New confirmatory thoughts kept sparking in Charles’ mind. At last he was really on to something. He would have to go and talk to Miffy Turtle.
The read-through in the RNVR Drill Hall was the first time that Charles had met the director of The New Barber and Pole Show, Wayland Ogilvie. Walter Proud had spoken much of the young man, commending his own original thinking in bringing an established drama director into the less gracious arena of Light Entertainment, and Lennie Barber had mentioned meeting the director over a preliminary script conference. But none of this had prepared Charles for the parrot-faced aesthete with gold wire-rimmed glasses and quilted Chinese jacket to whom Walter Proud introduced him. ‘Looking forward to a long and happy association,’ said the producer jovially.
‘Hope so.’ Charles smiled a stupid smile.
Wayland Ogilvie looked at him intensely for a moment. Then he spoke. ‘Scorpio. I’m quite compatible with Scorpios.’
Charles’ reactions were twofold. First, he thought astrology was an affectation. And second, he was impressed in spite of himself that the director had got his sign right.
Also present at the read-through were Lennie Barber, the two writers Paul Royce and Steve Clinton, a few hardened comedy support actors who had been cast in some of the sketches, Wayland Ogilvie’s PA (a dauntingly attractive girl called Theresa), a Trainee PA, a Stage Manager, an Assistant Stage Manager and a Chief Petty Officer in full uniform. This last turned out to be an official of the RNVR, who gave a short talk on things that could not be done in the Drill Hall. After his departure, the Stage Manager was berated for having allowed him to appear in the first place.
They all sat round a Formica-topped table at one end of the hall. The rest of the space was marked out with lines of different-coloured tapes and upright posts on wooden stands. These were the entrances and the whole surrealist forest represented the set (later in the day to be explained by the designer, who appeared in a beige corduroy boiler-suit).
Walter Proud welcomed everyone, saying how marvellous they all were and how very big the show was going to be and how he, as producer, would be keeping a very low profile and putting everything in the capable hands of Wayland Ogilvie and, once again, how, with a combination of the best artistes and the best writers in the profession, the show could not fail to be very big.
During this speech Charles observed Lennie Barber. The old comedian’s face bore a smile of unambiguous cynicism. How many times must he have heard similar pep-talks, before how many shows which had vanished without a trace? He no longer had any expectations of anything; he knew too much about the injustice and fickleness of the entertainment business to believe in any other power than that of luck.
He would work himself to death to make the show work, so long as no one asked him to believe in it. Even Charles, who was hardly a Little Noddy in his world-view, found something shocking in the depth of the man’s cynicism.
Walter Proud, discreetly wishing to maintain a good producer/director relationship, suggested diffidently to Wayland Ogilvie that they should have a straight read-through on the clock to get some idea of how the show ran, unless of course Wayland wanted to approach it a different way. No, Wayland said, he was happy to do it that way, though on the first day of rehearsal he tended to try to picture the overall impact of the programme than get too involved in the script.
So they started. Charles still had a blind spot about television comedy material; he couldn’t tell what was funny and what wasn’t and, having seen the miracles Lennie Barber had wrought with very indifferent lines in the barbershop sketch, he felt even less qualified to judge. However, Steve Clinton laughed raucously at every joke and there seemed to be sycophantic titters from the production crew from time to time, so maybe this was funny too.
The trouble was that Charles didn’t have Lennie Barber’s performance and reactions to help in his response. It soon became apparent that the comedian could not read. Not that he was illiterate, but that he couldn’t sight-read and give a performance at the same time. Charles hadn’t met enough comedians to know how common a failing this is. Performers used to working seasoned material or adding new jokes and ad libs in the skirmishing of night club work are very rarely dependent on scripts and can be seriously thrown by trying to give life to words on the printed page.
Charles’ first reaction was one of fear, that Barber was not going to improve and that this stumbling, ill-timed performance would be the one presented to the studio audience. He rationalized that fear away. Obviously, once he had learned the script, the comedian would start to build his performance, start to characterize and time the lines. But Barber’s inept read-through, particularly when all of the minor comedy supports were giving extravagantly self-indulgent (but funny) cameos, seemed to get the project off to a bad start.
It was also apparent as they read that the star didn’t like a lot of the script. He kept stopping on jokes, shaking his head and looking up to Walter Proud as if to start discussion, but on each occasion the producer gestured that the read-through should continue and points be raised later. Charles had got the impression that there had already been meetings between Proud, Barber and the writers when rewrites had been demanded, and the whole show (or certainly the bits that Barber appeared in — he showed no interest in the rest) looked like being rewritten a good bit more before the recording day arrived.
They reached the end of the script and Lennie Barber, in spite of his mood, sang through a verse and chorus of the closing song, the signature tune of the old Barber and Pole Show, Who Cares About Tomorrow When Tonight Is Now?
Walter Proud leaned across to look over the PA Theresa’s shoulder at her stopwatch. ‘Just about right for time too. Lovely read. Thank you all — sorry, Wayland, I should let you speak first.’
‘No. don’t worry. I’m just kind of trying to visualize the overall shape of the conception.’
‘Thank you, Wayland. No, I’d really like to say I think we’re really on to something very, very big.’
‘Not without some changes we’re not,’ stated Lennie Barber baldly.
‘What do you mean, Lennie?’ asked Walter heartily, as if he could will away the dissonant voice. But he had started to sweat. The moment when a star says he’s unhappy with the script is the one that every producer fears, breeder of many coronaries.
‘I mean, Walter, that a lot of this stuff is just wrong. There are things in here that I can’t do. For example, that sketch where I go into the chemist and ask for a take-away poltergeist — ’
‘That’s a bloody good sketch,’ objected Paul Royce.
‘That I don’t know. It may be good, it may be bad; all I know is that it’s wrong for me. I can’t play that sort of material.’
‘Oh, come on, Lennie,’ Walter cajoled. ‘You don’t know until you’ve tried.’
‘I know.’
Paul Royce looked petulant. ‘I thought the idea of this show was to try out something new, to bring you up to date.’
‘Try out something new, yes. But I’m still Lennie Barber. It’s got to be new material but new Lennie Barber material. I haven’t spent a lifetime building up my own comic identity to have it thrown over like this. Listen, that sketch might go all right in Monty Python or whatever it’s called — ’
‘Oh, so you don’t think Monty Python’s funny?’ asked Paul Royce, leading Barber into a pit of impossibly reactionary depths.
‘That’s not the issue. I think they do that sort of stuff very well. And I damned well know that I’d do it very badly. I’ve got to work to my strengths, not show myself up by trying to do things other people do a lot better.’