I back away, disentangling myself from the woman’s cigarette fumes and her earnest stare.
My interview with Karen is almost identical, except Karen is as fat as Jenny is skinny. Her arms wobble when she raises a glass of beer to her mouth. Her life has been one of steaming hot chips wrapped in newspaper and pastry cakes with custard. She’s wearing a flowered tent. I pull Fi to one side.
‘Fi, has she had her clothing allowance?’ I ask horrified. There are some shows that encourage their guests to wear bright outfits, so that they look like fat sugared almonds. This isn’t supposed to be one of those.
‘Ya, but we couldn’t find anything in Harvey Nics to fit her,’ Fi whispers back.
‘Well, what about a high-street store?’
‘We couldn’t find a researcher who was prepared to go and find out.’
I sigh and resign myself to the tent. I wonder how the colours will work against the backdrop of the set.
Karen, the ‘other woman’, explains that she thinks she has as much right to Brian as Jenny has.
‘After all, I was with him first.’ But people aren’t like pieces of furniture or clothes; ‘I saw him first’ isn’t exactly a reason to lay claim to someone. I remind Karen that Brian must love Jenny, or else he wouldn’t have proposed. Karen corrects me and points out that it was Jenny who proposed and in fact she bought her own ring too. She admits that she is still sleeping with Brian. She shakes her tits at the camera: ‘He likes something to get hold of.’ I leave the room.
‘That is so depressing,’ comments Fi.
‘What is?’ I ask.
‘The way both of those women want the same man and by this time next week one of them will have been rejected. Don’t you think that’s awful?’
‘I think that’s the point of the show. Now, here’s the rest of the schedule. I want you to take a cameraman and stay with Jenny. Get lots of shots of her trying her wedding dress on, interviews with her mum, something to depict their financial struggle to put on the best wedding reception they can afford and a shot of her on her own, preferably in a church.’
‘So you are expecting Brian to choose Karen, then?’ asks Fi.
‘Not so much actively choose, more like his dick will jump out of his trousers through habit. Now, I need the logistics crew to work out where the camera should be for the grand seduction. Karen is planning to seduce him over a pint and some pork scratchings in their local.’
‘Very glamorous,’ says Fi wryly.
‘She’s not a glamorous girl. And he’s not a glamorous boy. It should be on their usual turf – we don’t want to arouse suspicions. Besides which, our budget is a pittance. Now go to it.’
Next I interview Tim Barrett. I think that Tim has a good career ahead of him as a criminal. Not because he appears particularly vicious, immoral or crooked but because he would be impossible to identify in a line-up. He is neither extraordinarily skinny nor obscenely fat. He is, in fact, of average build, average height, average looks and average intelligence. His hair is mid-brown; his eyes are a brown/grey/green colour. I forget which. After close investigation I discover that the only thing that distinguishes him at all is his fanatical, obsessive jealousy in relation to his fiancée, Linda. He runs through his suspicions regarding three of her exes. I don’t think his suspicions are founded. But that’s irrelevant. As he tells the stories he fidgets on his chair, moving from one buttock to the other. His hands appear to have developed an independent personality. They are animated. He picks up his coffee cup, puts it down again, he picks up a pen, pencil, ashtray, clipboard, biscuit. Everything, other than the biscuit, is put into his mouth. After he has spent fifteen minutes boring me with his paranoia and insecurity I think that this girl deserves a fling. If we do manage to cause a rift between them we will be providing a public service. I instruct a private detective to track down some of her exes immediately.
My next interview is with a petite brunette, Chloe. Chloe is an advertising executive in a small advertising agency in Bristol. She is more like the type of guest that I crave for the show. She is certainly attractive, with shoulder-length, curly hair, a winning smile and a neat, sharp body, which she is obviously and justifiably proud of. She’s aged twenty-five. She’s bright, funny.
And insecure.
I imagine that generally she hides it quite well. I imagine that her acquaintances and colleagues describe her as confident. But behind her back her friends discuss her ugly neediness. After chatting to her for four and a half minutes it is obvious to anyone who has ever read any popular psychology books (and I’ve read them all) that she is a woman who loves too much. She believes she is half a person unless she has a boyfriend. The men she meets believe she is an entire person, until they become her boyfriends. On sensing her dependency, their cocks go limp and they leave her. However, as I listen to her chat, it seems to me that her fiancé. Rod, breaks the mould. He actually likes her dependency; it makes him feel valued. But her historical, consistent failure has eroded her trust and faith in the concept of fidelity. Instead of being grateful to have found Rod and keeping her head down, Chloe is hitting the self-destruct button by testing him.
On national TV.
As the interview comes to a close and I have all the details I need regarding Rod’s exes, I ask Chloe why she feels compelled to verify his fidelity on TV. She must know that she is risking personal humiliation and universal disdain.
She shrugs and with a bravado which we both know to be fake replies, ‘I think if you are going to be a failure, you should try to be as conspicuous as you can about it. Who wants to be a run-of-the-mill failure?’
I love this wisdom. You’ve got to hand it to the British public. There’s an Aristotle in every one of them.
The queue for the live audience is massive – it stretches the entire length of the car park,’ laughs Fi excitedly. This is a good sign. The PR vehicle must have done its job.
‘What do they look like?’ I ask. The correct live audience is essential. There are lots of things that the majority of us will do in our homes that we wouldn’t do in public. Things like: cheer at other people’s insecurities, rejection and fear, encourage savagery and disloyalty, positively celebrate humiliation and distress. I need people who are either honest or stupid enough to have these reactions on live TV.
‘Generally poor and unhealthy-looking. But they appear oblivious to their aesthetic drawbacks – they’re oozing excitement,’ says Fi.
This is exactly what I want to hear. An anonymous voice cries, ‘Spot checking, ladies and gents.’ Nobody has a clue what that means, if anything at all, but it has the desired effect and the audience squirm with nervous expectancy. I don’t blame them. It is exhilarating. We put on a bit of a show to get them in the mood. The runner’s bleep pings incessantly; she ignores the increasingly desperate calls. The director (long-haired and self-important by necessity), production manager (a grumpy git – it’s a professional qualification) and the stage manager (careworn and exhausted) huddle in a corner debating furiously about some technical point or other. The production executive is running around the set as though her life depends upon it. A plethora of cameramen – dressed entirely in black, baggy combat trousers and Ted Baker shirts, Cats or DKNY trainers – are standing around, trying to look casually indifferent, as though their lives and souls depend upon it. The set, although flimsy, is attractive. The backdrop is a close-up picture of dozens of fat red hearts. At first glance the impression is romantic; a dip in the lights and the effect is satanic, open-heart surgery on stage. There are the compulsory comfy couches in the middle of the stage, ensuring everyone gets the best view of the gallows.