by Elton, Ben
On hearing this, Calvin had thrown a hissy fit and announced that he would simply buy the fucking school but he was informed that it was not for sale.
Shaiana arrived on the morning of the first day with a song in her heart and ‘loose dance clothes’ in her overnight bag, ready to give her all to the Pop School process. There were about seventy other contestants involved and they had all been billeted in a nearby Travelodge. Shaiana was to share a room with a pretty, delicate-looking girl called Cindy, who, like Shaiana, wanted it so much.
Having checked into their accommodation, the crowd of hopefuls were all bussed up to the school and assembled in the gym for their ‘training’ to begin. This process was in many ways very similar to their initial selection day in Birmingham, in that it consisted of a great deal of hanging around punctuated by a series of heavily staged ‘spontaneous moments’.
Shaiana and Cindy sat cross-legged on the floor in their tracky pants and tops while at the piano the middle-aged man who looked like the Prince of Wales was filmed being ‘schooled’ in the vocal arts. This consisted of a deliberately eccentric-looking fellow in plus fours and with long dyed hair running through a piano scale which the Prince then attempted to sing.
‘That was rubbish,’ shouted the long-haired man.
‘I know, I know,’ the Prince lamented. ‘I’m making an absolute pig’s ear of it, aren’t I?’
‘Do it again!’ the eccentric pop coach shouted.
‘Righty-ho.’
The Prince was about to do it again when Chelsie intervened to explain that this would not be necessary as they already had their shot.
His Royal Highness sat down and busied himself with some state papers. The camera angle was changed and Chelsie instructed the girl with the blind lad to lead him towards the piano. After they had arrived at the piano, Chelsie called cut.
‘Thank you, Millicent. Thank you, Graham. That’s all we need for now.’
‘Don’t you want us to sing?’ Millicent enquired.
‘Plenty of time for that, darling,’ Chelsie replied. ‘Just wanted a walking shot for now.’
Shaiana herself was then summoned to the piano and His Royal Highness was asked to take her place in the group of bodies who were populating the back of the shot. ‘And can you all please try and look interested,’ Chelsie shouted. ‘Haven’t you seen the show? This is intensive training, you’re all being put through your paces, those of you sitting about must focus on whoever it is that we are filming. Pretend you’re in Fame or A Chorus Line, for God’s sake. Right now you look like you’re in The Night of the Living Dead.’
Shaiana was placed in a position near the piano and asked to sing something.
‘Sing what?’ she asked.
‘Doesn’t matter, love,’ Chelsie snapped. ‘It’s a mute shot, we’ll be dropping it in in slow motion when you tell Keely how hard you’ve worked.’
‘But what about the pianist, surely he needs to be playing the same song?’
‘I’ve just told you, darling, it’s a mute shot. Besides which he’s in deep soft focus. As long as his fucking arms are moving we’re happy. Now sing!’
Shaiana began to sing as the cameras prowled about her.
‘Look more soulful, Shaiana,’ Chelsie called out. ‘Clench your fists, look like you’re in pain . . . Good. Got that. Cut.’
Next The Four-Z were filmed privately rehearsing and then allowing themselves a mutually supportive group hug.
‘Can you do some high fives with each other?’ Chelsie called out from behind the camera. ‘That’s a black thing, isn’t it?’
The Four-Z agreed that it was indeed a black thing and hugged and high-fived as hard as they could.
‘Now how about a prayer?’ called Chelsie. ‘Could you stand in a circle and bow your heads in silent prayer for me?’
Again The Four-Z obliged.
‘Finally turn to the camera and tell us that it’s hard work but you’re working hard and learning and growing and that you want to make the judges proud.’
Michael, the leader of The Four-Z, stepped forward.
‘This is hard work but we are working hard and we know that we will learn and grow and hopefully make the judges proud.’
And so the long day wore on.
Groups of contestants were brought forward and taught a rudimentary dance step, not so that they could learn it but so that they could be filmed learning it.
‘Where does it go from here?’ one of the girls enquired after mastering the three steps and a clap that they had been taught.
‘It doesn’t,’ the choreographer explained. ‘That’s all we need.’
During the ‘dance class’ Shaiana noticed that one by one contestants were being taken off to be filmed sitting in the stairwell. First the blokes from Bloke, then a middle-aged man who had introduced himself as Stanley and then a middle-aged blonde woman with enormous false tits.
‘What’s going on in the stairwell?’ Shaiana asked one of the blokes from Bloke during a short coffee break.
‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘We just had to sit there and look tense and thoughtful.’
‘Tense and thoughtful?’
‘That’s what they said.’
The Quasar was standing nearby and joined the conversation.
‘I reckon you is well in, geeza,’ he said. ‘You is goin’ all the way, man.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Ain’t you seen the show?’ the Quasar asked, sounding most surprised. ‘They was filming your moment of doubt, guy! Like when you has crept away from the madness and is wondering if you is ever gonna be a star. They always has shots like that but I don’t fink I ever saw no moment of doubt for anyone who wasn’t in the final.’
‘You really think so?’ the bloke from Bloke enquired hopefully.
‘That’s for sure, geeza. I’m tellin’ you that if they was to shoot me looking all moody and sad in the stairwell I would be well chuffed, cos it means that they is going to feature you.’
‘But they didn’t shoot you like that.’
‘No, man, but I ain’t worried because they knows that the Quasar does not do self-doubt.’
Sure enough, straight after the coffee break the Quasar was called forward for his own personal ‘moment’. This consisted of his breakdancing in front of a group of other contestants who were all required to clap and look delighted to be a part of things.
For two days the contestants were marshalled between dance moments and piano moments. Occasionally some vague effort was made to suggest a genuine interest in their work but mainly it was to gather more shots of the process.
Cindy, Shaiana’s new friend, was filmed massaging her feet as if having danced herself to exhaustion. Iona was filmed on her mobile phone, supposedly speaking to her ex-bandmates.
‘Yeah, I’m at Pop School,’ she said, as instructed. ‘I’m going back to basics, relearning my craft. Sure it’s hard but if I’m serious about a solo career it’s what I have to do.’
‘Tell them you miss them,’ Chelsie prompted.
‘Oh, I miss you guys so much,’ Iona dutifully parroted. ‘Have a wee dram of whisky for me.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Chelsie, well satisfied.
‘I’m a little worried that we could see that the phone wasn’t on,’ the cameraman interjected. ‘Iona had the display turned towards us.’
‘Nah. It’ll never read,’ Chelsie replied, anxious to get on with the day. ‘All right,’ she called out, ‘I need Troy.’
Troy was given a copy of Harry Potter.
‘I can’t read it,’ he replied. ‘Not all the words anyway.’
‘We know,’ said Chelsie. ‘What I want you to do is find a word you don’t know and go and ask that posh bloke if he can tell you what it means.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m asking you to, Troy, that’s why, and because Calvin asked me to ask you. Don’t you want to make Calvin happy?’
The boy most certainly did want to make
Calvin happy; that was the sole ambition of pretty much everybody in the room. Troy therefore dutifully walked over to the posh bloke.
‘Excuse me,’ he said.
‘Hello, young man,’ the Prince of Wales replied. ‘How are you? Are you well? What have you got there? Harry Potter? How marvellous. I do think they’re good, don’t you?’
‘Can you tell me what this word means?’
The Prince took out his reading glasses and studied the book.
‘Hmm. Ahh. Well, do you know I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘Quidditch. Hmm, actually I rather think that might be a made-up word. It’s a game in the stories, isn’t it? It sounds rather like Latin but I don’t think it is.’
The youth shrugged and, having nothing more to say, wandered off.
‘Cut,’ said Chelsie. ‘Lovely.’
‘Eh? What?’ said the Prince.
‘That’s fine, sir,’ Chelsie shouted. ‘Everything’s fine.’
And the Prince returned to his study of the latest estimate of declining fish stocks in the North Sea.
Towards the end of the second day, Calvin finally put in an appearance but only to film a little special of his own.
‘OK, people,’ he shouted to the assembled contestants, who had been draped artfully about the school gym as if interrupted amid strenuous rehearsals. Some sat on the floor in tracky pants and vests, towels draped round their shoulders, some stood round the piano, others clung to the climbing bars attached to the wall and performed what they imagined to be stretching exercises. ‘You’ve all worked damned hard,’ Calvin continued, ‘and tomorrow we find out what you’ve learned and whether you can cut it in a live rock ’n’ roll gig. The drinks are on me!’
Everybody cheered and cheered.
When it was over the cameraman confessed that he was not happy. He had intended to sweep across the delighted, grateful faces before spinning round to take in Calvin’s indulgent fatherly grin, but he had tripped on a cable and there had been a nasty bump in the shot.
‘Can we do it again?’
‘I suppose we’ll have to,’ Calvin said with impatient ill grace. And they did.
‘The drinks are on me!’ Calvin shouted for a second time.
And once more they cheered and cheered.
Pop School: Cindy and Shaiana
Rodney and Beryl arrived the following morning. Beryl, grumpy and hungover, had been awarded yet another Mum of the Year title, this time at the UK Retail Traders’ Federation ‘Inspiration’ Awards Gala. Rodney, on the other hand, was fresh and rested after a week at a celebrity golf tournament in County Sligo as the special guest of the Western Irish Plumbers’ Guild.
When Calvin joined them, all three judges swept into the school theatre and the Pop School stage of the audition process began.
The first half of the morning was given over to further hoovering up of the In and Outs where once more, as in Birmingham, half the contestants were destined to be rejected while the other half would be thrillingly ‘put through’. These fortunate ones would proceed to the next round, All Back to My Place, before the chosen few went on to the actual finals.
Shaiana and Cindy sat waiting for their turn in yet another holding area, watching as in quick succession one hopeful after another was collected from the little group around them, only to be returned shortly afterwards either tear-stained and distraught or leaping about with hysterical joy.
Keely’s reaction was pretty much the same either way.
‘Babes!’ she said. ‘Babes, babes, babes.’
Finally Cindy got her turn.
‘You rock, girlfriend,’ Shaiana said to her as the slight, pretty girl bade her farewell, although clearly Shaiana’s mind was elsewhere.
Cindy approached Keely expecting to be ushered perfunctorily into the auditorium just as the twenty or so previous auditionees had been, but in fact Keely held her back, seeming inclined to chat.
‘You OK, babes?’ Keely said, her voice full of concern. ‘Cos I know you’re like really, really, really delicate and sensitive and you’re so lovely.’
‘Uhm, yeah, I’m OK, Keely,’ Cindy replied, slightly taken aback. ‘Bit nervous, of course.’
‘BABES!’ Keely almost wailed. ‘Babes, babes, babes! I know. Of COURSE you’re nervous. It’s really, really tough. Just you do your best, girl.’
Cindy did not know it but against her name in the day’s production schedule had been written the words ‘Weepy-looking Clinger. Looks delicate. Reject and MTT.’ MTT was Chart Throb code for Milk The Tears.
As Cindy disappeared into the wings she could hear Keely addressing the camera behind her.
‘Bless!’ said Keely. ‘Oh bless!’
‘Hello, Cindy!’ called Beryl as Cindy walked on to the stage. ‘Welcome to Pop School. This is where it gets tough, you know. Are you ready for that?’
‘Yes. Yes I am, Beryl,’ Cindy assured her in a clear, confident voice.
And indeed she was, she was at least as psychologically and emotionally prepared for pop stardom as most of the other contenders present that day. She wanted it desperately, would do anything for it and, what’s more, she could sing better than most of them too. But that didn’t matter: what mattered was that she looked delicate and vulnerable, so that was what she was going to be.
‘You look so fragile, darling,’ said Beryl. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? It’s a tough, tough game you’re getting into.’
‘Yes, I definitely want to do it, Beryl. I’m tough.’
‘I’m sure you are, dear,’ said Beryl, as if addressing a little girl who had announced that she wanted to be as brave as her daddy, ‘but I’m not sure you’re tough enough.’
‘What are you going to sing for us, Cindy?’ Calvin asked.
Cindy announced that she would like to sing ‘Eternal Flame’ by The Bangles.
‘Good choice,’ Rodney remarked, putting on his intelligent face. ‘That is a great song to choose.’
‘Off you go then,’ said Calvin.
‘And don’t you be nervous or scared,’ Beryl added in her most cloying baby voice.
When Cindy had sung her song, Beryl asked her once more if she thought she was tough enough for the big bad world of pop. Cindy assured her that she was but Beryl replied that as a rock chick from way back and as a mother, she wasn’t at all sure. Calvin and Rodney went further. They conceded that Cindy was pretty and had sung well, but they just did not believe she had the hunger, the guts, the toughness to ‘cut it live’. The fact that ‘cutting it live’ in their world normally consisted of miming to backing tracks while surrounded by trained dancers did not concern them. The fact that they had never met Cindy and couldn’t possibly know anything about her personality did not worry them either. They were adamant in their ‘expert’ opinion that Cindy was not tough enough to cut it live, and every time she assured them that she was, they said that in their opinion she wasn’t, until eventually, after fully six minutes of taunting, Cindy finally burst into tears and Beryl was able to rush over and hug her out of the room.
‘Fuck,’ said Calvin as she left the stage, ‘I didn’t think that girl was ever going to cry. Maybe we should get the Clinger MTTs to chop a few onions before they come on.’
Beryl handed Cindy over to Keely, who hugged her also, and Shaiana, who was waiting to be summoned next, would have liked to hug Cindy too. She was sorry that Cindy had been rejected – it would have been fun to stay on the journey with her – but there was no time for regrets or sentiment now. No time, indeed, for anything but herself because this was her moment and she wanted it so much.
‘This is my one moment in time,’ she told Keely when Cindy had finally been ushered from the scene. ‘I want this so much.’
It was now that Shaiana shed the famous once and future tear. The tear which, unlike her actual performance, was destined to be such a special feature of the Pop School edition of the show.
‘You go, girl,’ Keely said and Shaiana went.
‘Hello again, Sh
aiana,’ yelped Beryl from behind the wall of water bottles that stood on the white-cloth-covered trestle table.
‘Hello, Shaiana,’ said soft-spoken Rodney to her left, staring at her unblinkingly. Rodney believed he had nice eyes. He felt that they projected empathy.
Calvin, on Beryl’s right, said nothing, preferring to stare down at his note pad and play with his pen.
‘Have you been working hard?’ Beryl enquired.
‘Oh Beryl, I have been working so hard.’
‘You really want this, don’t you, babes?’
‘Oh Beryl, I want it so much.’
‘Then you go, girl,’ said Beryl.
‘I just want to say before I start that I’ve really tried to think about all the things Calvin said because this is my dream and I’m going to rock your arse, Calvin!’
Calvin smiled, a smile which seemed to say that his arse was ready and willing to be rocked but that nonetheless it was not an easy arse to rock. Particularly if the person attempting to rock it was a no-talent saddo.
‘Yay! Big it up, babes!’ Beryl yelped in that curious hybrid dialect which is Californian white brat meets US urban black all wrapped up in a hint of Swindon. ‘You go, girlfriend!’
‘I’m going to, Beryl, because I believe God put everybody on earth for a reason and the reason he put me here was—’
‘Shaiana,’ Calvin interrupted, looking up for the first time since she had entered the room, ‘just sing your song.’
‘I just want you all to know that I’ve worked so—’
‘They’ve all worked hard, Shaiana. Sing your song.’
For a moment it looked as if Shaiana would start to cry again.
The camera operators who stood to her right and left edged a step closer, like fielders at a sticky wicket in anticipation of a slow bowl. Outside in the car park the director and vision mixer, hunched inside their mobile control box, stopped their conversation and the script girl made ready to note down the time code.