All to Play For

by Heather Peace

  Jonathan wasn’t prepared, they were supposed to be discussing the budget, but Peter had evidently forgotten. Never mind, he would go with it.

  “Well, it’s basically a choice of young, trendy and cheap, or experienced and expensive.”

  “What about your brother?”

  Jonathan was taken by surprise. His younger brother Roger was just beginning to establish himself as a director, but he hadn’t put him on the list of possibles.

  “Well I do think he’s very good,” he began. “But I wouldn’t want to be accused of nepotism.”

  Peter laughed sourly. “Who cares about that these days? Look after your own, that’s what I say, because no-one else is going to. I thought he did a very good job on that thing of Gillian’s.”

  Peter was referring to a series of short single dramas produced at Pebble Mill, which Roger had directed.

  “So did I,” said Jonathan. He liked the idea of working with Roger, who at 28 was three years his junior and would be easier to work with than most directors available to him. “He’s certainly young and cheap, and he thinks he’s trendy! I’d definitely like to consider him, if you think that’s a good idea.”

  Peter nodded assent. “Who knows, you might become the British Coen brothers.”

  Jonathan liked that idea even more. Vera came in with the teas at that moment, and he took the opportunity to get the meeting back on course. “I need to talk to you about the budget, I’ve been working on this draft.” He put it on the table but Peter didn’t look at it.

  “Where’s your script editor? Why isn’t she here?”

  “Oh.” Jonathan’s face reddened. “I don’t think I mentioned… Rhiannon’s been very busy, so I said not to worry, I could manage.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Peter. “D’you think you can do everything on your own? First time out?”

  “Well, I thought I could save a bit of money if I edited the scripts myself.”

  “The point of having an editor is so that you can discuss everything with someone who knows what you’re talking about and can work with the writer while you solve other problems. You need her. Go away, and come back when you’ve got her on board.”

  Jonathan was somewhat shocked by Peter’s tone, which was a good deal sharper than he was used to. He realised he must have made quite a big error; he’d thought his handling of Rhiannon had been diplomatic, but now he saw that it was weak. He was only a learner producer in Peter’s eyes. He excused himself and walked straight back to his office without speaking to anyone, not even Vera who had just made him a cup of tea.

  I was on my computer, trying to get the hang of the new script software that was supposed to make our lives so much easier, when Jonathan knocked on my door. I called, “Come in,” hit save, and spun my chair round to see who it was.

  “Hello,” he said, and walked in rather diffidently. Surprised to see him, I took the opportunity to be nice: not only did I regret not being on his show, I still hadn’t found anything else to attach myself to.

  “Hiya, have a seat! Would you like a drink?” I caught myself – was I gushing? He perched on a sofa I’d filched from a departing producer’s office.

  “What’s this?” he asked, looking at an embroidered blue plaque I’d sewn onto the back like an antimacassar. “‘Alan Bennett, Jack Rosenthal, Andrew Davies… ’”

  “It’s a list of the famous bums that sat on it. It’s supposed to be like the ones they put up on houses where famous people lived.” I felt a bit daft, but he seemed to get the point.

  “Brilliant!” he laughed. “What a list. Is it true?”

  “I reckon – I can’t be sure, but they all worked with Geoffrey over the years, so it’s more than likely they sat on his sofa.”

  “Makes you think, doesn’t it? Imagine if every office door listed all the productions that were made in it down the years.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.” We smiled sadly at each other, and all the awkwardness that had existed between us seemed to have evaporated. He cleared his throat.

  “I was wondering – I haven’t got a script editor for Medical Miracle, I’ve been doing it myself, but I could really use one now. I just thought I’d check whether you were available before I asked anyone else.”

  “Oh, yes, actually, I’m pretty free now. My show got dumped.”

  “I heard. I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to rub salt – ”

  “No problem! Don’t worry about it. That’s life, I’ve already forgotten about it!”

  He smiled his handsome smile, and I smiled back. “Shall I come and pick up a copy of the script?”

  “Great!”

  I was grateful to Jonathan for making it so easy for me. Of course, at that stage I didn’t know what Peter had said, and I thought he was generously overlooking my rudeness and giving me a second chance. Whatever the reason, we seemed to have made a fresh start, and by unspoken agreement we never mentioned what had gone before. Each of us breathed a private sigh of relief and got on with the job in hand. We had no idea what we were in for.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Harder They Come

  Proposal for a ninety minute thriller by Jill Watkins

  SHARON (35) teaches English in a tough East London comprehensive. She has been married to JOHN (58) (David Jason) for ten years and they have two little girls (5 and 2). They are more or less content. John runs a local advertising paper. He is the kind of man who seems to have everything under control, who never raises his voice; the sort whom people are afraid to cross.

  LUKE (16) (Take That) is about to sit his GCSEs. He loves anything to do with art and making things. His parents both work at Ford Dagenham. He has a sister RACHEL (14).

  A murder has recently taken place locally: a woman was raped and left for dead in the local woods. The murderer’s identity is a mystery.

  Sharon teaches Luke. She has always liked him, and can’t help noticing that he is growing up into a very sexy man. He’s tall, good-looking, wears a long blonde ponytail and has an inner confidence unusual in a boy of his age that Sharon finds very attractive.

  Luke has had a crush on Sharon for months and believes he’s the right person for her. He wants to start a relationship.

  Sharon and Luke begin an affair. She’s riddled with guilt, but can’t help herself, realising her marriage is hollow. Luke wants to run away with her, but she won’t leave John, it wouldn’t be fair to him.

  One day they take a walk in the local woods, and are overcome by passion. They don’t realise John is in the woods too, we don’t know why, he sees them but doesn’t let on.

  John starts stalking them. The suspense builds. Sharon is on the horns of a dilemma. She wants to run away with Luke, but can’t make the decision. John knows what’s going on and he’s as nice to her as he knows how, hoping it will blow over. Another body is found in the woods.

  Whilst the police conduct investigations, Sharon and Luke meet in the woods, followed by John. Sharon promises to leave John, hears a noise, tells Luke to go. She waits a few minutes before she leaves.

  John has a knife. He creeps up and attacks her for betraying him. Luke’s dog hears something and wants to go back. They do, and catch John struggling with Sharon. It’s a tense fight, but the dog’s barking attracts some police searching the woods, and they come to the rescue.

  It turns out that John is the psychopathic murderer. Sharon and Luke settle down together with the girls. John goes to prison.

  Jill was quite pleased with her effort, although she felt it would take a little time to grow on her before she really liked it. What would Basil and Maggie’s comments have been? A fleeting regret passed through her, was she betraying them? Hardly, she reasoned. How could you betray people who had dropped your project? All the same, she had changed the title so that they would think it was a new idea, if they ever heard about it.

  Sally called back the day after she got the fax and declared it super. However, she wanted
Jill to make one or two tiny changes before she took it further.

  “Firstly, the boys in Take That have short hair, so can Luke? He’ll only look silly with a wig on.”

  That was tough. Jill had always seen Luke’s ponytail as an integral part of his personality, a low-key statement of individuality. She made a Herculean effort and mentally chopped it off.

  “Great,” said Sally. “Now I’ve got this idea, it’s really very exciting. I think it’s a bit dodgy to make David Jason the baddy. I’m really not sure audiences will wear it, so I thought, wouldn’t it be a terrific twist at the end, if it turned out that Luke was the murderer! Then John’s the one who saves Sharon’s life, and she realises it was all a sort of mid-life crush on her part and goes back home with John, who’s really mature and kind and forgives her?”

  Jill couldn’t speak.

  Sally interpreted her silence to suit herself and rattled on, “If you could possibly write that up by the end of tomorrow I can give it directly to David’s agent, I’ll be seeing him at a dinner party. If David’s on board we can get the controller behind it and then we’ll be able to sort out your contract.”

  The magic word contract lodged in Jill’s mind, and she muttered that she’d try.

  “You’re a brick, Jill.”

  “By the way,” Jill said before Sally’s phone went down. “I’d really like to have a go at developing a precinct drama set in a school. What do you think?”

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the window now,” said Sally airily. “They’ve already got two: one’s set in a police station and one’s about a hospital. Speak to you later. Bye.”

  Jill paced up and down the kitchen while she made coffee. Sally’s ‘tiny’ changes ripped out the heart of the original story. They turned her ideal youth into a neurotic obsessive, and Sharon into a weak-minded fool. She didn’t want to write it.

  Then she thought of her ever-increasing overdraft, and her ambition to move into a house with a garden, if she could ever make enough money. She thought of Sam and the Nike Air trainers which she suspected were stolen.

  Jill gritted her teeth and decided to give it a try, for purely commercial reasons. She would write exactly what Sally wanted. If Sally could get it going then it would be worth it. She wasn’t compromising her artistic integrity, she was writing for the market.

  She returned purposefully to her computer, and re-wrote the proposal again, incorporating all Sally’s suggestions. She worked and honed it over the next day to the most economical, appealing pitch she could.

  The Harder They Fall

  A Thriller by Jill Watkins

  Hainault Country Park, East London: a killer stalks an anonymous woman on her way home in the dark. She is assaulted, raped and left for dead.

  JOHN MORRISSON (David Jason) reads the report in the local paper, which he runs. His wife SHARON (Anita Dobson?) shivers as she hears about it on her way to the local comprehensive, where she teaches. LUKE WOODWARD (Gary Barlow?) thinks only of his favourite teacher, Sharon.

  Sharon and Luke fall in love. He is sixteen, she thirty-five, but this doesn’t seem to matter. She stands to lose her job as well as her family, but in spite of this she can’t help embarking on the affair. They meet secretly in the wooded areas of the park.

  Luke wants Sharon to leave John and their two daughters. She adores Luke but can’t bring herself to abandon them.

  John realises something is wrong. One day he is in the woods (we don’t know why) and he sees her with Luke. After that he stalks them secretly. He’s nice as pie to Sharon at home. Too nice. Our sympathies tend to make us wish Sharon would leave him for Luke.

  Another body is found in the woods. The police hunt intensifies. The audience’s suspicions fall on John.

  John follows Sharon into the woods for an assignation with Luke. He watches them make love and then argue. Luke wants her to run away with him, but she’s torn apart by loyalty to John and the kids. We see John peering at her from a bush, he steps on a twig and the sound scares them. Sharon sends Luke away, says she’ll follow when the coast’s clear. She sits alone, worrying. Suddenly someone jumps her from behind, there’s a struggle and a knife flashes. Then someone else joins the fray, we see that it’s John, wrestling with Luke to make him drop the knife. Finally he succeeds and punches Luke. He lies on the ground unconscious.

  John speaks into a mobile phone, and hugs the weeping Sharon as police with dogs arrive and take Luke away. They thank John for his assistance. John takes Sharon home, and we know they’ll be happy together after all.

  Sally was pleased with Jill’s work and sounded very confident about it. Jill tried to put it out of her mind over the weekend, although she was haunted by the fear of actually being commissioned to write it.

  *

  Neil arrived to pick Sam up on Saturday morning in ebullient mood. He informed them that they were looking at the new Labour candidate for Birmingham South East, and offered to take them both out for a slap-up breakfast. They went to Banner’s, a favourite haunt of Jill’s and Neil’s: a relaxed café-bar which served great food accompanied by world music. Sam was sniffy about it, dismissing it as seriously uncool and full of old hippies, but he was outnumbered and silenced with a plate of pancakes.

  Halfway through the meal Neil said casually, “Sam. You know I’ll have to spend a lot of time in Birmingham in the runup to the election, whenever it happens.”

  “Yeah?” answered Sam suspiciously.

  “There’ll be an awful lot of campaigning work.”

  “Don’t tell me. You’ll be too busy to see me every fortnight.” Sam looked sullen.

  “I wanted to ask you a huge favour.”

  “What?”

  “I wondered if you’d be my youth advisor. Join the committee. Come to Birmingham with me every weekend.”

  Sam’s eyes popped. Jill was just as surprised but bit her tongue. Eventually Sam said casually, “Yeah, okay.”

  Neil grinned. “That’s brilliant. Thanks. It’ll help me no end.”

  “S’alright” said Sam, finishing his pancakes. He sat up, suddenly interested in the conversation. “That’s the trouble with politicians today,” he announced. “They don’t know what’s going down on the street. They don’t know shit about real life.”

  Jill and Neil exchanged a wordless glance which confirmed a depth of shared understanding.

  Sam turned to his mother. “Will you be alright on your own, mum?”

  “I’ll cope,” she smiled.

  “You can always get Gran to come and keep you company.”

  “Thanks, Sam!”

  *

  Sally’s call came a week later. Jill picked up and greeted Sally in trepidation.

  “Jill, darling,” Sally began. “I’m terribly sorry, but David Jason passed on it after all.” Jill collapsed in relief. “He liked it ever so much, but he’s booked solid for the next three years.”

  “What a shame,” Jill murmured. “Never mind.”

  “I’ve got another idea, though,” said Sally, to Jill’s alarm. “There’s a rumour going round that Ross Kemp’s leaving EastEnders. It would be a super role for him, don’t you think?”

  Jill didn’t see why not. She felt a little faint, and let Sally rabbit on while she wondered how to get out of it.

  “… I can’t decide whether it would be better for Ross to be a goody or a baddy. What do you think? He’d be jolly good as either. I suppose if he’s the murderer it’s a bit close to Grant Mitchell. Maybe we should keep it as it is for now. What about Anita Dobson, though? Two actors off EastEnders would look a bit odd, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, it might,” agreed Jill, wondering if there was a limit to Sally’s obsession with famous faces. A sudden light-headedness made her reckless, “What about Dawn French?”

  “Hmm,” replied Sally, seriously. “I’ll have to think about that one, Jill.”

  Jill felt it was time she took control.

  “Actually, Sally,” she said firmly.
“I’m not sure about the whole project. I’m afraid I’ve rather lost my enthusiasm for it.” To her surprise, Sally didn’t seem to mind too much.

  “Really? Oh. Well that’s understandable. Without David it’s sort of lost its heart, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Jill, grinding her teeth.

  “Okay darling. To be honest I was sort of losing faith myself, but I didn’t want to let you down.”

  “That’s very sweet of you.”

  “Well, look. Do stay in touch, and bring me any ideas at all. I’m sure we can get something off the ground if we keep trying!”

  Jill said she would, although she knew perfectly well that she wouldn’t, even if Sally was the last producer left in London. She hung up, and went into the kitchen for a cathartic Lion Bar.

  She doubted whether she would ever approach the BBC directly again. She had found the whole experience traumatic, and was left with the feeling that getting a show on there was harder than pulling out your own teeth with a pair of nail clippers, and less entertaining. Instead, she would focus her efforts elsewhere.

  She returned to her computer and continued with an idea she was writing up for The Bill; her agent had set her up with a meeting and it seemed positive so far. She also had some thoughts on a returning series set in a secondary school, which she planned to develop and take along to Anthea Onojaife, Carmen’s producer, at Sisters in Synch.

  An hour later Sam came home, and offered to make her a cup of tea. Delighted by this novelty, she rewarded him with her company while he watched television. Leafing through the Radio Times she noticed The Soap Ashes, and a wave of self-reproach washed through her yet again for her loss of royalties. She contemplated her nice but inexperienced young agent Paul and compared him to Billy Trowell’s guardian dragon. Muriel would never have let her sell all her rights for a hundred pounds. Her thoughts drifted to the Bus Stops Here proposal she’d reworked for him recently, at least he had paid her well for that. Or… had he? Was he up to something? An intangible sense of dread began to develop in her belly. Could she have been finessed a second time? She racked her memory to find out just how significant her contribution to the show had been, and remembered Nik’s conversation with Geordie Boy on the roof garden. Poor lad, she sighed. At least I didn’t get shafted as comprehensively as you did.