‘Well, all of it: the placement, being a runner… the competition.’ He turned to wink at me.
‘Fine.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s kind of what I expected, I guess.’
‘You’ve worked in TV before?’ asked Rhidian.
‘I did a bit of work experience down in Bristol,’ I said. ‘How about you?’
‘No. It’s all new to me.’
‘So why do you want to work in TV anyway?’ I asked. ‘I picture you more in a career like…’
‘Like?’ he asked.
‘Like you’d be the guy who models slippers in one of those free magazines you get tucked inside the Daily Mail at the weekend. Velour old man slippers for £9.99.’
‘Do I take that as a compliment?’ Rhidian laughed.
‘If you like. But seriously though, why TV?’
‘Lots of reasons, I guess.’ Rhidian shrugged.
‘Like?’
‘Well, if you must know,’ Rhidian looked pensive for a moment, ‘one of the reasons is because of my grandma.’
‘Your grandma?’
‘My mum was very ill for a long time and died when I was sixteen, so my gran was a big part of my life growing up.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Thanks. Anyway, my gran developed Alzheimer’s when I was at uni. It was really quick, her memory went, just like that.’ Rhidian clicked his fingers. ‘We had to move her into a home and after six months she barely knew my dad and me.’
‘That must have been tough.’
This was really not where I’d expected this conversation to go, and my attention was held rapt by this unexpected new side to Rhidian.
‘It was strange though,’ he went on, ‘the one thing she kept a memory of was her TV shows. She loved Dad’s Army and these other old shows. What was the one about the two dressmakers in the twenties?’
‘House of Elliot. My gran loved that one too.’
‘That’s it, she loved that. Anyway, her care home were really good at putting on the old programmes that they remembered, and I would sit with her while she watched them. You know it was the only time she would remember my name.’ Rhidian went quiet for a moment. ‘She’d say “Rhidian, I like this episode, do you remember? Oh, we do like Captain Mainwaring, don’t we?” and it was like, for half an hour, she was her old self again. It sounds silly, but it was as though the TV was my last link to that part of her brain that knew me and knew we used to watch these shows together.’
‘Wow, that’s amazing…’ I said, feeling a tear welling in my eye. ‘So you wanted to work in TV to be close to your granny?’
‘No, I wanted to work in TV because there are loads of fit girls and you get to travel the world.’ Rhidian laughed. ‘I just told you the granny story to make you think I was a nice guy.’
‘What?’ I said, punching him on the arm a bit too hard. ‘You made all that up?’
‘Ow!’ Rhidian laughed again. ‘No, I didn’t make it up.’ He paused. ‘That’s all true about my gran. But it’s just not necessarily the reason I want to work in TV.’
‘You are unbelievable!’ I said.
‘Though I guess visiting her care home did make me see how important TV can be to some people. It makes a lot of people happy, keeps them connected with the world.’
‘So all of the above, but mainly the fit girls and the travelling?’ I surmised.
‘Something like that,’ Rhidian said, grinning at me.
He was infuriating. I’d been practically on the verge of tears about his grandmother, and now I wasn’t even sure how much of it was true.
We arrived at the Travelodge and Rhidian helped me get my bag out of the car.
‘So you’ve got a few hours before they start shooting the first episode,’ Rhidian explained. ‘Shannon said you should help out in the gallery later, getting the execs coffee. That sound okay?’
‘Great, sure.’
‘There are production cars going from here back to site all the time, so when you’ve had a chance to unpack, just head back that way.’
‘What are you doing tonight then?’ I asked.
‘Oh, they’ve got me lugging cabers around for one of the games. Anyway, listen, Poppy.’ Rhidian reached out and touched my arm as he got back into the driver’s seat. ‘Will you let me know as soon as you are feeling better about the whole car incident? I’m dying to take the piss out of you for nearly killing Valerie Decouz.’
STEP 13 – IF NOTHING ELSE, AT LEAST GET PEOPLE’S COFFEE RIGHT
TO:
FROM:
SUBJECT: Runner Driving Policy
Dear all,
After a recent incident, it will now become company policy that no talent should be driven by anyone on production below the age of twenty-five. For A-list talent, Production should ensure they hire a qualified chauffeur or use Bell Cars, with whom we have an account.
If anyone has any questions about the new policy, please get in touch with me directly.
On another note, if there is an incident where talent become displeased or upset, please ensure you make someone up the chain aware of it, so that the first I hear about it is not through our lawyers…
Thank you,
Jack Chamberlain
CEO
RealiTV
Because a real workforce makes real TV!
I DECIDED THERE was no point in berating myself over ‘cargate’; it was done now. I headed over to the gallery truck with a renewed sense of purpose. Inside the truck was a huge wall of TV screens showing a clear view of each games arena. Shannon Long was seated next to the gallery director behind a huge control panel. A row of empty seats lined the back of the gallery, ready for executive producers and the channel commissioner to watch the live action from.
I slipped quietly into the back, fearful of interrupting. After a few minutes, Shannon noticed my presence.
‘Ah, Poppy,’ Shannon said. She still had the look of someone who thought the apocalypse was impending. ‘I’m sorry you had to deal with all that drama with Valerie. It was my fault; we shouldn’t have asked you to drive all that way if you weren’t confident. It’s one of those crisis situations where the wrong decisions get made.’
This was not what I’d expected her to say at all.
‘Oh no, it’s okay. I’m so sorry I made a mess of it, Shannon.’
‘No, seriously, you’re all right. I can’t believe the old bitch called her lawyers on us though.’
‘Is it going to cause a lot of trouble?’
‘No, she’s a renowned shit-stirrer, plus this is the biggest presenting gig she’s had in about a decade, so she doesn’t want to piss us off too much.’
I couldn’t believe Shannon Long was being so nice to me. I’d been steeling myself for a bollocking, practising my ‘not crying’ face.
‘So are you okay to help out in here tonight? Just get everyone coffees and scripts. We’ve got a couple of producers coming up from RealiTV, so there’ll be a few people to look after. This is Nigel, by the way.’ Shannon introduced the gallery director.
‘Hi.’ Nigel waved.
‘Can I get you guys some coffees then?’ I asked.
‘Black, one sugar please,’ said Nigel.
‘A chai latte for me. Thanks, Poppy,’ Shannon said with a thin smile.
I skipped off to the catering van feeling incredibly relieved. If scary Shannon wasn’t furious, then it must all be fine.
Tonight’s show saw the first heat of a series-long competition. Scottish families would be pitted against each other in various gladiatorial heats, with the winning clan crowned Last Clan Standing. It was like an outdoor version of Gladiators, but with a lot more sporrans. Tonight was the MacLeods versus the Campbells.
As I queued for coffee at the catering truck, one of the assistant producers was freaking out to a producer.
‘They won’t do it, trust me, Leon!’ wailed the AP, a pale spotty boy with a ponytail who looked about my age.
I’d seen Leon around RealiTV. He wore square dark-rimmed glasses and had short black hair set in place against his scalp with some kind of pomade. Today he was wearing skinny black jeans and a lumberjack shirt done up to the top button. It looked slightly too tight around the neck, like he might be about to explode out of it.
‘They say it’s un-Scottish to wear underwear,’ cried the AP, gesticulating wildly. ‘Honestly, they’re not budging!’
‘Okay, well ask Wardrobe if they can whip up some tartan shorts or something. This is an A-grade balls-up, Alan.’
I sidled up to the front of the coffee queue, trying not to get in their way.
‘Um, a black coffee and a chai latte, please,’ I asked.
The big, burly Scottish man running the van glared at me with thunderous eyes.
‘Ye want a chai latte? Whaur dae ye think ye ur, lass? Whit is it wi’ ye sassenach an’ yer ponce coffee orders, fur feck’s sake.’
‘Um, a plain latte then, perhaps?’ I tried.
The man shouted at me again, a tirade of unintelligible Scottish.
‘Sorry?’
‘Tea ur coffee. Black ur white. Sugar ur nae sugar. Those ur yer choices,’ he stated clearly, hand on hip.
‘Okay, two black coffees then. Thanks.’
I trotted back to the gallery, worried I’d failed in the first rule of being a runner: get people the right coffee.
‘Shannon, I’m so sorry, they, um, they didn’t have any chai,’ I explained, ‘so I got you a black coffee instead, is that okay?’
‘You met Reg then?’ Shannon said with a smirk, taking the two coffees from me and turning back to the TV screens.
Oh great, so she did that on purpose. Maybe she was cross about ‘car-gate’…
The show rehearsals had started and I could see the presenters, Valerie Decouz and Hamish Robertson, running their lines on the central screen. A few people began trickling into the gallery, one of whom was JR. He swaggered in, laughing at a text on his phone.
‘Ah, Dangermouse,’ he said as he saw me.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Surely your more adventurous alter ego, Penfold?’
‘Well, at least you’re not calling me Pam any more.’
‘Touché,’ he laughed.
‘So how come you’re up here? Are you producing this too?’ I asked.
‘This show was my idea, Penfold. Didn’t want to produce it myself, nightmare to make, just here to check Shannon’s not screwing up my format.’
‘I heard that, JR,’ said Shannon without turning around.
JR walked past me and sat down next to her.
‘Can I get you a coffee, James?’ I asked.
He turned to look at me again.
‘Shannon, I hope you’re not wasting Penfold here on coffee-making. She’s very well-informed, you know; she has an extensive knowledge of politics in the Middle East.’
I blushed. Shannon didn’t look up from her script.
‘A skinny latte please, Penfold,’ JR said, smiling at me.
‘Oh, ha ha, I’ve already fallen for that one,’ I said.
‘What?’
I looked at JR, then Shannon. This was obviously some kind of joke they play on all the new runners.
‘You know, where you give me a super-ponce coffee order and I look like an idiot in front of the Scottish van man.’
JR looked at me blankly. ‘Super-ponce coffee order, is it? Well, you’ve certainly put me in my place!’
Oh dear, maybe I’d read this wrong.
‘Oh no, no, it wasn’t ponce really.’ I blushed. ‘It’s just the van man says he just does black or white, sugar or nae sugar. There aren’t a lot of options, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, whatever you can muster up.’ JR looked at me strangely, our banterous little repartee well and truly over.
STEP 14 – ANYTHING THAT CAN GO WRONG, WILL GO WRONG (ESPECIALLY IF THERE IS A CAMERA POINTED AT IT)
FROM: RHIDIAN
TO: POPPY
This is a work in progress… just so we don’t lose track… ;)
RHIDIAN POPPY
Winning JRs quiz + 1 Losing JR’s quiz (pretty horrifically) -1
Getting to Scotland without killing anyone +1 Almost killing Valerie Decouz -1
THE SHOW WAS a disaster. Two of the MacLeod clan were injured in an overly vicious caber toss and Shannon went crazy about the new tartan shorts in the high-wire game.
‘WARDROBE! WHICH IMBECILE PUT THE CLANS IN THOSE RIDICULOUS OUTFITS!’ Shannon screamed down the radio waves to the production team on headsets. Leon’s voice piped up: ‘They wouldn’t wear underwear with their kilts, Shannon, it was our only option!’
‘They look like… God, I don’t know what they look like; a cross between Groundskeeper Willy and some kind of special needs golf outing,’ Shannon wailed.
Valerie also kept reading her lines at the speed of an elderly caterpillar, and no amount of cajoling would convince her to speak faster. The biggest crisis came in the gallery when the Channel Commissioner for Nations and Regions piped up halfway through the recording to say he had concerns that the whole show felt ‘just the wrong side of racist’.
‘Racist?’ said JR, turning on the channel commissioner.
‘Well, not racist exactly,’ the commissioner backtracked, physically cowering beneath JR’s gaze. ‘It just feels quite stereotype-heavy, doesn’t it? It’s a cumulative concern. Things like “The Jock Jockey Game” – I’m just not sure they sit right with me.’
‘Well, you could have mentioned that a few months ago,’ said JR angrily. ‘That game’s been in the format since day one. DAY ONE.’
‘Well, I didn’t think it was a problem until I saw it happening, James. I’m just not sure how our Scottish viewers are going to respond to the look and feel of this.’
Crisis meetings were held and I was sent to fetch Reg from the catering van so an unbiased Scot could weigh in on whether the show was coming across as racist. Reg didn’t really help matters, as no one could understand a word he was saying. The commissioner, Shannon and JR eventually agreed on a compromise, and the next round was delayed until all the signs could be changed from ‘The Jock Jockey Game’ to ‘Riding Highlands Style’ (deemed by the commissioner to be less controversial).
I hovered at the back of the gallery, watching this drama unfold. JR was phenomenal in the way he took control of the situation. The commissioner was about to call his boss at ITV for a second opinion on the racist question, when JR said, ‘We don’t have time for more opinions; we’ve got a show to make.’ I watched it all, quietly in awe.
When the show finally wrapped and the clans had been sent home, the production team and crew all congregated for a drink in the makeshift green room set up in one of the tents on site. I found myself chatting to Alan the AP.
‘I didn’t think the shorts looked that bad, did you?’ he asked me.
‘No, I thought it was the best you could do, in the circumstances,’ I tried to reassure him.
‘I mean “special needs golfers” was a bit harsh, wasn’t it?’ Alan looked crestfallen.
I could see Rhidian at the other side of the green room, surrounded by a gaggle of girls, and caught his eye. He smiled at me, then excused himself from the group and started walking towards Alan and me.
‘So are you ready yet?’ Rhidian asked me.
‘For what?’ I asked.
‘For me to take the piss out of you for nearly killing Valerie Decouz.’
‘You’d have done the production a favour if you had,’ Alan said bleakly.
‘I did not “nearly kill her”,’ I protested. ‘I just braked sharply.’
‘Oh! Is that what the email from Jack Chamberlain was about?’ Alan asked gleefully, glad he was not the only one to have
screwed up today.
‘Thanks, Rhidian! Tell everyone, why don’t you?’
‘Sorry.’
There was an awkward pause, so I decided to change the subject.
‘Did you guys hear JR in the gallery?’
‘Yes,’ said Alan, ‘what a prick.’
‘Really? I thought he was amazing,’ I said. ‘He really told that commissioner what’s what.’
‘I don’t know, Poppy, I think he took over Shannon’s show rather,’ said Rhidian.
‘Yeah, you don’t do that,’ said Alan. ‘He totally undermined her as a producer.’
‘No, honestly, you should have been there, he was just so brilliant with the commissioner,’ I said. ‘He was all, “I’m telling you it’s not racist and that’s the end of it”.’
‘Who are you, founder of the James Ravenstone fan club or something?’ chuckled Rhidian.
‘No, it was just really impressive to see him work. From where I was standing, he was awesome.’
‘Awesome’s a bit much,’ Rhidian laughed.
‘Well, that’s my opinion,’ I said defensively. ‘All the make-up girls think you’re “yummy enough to eat”, and that’s their opinion. We’re all entitled to our opinions, aren’t we?’
There was another awkward silence. Alan and Rhidian took long sips of their drinks. I hadn’t meant to sound so spiky, but I was embarrassed that they thought I was gushing about JR, as though I had some sort of schoolgirl crush on him when, really, I was just impressed with his skills as a producer.
‘Of course you’re entitled to your opinions, Poppy.’ Rhidian gave a wounded little smile, and excused himself to go and help behind the bar.
I now felt a bit bad saying that thing about the make-up girls.
‘So did JR mention anything to you about the tartan shorts?’ Alan asked.
STEP 15 – NEVER WORK WITH ANIMALS OR CHILDREN
THE NEXT DAY, Rhidian had gone, driving south in the Mercedes with the very-minor-hardly-noticeable-at-all scratch on the right wing mirror. I spent the day helping the Art Department put finishing touches to one of the games for that afternoon’s show. The game was called ‘Kilty Pleasures’ and involved giant cardboard cut-outs of men wearing tablecloth-sized kilts. The contestants had to feel beneath the kilts and try to guess what objects were hidden behind them.
How to Get Ahead in Television Page 6