variety of theatre companies and audiences, and had recently made her television debut writing for the ill-fated new soap, Eldorado. She was divorced and had a little boy aged six; yes, you’re right, Jill was the pregnant woman in the Edinburgh fiasco. She and Maggie had run into each other many times after that; it’s what happens in theatre.
“Wouldn’t it be brilliant to make a community film with the BBC?” Maggie said.
Jill promised to start work on the treatment right away.
With two weeks left on her contract Maggie’s cheerful determination started to falter. Two of the five producers’ secretaries had called back to say they couldn’t meet her after all due to busy schedules, although she was welcome to try again in a few months; however, at least she was going to meet both Stewart and Basil. EastEnders had failed to respond to her letter. Fenella still hadn’t asked her in, and enquiries through Anthea revealed that there wouldn’t automatically be any kind of assessment of Maggie’s progress. Maggie tried not to feel disappointed at this crushing lack of interest in her. She ran into Sally in the canteen, and learned that she had a new contract to work on a major Dickens dramatisation. Donald Mountjoy would be producing it. Maggie realised with a shiver that the discussion group had been the arena in which Sally had auditioned. Still, she drew guilty satisfaction from knowing that at least Sally hadn’t got any of her own ideas off the ground. Perhaps Maggie would succeed.
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