by Elton, Ben
There, it was said. The silent fear that all very famous people share.
‘It could happen.’
‘And don’t think it doesn’t occur to me. Particularly in America. Over sixty million votes were cast for the last winner over there. Even presuming each caller phoned ten times, that’s still six million people who give a very large fuck about a bloke who I have dissed utterly. Sometimes I wonder if among all those millions of psycho fans there won’t be one of them who thinks it’s time that nasty old Calvin faced his own judgement day . . .’
‘Or one of the contestants themselves.’
‘Yes. Absolutely. But what can you do? I’m still more likely to get randomly mugged in Knightsbridge or knocked over by a car or catch bird flu or contract a superbug while having my ingrown toenails done. Life’s too short, say I. Besides I don’t like the idea of allowing myself to be intimidated. Fuck ’em.’
‘Tough guy, huh?’
‘Oh yes, I hope so. Very tough. Here we are . . .’ A frozen image of Shaiana appeared on the screen. ‘This is her bit with Keely.’
Calvin pressed Play on the screen and Keely leaped into life with her usual energy.
‘And this is Shaiana!!’ Keely shouted. ‘She is one hot babe. Yay! Are you ready to rock, babes?’
‘Yes, Keely, I am ready to rock,’ Shaiana replied, steadily and clearly, as if testifying to a faith. ‘This is my one time. This is my one moment.’
‘Yay!’ shouted Keely. ‘You grab it, girl! You own it.’
‘I’m going to grab it, Keely. I’m going to own it. I’m going to eat it.’
Emma leaned forward and pressed the space bar, thus pausing the recording.
‘Eat it?’ she said. ‘Eat it? Never heard that one before. They’re all going to own it but they don’t usually want to eat it. That’s scary.’
‘Why?’ Calvin replied. ‘So she wants to eat it, sounds fair enough to me.’
Calvin pressed Play. Keely spoke again.
‘And you’ve come here on your own, babes,’ she said. ‘What’s that about? Focus? No distractions? Or is it that your family and mates aren’t down with what you’re about and just don’t get you?’
Emma smiled. Keely was good. Much underestimated in fact. People tended to think of her as just a chirpy lovely who gave good sympathy and knew how to squeal with delight, but actually she was so much better than that.
‘I remember noting the family thing down myself,’ Emma said, having once more pressed Pause. ‘How Shaiana seems to be very alone. But I remember Chelsie saying she wasn’t going to push it. Amazing how Keely’s picked up on it anyway.’
‘Yes. We love Keely,’ Calvin agreed, ‘although I think you could do her job even better. You’re prettier too.’
Emma blushed and pressed Play once more.
‘Yeah, Keely,’ said Shaiana, ‘that’s right. They’re not down with me at all. They don’t really understand what I want. What I need. What I can do. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. To show them. To make them understand. Them and everybody else who’s ever laughed at me.’
After a little further small talk Shaiana was ushered through the door. There was a tape stop and then once more she appeared, this time in the audition room facing the judges. The sequence had not yet been edited and all that could be seen was the single mid-close-up shot of Shaiana. However, the voices of the judges could easily be heard off camera.
‘Hello, hello. Who are you?’ Beryl could be heard saying.
‘I’m Shaiana, Beryl, and I’m here to rock your world.’
‘Right on! You go, girl. You look gorgeous.’
‘Thank you, Beryl,’ Shaiana replied.
‘She doesn’t,’ Calvin interjected. ‘I’ve never seen so much make-up, like a mask. Some of these girls are their own worst enemies.’
‘Shhh,’ Emma said.
‘I’m really nervous,’ Shaiana was saying.
‘Don’t be, babes,’ Beryl cooed. ‘We’re all friends here and you look hot.’
‘Before we start, Shaiana,’ Calvin chipped in, ‘tell us a little about how much you want this.’
‘Calvin, I want it so much.’
‘They all want it, Shaiana. How much is so much?’
‘Well,’ Shaiana replied, having paused for a moment’s thought, ‘I think I’d be prepared to die for it, Calvin. I really do. I think that if I could do a deal with God so that all my dreams came true and everybody believed in me as me and didn’t laugh at me any more and they all said, “Yes, Shaiana, you do have talent, your own talent, and you can sing,” then I wouldn’t mind if I died straight after.’
‘Wow,’ said Calvin and even though he was off camera anyone listening who had seen Chart Throb even once would know that he was nodding in his amusingly bemused way, astounded at the intensity of the people who seemed so randomly to appear before him. ‘You really do want it, don’t you?’
‘Like I said, Calvin. I want it so much I could die.’
Emma pressed Pause.
‘Or kill. That’s the flip side of her coin. She scares me.’
‘Oh, come on, Emma. The only person this woman is ever going to damage is herself. She’s a grade A, twenty-four-carat victim. Anyone can see that.’
‘Yes, well, worms do turn and who knows, one day when she’s thinking about how much she’d like to die because she never got to prove anything to anyone, she may suddenly think, hang on, why should it be me that has to die? How about that bastard who chucked me off Chart Throb?’
Calvin laughed. ‘Are you in league with this woman, Emma? What are you trying to persuade me to do, make her win? I thought you wanted the Prince of Wales to win?’
Emma shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what would be best to do with her. Chuck her off, keep her on, either way the die’s cast. You’re stuck with her.’
The suite was lit only by a crimson-draped standard lamp that stood in a far corner, shedding a subdued light which before had seemed romantic but which had suddenly become rather gloomy.
Emma pressed Play once more.
‘All right, Shaiana,’ Calvin’s voice could be heard saying, ‘what would you like to sing for us?’
‘I’d like to sing “The Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler,’ Shaiana replied.
Now Rodney’s voice could be heard intruding for the first time.
‘Good choice. That is a great song and Bette is a fine artist. Well done, that is a very good song to choose.’
Then Shaiana took a deep breath and began her song. Had the judges been looking for pain and emotion alone she would assuredly already have won. Shaiana made Bloke’s tear-drenched, face-crunched, fist-punching rendition of ‘Stand By Me’ look perfunctory and dismissive. This was a woman who clearly believed that every single syllable of a lyric was a fresh opportunity to revisit a lifetime of pain and rejection. Her small breasts heaved, her knuckles turned white, her chin lifted ever higher as if (following Chelsie’s advice) she wanted to make absolutely sure that God was listening. Shaiana was clearly a woman who saw her voice as a sledgehammer whose job it was to deliver the notes blow by blow until the audience had been bludgeoned into submission. Like so many contestants before her, she had watched great singers and listened to them and had drawn the conclusion that the key lay in trying to emulate everything about her heroes all at once and at all times throughout the entire song.
She was, however, in tune.
When it was over, once more Emma pressed Pause.
‘She really isn’t too bad, is she? With a bit of help to calm down, she could certainly carry a song.’
‘Ah but so many people can,’ said Calvin. ‘And besides, as you know, it’s—’
‘Not about the singing,’ Emma completed his sentence. ‘Yes, I know, and one of the best things about not working for you any more is not having to listen to you say that every five minutes of the day.’
‘Well, I’m right, aren’t I?’ said Calvin. ‘Anyway, have you had enough or do
you want to hear what we said?’
‘I want to hear. I hope you didn’t lay it on too thick.’
‘No, actually we didn’t,’ Calvin replied. ‘She’s a Challenge and Chuck, remember.’
Challenge and Chuck was the process, much favoured on Chart Throb, of suggesting to a contestant that they must go away and work harder and attempt to grow and when the contestant returned (claiming to have worked so hard and grown) informing them that they had failed to do so and chucking them out.
‘What will you do,’ Emma enquired, ‘if ever anyone asks you what you actually mean when you tell them to go away and work hard and learn and grow?’
‘Edit it out,’ Calvin replied, pressing Play once more.
‘Shaiana,’ Calvin’s voice could be heard off screen, ‘you confuse me.’
There was a pause while the camera crept in slowly towards Shaiana’s quivering, heavily caked face.
‘You have a voice,’ Calvin said, finally. ‘It’s not a terrible voice. I doubt it’s a very good one either but it isn’t terrible. The question is can it improve?’
Shaiana leaped at the bait like a starving fish.
‘Yes. Yes it can, Calvin. It can. You see I want this so much, I’ll do anything, I’ll work, I’ll work so hard. I’ll learn and I’ll grow . . .’
‘You really do want this, don’t you, darling?’ Beryl could be heard croaking in her little girl voice.
‘Yes! Yes, Beryl, I really, really do want it.’
‘I can see that it’s your dream, isn’t it, darling?’
‘Yes! Yes, it is!’
‘Well, it’s a good thing to have a dream. But for dreams to come true you have to really, really want them to. You have to believe so very much.’
‘I do, Beryl! I do! I swear I do! My dream is all I have.’
‘I know, darling, I know,’ Beryl said with the voice of a nurse comforting a terminally ill patient.
‘All right,’ Calvin could be heard saying in his businesslike voice. ‘Here’s what I think. You go away now, Shaiana, and you work, right? You work hard, you learn and you grow . . .’
‘And believe in your dream,’ Beryl could be heard interrupting.
‘And you come back and see us and we’ll see how you’ve got on, OK? Because right now you don’t have it, OK? That’s clear, but you might have it and whether you can find it is up to you. On that basis I’ll put you through. Beryl?’
‘If Shaiana can believe in herself and in her dream . . .’
‘I can. I can. I can,’ Shaiana pleaded.
‘Then yes. I say yes, darling. For your dream. I’ll put you through.’
‘In that case,’ Calvin could be heard saying, ‘you’re through to the next—’
Suddenly Rodney’s voice could be heard. ‘Yes, and me too, Shaiana. My vote is yes too.’
‘Oh yeah. Sorry, Rodney,’ Calvin said. ‘What was your vote?’
‘I say yes,’ Rodney said.
‘You’re through,’ said Calvin.
Shaiana wept. She leaped up and down. She mentioned God. She fell to her knees.
‘Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!’ she screamed. ‘I won’t let you down, I promise. Yay! Yes! Yes! YAY! THANK YOU! I love you, Calvin! I love you, Beryl! I love you, Rodney! Yay! Thank you! I’m going to rock your world!’
‘Come on, darling.’ Beryl could be heard just before she walked into shot. ‘Lots of work for you to do.’
A shaking and almost hysterically happy Shaiana was then led from the room and into the arms of Keely, who was waiting to join in the tear-filled catharsis of celebration.
Emma pressed Pause.
‘If she’s that crazy when you challenge her, how crazy will she be when you chuck her?’
‘Very. They all are. What makes her so different?’
‘I’m telling you, Calvin,’ Emma said, looking very serious, ‘she is different, that one, there’s a different level of intensity. I’ve seen it before in real victims. People who have been damaged. They’re not right and their weakness makes them strong, in a vicious, hysterical kind of way. You know, like jilted wives who cut up their husband’s suits then set fire to the family home.’
‘Good, good, good. That’s what we want. Bunny-boilers.’
‘As long as it isn’t your bunny she boils.’
‘Emma, I’ve told you. I have a very, very firm rule, and that is not to be scared of contestants. Ever. That way leads to madness. My job is to pursue the passion in people. To massage their dreams and expose their needs. If I allow myself to be intimidated by those passions or needs then I’ll no longer be able to pursue them. Shaiana does not scare me.’
The Cute Kid
For the first three days of the following week the judges repeated the process that they had gone through in Birmingham in London, Manchester and Glasgow. All in all, they sat in ‘judgement’ to a greater or lesser degree on around three hundred people, an exhausting series of In and Outs punctuated by specials and of course the designated finalists.
There was the by now obligatory amusing four-year-old who was allowed to ‘audition’ despite the minimum legal age for entry being sixteen. At the story meeting it had been planned that this year Calvin would at first refuse to see the lad on the grounds that it was pointless but under heavy mumsy pressure from Beryl he would reluctantly agree.
‘And rock ’n’ roll supermum Beryl is not going to let young Lance have his heart broken by big bad Calvin,’ Keely would say.
And so, even though he was ineligible for consideration the cute little poppet in an England shirt and with an adorable Scouse accent ended up filling nearly three minutes of screen time in the final edit.
‘Lance, you’re so scrummy I want to eat you,’ Beryl said in her gooiest manner.
‘You may want to eat him but we can’t put him through,’ Calvin gently reminded her in his firm but amused voice.
‘Why? He’s so-o-o cute. I’m a mum and I love him, all mums will love him. Why not give him a chance?’
‘Because it’s illegal, Beryl.’
‘I don’t play by the rules, I’m a rock chick from way back, don’t forget. Don’t talk to me about rules. I’m a mum and mums have to break rules just to get through. I’ve had it hard, these have not been easy years, I know all about breakin’ rules.’
‘Beryl, he can’t enter the competition.’
And so the comical banter went on until the last treacly drop had been milked from the original concept and the boy finally went on his way.
Afterwards, when the ‘eavesdropping’ moment had been shot . . .
‘I can’t believe you wanted to put that kid through, Beryl.’
‘But he was so cute.’
Rodney experienced a rare moment of doubt.
‘Do you truly believe that people won’t realize we set that up?’
‘Obviously, Rodney, or I wouldn’t have shot it,’ Calvin replied tartly.
‘But we’ve spent over fifteen minutes on him! On our one day in Manchester. Surely somebody’s going to do the maths!’
‘Nobody ever does the maths, Rodney.’
Pop School
Eventually the series of regional heats came to a close and it was time for the Chart Throb team to sift and edit all the material that they had collected and prepare for Pop School.
Pop School was the part of the process where those selected at the initial auditions attended an intensive residential training course where they were supposedly given lessons in the art of being a pop star by the three highly experienced judges. It was at this point that the judges were supposed to assume a more supportive and educative role in the development of the fledgling talents that they had chosen. The idea was that, having unearthed the raw material, they would now use their enormous music industry expertise to mould pop stars from it.
A number of factors stood in the way of their achieving this or, indeed, of Pop School being in any sense an educational process. The first factor among these was that,
with the possible exception of Calvin, none of the judges was remotely qualified to train anyone in any aspect of the performing arts except, by example, that of naked self-advertisement.
Another factor which would have prevented the judges from developing and moulding any talent even if they had had the skills to do so was that they were not actually there during the developing and moulding (such as it was). Although the Pop School process lasted three days, the judges attended only the last of these, the one on which the ‘judging’ took place.
Shaiana, like all the other contestants, had gone home after her first audition, having been told to prepare a new song to present at Pop School. She was informed that she would then be given some training and advice on how to sing her chosen song before being required to deliver it in a ‘live concert’ setting, meaning that she would be singing on an actual stage instead of in a hotel conference room. The stage in question was meant to represent a tough club and therefore provide the contestants with an introduction to the hard but essential business of ‘paying your dues’, ‘working the clubs’, ‘getting your act together and taking it out on the road’.
‘This,’ as Keely would announce breathlessly at the beginning of the Pop School edition of the show, ‘is where it gets real. This is where the going gets tough and the tough had better get going because today our gang of wannabe stars will get their first taste of the “road”, as Calvin, Beryl and Rodney put them through their paces to see if they can handle the rough, tough side of rock ’n’ roll that every star must learn to conquer on their way to the top.’
The rough, tough ‘club’ in question was the spanking new, pale pine, two-hundred-seat auditorium of a large private school that had been rented for the purpose. Originally the Chart Throb art department had hoped to dress the stage and front stalls in a club-like manner. They had brought large quantities of black paint, some threadbare glittery drapes, various old rock posters and great crates of empty bottles pinched from a recycling bin. They also hoped to remove the front three rows of seats since brand new, luxuriously padded seats with comfy armrests did not look very rock ’n’ roll. Sadly for the art department, however, the school administrator had firmly ruled out any adornment to the stage or auditorium since term was about to begin again and the Lower School were to start rehearsal for their production of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and they could not countenance any disruption.