‘And dub the laughs on afterwards?’ asked Bob Tomlinson.
‘Yes,’ replied the producer with distaste.
‘Good,’ said Bob Tomlinson.
‘Okay, sure it won’t happen, but thought you’d like to know. Oh, one other thing about the studio. We’re not in Studio A this week, we’re in B.’
‘The small one?’ asked George Birkitt, affronted.
‘Smaller,’ conceded the producer.
‘Why?’
‘Well, Wragg and Bowen are in the big studio.’
‘Why?’
‘It is a big prestige show.’
‘And what about us? Aren’t we a big prestige show?’
‘Of course, of course. But not quite as big a prestige show as Wragg and Bowen.’
‘Just because of the bloody money they’re being paid. .’ George Birkitt muttered darkly.
‘You finished?’ asked Bob Tomlinson, with his customary lack of grace.
‘More or less,’ said Peter Lipscombe.
‘Right, let’s get this rubbish read. You ready on the watch, girl?’
Jay Lewis was ready for the read-through, but George Birkitt wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry, before we start, there are a few things in this script we’ve got to change.’
‘Why?’ asked Bob Tomlinson belligerently.
‘Because they’re just wrong. I mean I’ve spent seven episodes of this series — not to mention all the What’ll the Neighbours before it — building up Colonel Strutter into a recognisable, rounded comic character, and now I’m handed a script in which not only does he have considerably less lines than in previous episodes, but the ones he does have are unfunny and out of character.’
‘Oh, but we’ve worked so hard to maintain the character,’ wailed Sam Tennison, dressed today in a Mister Men T-shirt and strawberry coloured jeans. ‘Haven’t we, darling?’
‘Yes, indeed, darling,’ concurred Willy Tennison, also dressed today in a Mister Men T-shirt and strawberry coloured jeans.
‘Then obviously you just haven’t worked hard enough,’ said George Birkitt. ‘I mean, I know Colonel Strutter, and these lines aren’t Colonel Strutter. I can’t learn lines that are out of character.’
‘You can’t learn lines that are in character,’ was the thought that went through every mind in the room. But nobody said it.
‘I mean, for a start, since when has Colonel Strutter called Mrs Strutter ‘darling’?’
‘Oh, but all married couples call each other “darling”. Don’t they, darling?’
‘They certainly do, darling.’
‘Not Colonel Strutter. He wouldn’t go in for that sort of sentimental nonsense. He never calls his wife anything.’
‘But he has to call her something,’ complained Sam Tennison.
‘Well, he doesn’t.’
‘But everyone calls everyone something. Don’t they, darling?’
‘They most certainly do, darling.’
‘Anyway, that’s only a detail,’ George Birkitt steamrollered on. ‘The plot is full of silly things too, which are just out of keeping with the rest of the series that we’ve already made. I mean, that business at the end with the samurai sword. Have you ever met a Japanese with a samurai sword?’ He turned to the Japanese actor who was playing the Strutters new neighbour. ‘I mean, have you got any samurai swords?’
‘Yes, many,’ replied the Japanese with a polite smile.
‘Well, that’s neither here nor there. As a pay-off for an episode of The Strutters it’s just hopelessly out of keeping.’
‘Oh no,’ murmured Mort Verdon, who was sitting by Charles. ‘Don’t cut the samurai sword. I spent most of last week finding somewhere that would hire the thing to us. They’re about as easy to come by as a banana in a convent.’
‘Now come on,’ Peter Lipscombe was saying bonhomously. ‘I’m sure everything’s really okay with this script. Just change the odd word here and there and. .’
Charles relaxed. Barton Rivers had delivered Aurelia to the rehearsal and then driven away. If anything was going to happen, it wouldn’t be yet a while.
Idly he wondered what form the next attack would take. Shooting? Stabbing? Bombing?
He also wondered idly who would be its target.
But the week passed very quietly at the Paddington Jewish Boys’ Club. Those whose work took them into W.E.T. House, like Mort Verdon, came back speaking of strikes and rumours of strikes, but the atmosphere in the rehearsal room remained peaceful. All of the Strutters team had benefited from the few days’ rest and seemed relaxed. George Birkitt, whose objections to the script had really only been a way of asserting himself, was content with a few minor word-changes. The offending ‘darlings’ were excised, which made the script a revolutionary new departure in the literary careers of Willy and Sam Tennison, and George became quite mellow. He didn’t really mind about having less lines than usual; if the truth were told, he was quite relieved — there was now a chance he might be able to learn them. But the tantrum had been necessary to him. As he said to Charles, ‘Well, you know I’m the last person on earth to throw a scene, but occasionally one does have to put one’s foot down and remind them who one is, or they trample all over you. . er, one.’
He had also been persuaded that the pay-off should be left unaltered.
This was not because he thought it was right, but to avoid trouble; he had finally accepted it with a don’t-say-I-didn’t-warn-you shrug. After all, if the whole show was likely to be dubbed, it didn’t really matter whether the jokes were funny or not. The viewing audience would laugh with recorded hilarity just as much as they would with the sounds of a so-called live audience.
Because, as the week progressed, there seemed less and less chance of the show’s being recorded on the normal schedule. The security men’s go-slow was unlikely to be resolved; the worry was how many more unions were likely to join them. The threat of the strike that Charles had jokingly predicted, of ITV staff for greater disparity of pay from BBC staff, loomed larger.
As a result of this, the rehearsal room saw more of Peter Lipscombe than it had since Bob Tomlinson took over as Director. The Producer appeared almost every day, bringing news of fresh possibilities and contingency plans. Nothing dented his Little Noddy image, though. Everything was still going to be okay, they were still working on the most exciting series to have hit television since Logie Baird’s early experiments. Maybe the pitch of these assertions rose to a more hysterical level as the week went on, but nothing stopped them pouring out.
And everything seemed to be normal with Dame Aurelia Howarth and her husband. The senile homicide delivered his wife to the rehearsal room in the Bentley and picked her up at the end of the day’s work. On no occasion did he come inside the building.
The only significant moment came when Aurelia, who always did the correct thing, asked Bob Tomlinson, ‘Darling, if this beastly go-slow happens and we have to rehearse/record the show through the day, do you mind if Barton sits in and watches? He does so enjoy coming to the recordings.’
‘No, that’s all right, love,’ said the director, who, in spite of his resistance to show-biz schmaltz, had, over the weeks, like everyone else, developed a soft spot for Dob Howarth.
She turned to Charles, who was standing nearby, and gave him the exclusive benefit of her smile. ‘How are things?’ she asked lightly.
‘Getting somewhere,’ he said confidently, the intimacy between knight errant and damsel in distress re-established.
Aurelia looked up with sudden understanding. Once again he felt sure that she suspected Barton too.
And he also felt sure that, if the old lunatic was going to strike again, he would do so on the studio day.
Just as he was about to leave Hereford Road for rehearsal the day before the recording, Charles received a package through the letter-box. It was in a padded brown envelope and for a moment he couldn’t imagine what it might be. Then the Kew postmark and the feel of the contents told him it must be his rare copy of R. Q. Wilberforce’s Death Takes A Short Cut.