All to Play For (24 page)

Back in my office I already knew who I would take it to: Basil Richardson. He was everyone’s favourite, the producers’ producer. He was so well-respected that he existed on a level above the politics of ego which many of us were mired in. His judgement was universally admired, his good taste undisputed. That’s why I wanted him to oversee my project: for his wisdom and sound advice. His endorsement would also be the quickest way to getting the scripts commissioned. If he liked it, it must be good. It would also boost my own self-confidence no end. I waited anxiously for Jill’s treatment to arrive, and was relieved when it came, as promised.

Lover Boy

Proposal for a three-part drama serial for television

by Jill Watkins

From an idea by Rhiannon Jones

3 x 60 minutes

SHARON is an English teacher in a comprehensive. She’s in her mid thirties, married to JOHN who is in charge of advertising on the local paper, and they have a two-year-old baby, CHLOE. They are contented rather than happy. They live in Epping. Nothing extraordinary has ever happened to them, their problems are everyday ones.

LUKE is just sixteen, about to sit his GCSEs. He loves art and making things, he wants to study ceramics. His parents are in their early forties. His father is a manager at Ford and his mother works in a chemist’s shop. He has a sister RACHEL two years younger. His school record is good and his future seems bright.

Sharon teaches Luke. She notices that he is maturing more rapidly than the other boys; he is big-boned, smooth-skinned, tall and attractive without being conventionally handsome. His long hair is always tied in a ponytail, his brown eyes have grown decidedly sexy, and his gentle manner and slow smile are enchanting. He has a poise and inner confidence which is rare in sixteen-year-olds. She finds she is developing a crush on him, and is horrified.

Luke has always counted Sharon (Mrs Morrison) his favourite teacher, because of her sparkling eyes and sense of humour. He is now much taller than her, which he finds slightly embarrassing, but enjoyable. He loves her long curly brown hair, and the way she dresses. She’s very special, he feels he knows her, and he knows he wants her. Girls his own age don’t interest him, they’re immature and superficial. He’d rather go out with Mrs Morrison. In fact he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

Lover Boy
is the story of their relationship; how they start seeing each other, how they declare their love, how they cope with universal dismay, how they break up and break down, how they finally commit to each other and start a new life together.

Above all it is the story of a great love.

I was delighted with it. And before you ask, no – I never had feelings for any of my pupils (apart from wanting to strangle a couple of them). It’s fiction, right? I made it up. And back then it was original, no-one had broken these taboos on telly before. Now there are none left to break. The biggest problem storyliners have is finding new versions of the same old tales, they’ve all been done so many times. The viewing public is practically unshockable now. The most horrific news items are casually reported in the middle of the day, and dramatists can’t compete with that. It’s difficult to believe that back then, only fifteen years ago this idea about a teacher and pupil falling in love was quite radical. Hopefully it would ruffle a few feathers.

I made an appointment to see Basil about the proposal, and managed to meet him without the Proulx boy getting in the way. His new office was in the furthest of the four office blocks, which now housed the Drama Department. It had previously contained the Youth Department, under which regime it had been refurbished in grey steel and tinted glass – no doubt a very costly process, which hadn’t improved the building in the slightest, but the Youth people evidently couldn’t make fashionable television unless they were in fashionable accommodation. The renovations were barely complete when the entire department was relocated to Manchester for political reasons, and the block had been empty ever since. Now it was home to Basil and the drama folk, who took an instant dislike to it on finding that nothing could be stuck on the walls. (It’s impossible to make drama without sticking notes, lists, charts and pictures on walls.)

Basil was his usual charming self, despite his office being strewn with boxes. A brand new computer sat in the corner, unconnected. I wondered whether Basil knew how to use it. There was a rumour that he was once found with a video tape, trying to turn it over and play the other side. We younger ones found our elders’ technical incompetence hilarious. I suppose it’ll happen to us one day, and it’ll serve us all right. He could afford to be casual about such details; his latest BAFTA stared blankly down from a filing cabinet, a Best Drama award for his serial about unemployed miners by Tony Scott,
Down and Up
. I knew Tony had been a first-time writer, after being a miner for a decade or more. It was Basil’s quiet influence that had brought his writing to such a high standard, and Basil who had realised such an honest and cathartic production.

I waited expectantly for his pronouncements on Jill’s proposal, while he skim-read it again and collected his thoughts. Then he looked at me over his specs.

“An intriguing choice of subject,” he said. “Do you think the world’s ready for it?”

“I think so, yes,” I replied without drawing breath. “Why not?”

He smiled. “I think so too. Depending on how we handle it.” My heart beat fast at this hint. “I want to know more. I do have some reservations.” I nodded furiously and waited for pearls to fall from his lips, ready to catch and save them on strings. “I like the simplicity of it,” he continued. “But I wonder what the tone will be, given it’s about a controversial relationship. I wonder whether it might be very romantic, or have an edge to it. I’m not sure there’s enough going on to sustain three hours of drama. Tell me how you see it.”

He’d put his finger on the missing element, I saw that immediately. “What I want to do is make it utterly truthful and involving. It should be romantic but not sentimental – it should tear Sharon apart. It would be really awful breaking up her family, but she has to do it – and the audience must be with her every step of the way, regardless of their moral opinions. She breaks three taboos, but I want the audience to feel that in spite of everything, this relationship is so strong that the tragedy would be to deny it.”

“Like
Doctor Zhivago
.”

“In a way, yes!” I was thrilled by the analogy. “I want it to be funny here and there, and happy as well as sad. There should be a sense of triumph at the end, rather than escape – there are no baddies and goodies, it’s about fully rounded people. The point is that you have to engage with life and live it, not settle for half a life because convention dictates. That’s a message she wants to pass on to her little girl, even though she has to leave her behind.”

“Not easy,” commented Basil. “Not many people would agree with that.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’m not sure I agree with her myself, but I respect her decision. It has to be challenging, otherwise it’s just another soppy love story. It’s a fine balance, we’ll have to get it right.”

“What about Sharon’s husband?”

“He’s pretty appalled of course, and cut to the quick, but their love isn’t that strong otherwise she wouldn’t have found her true partner elsewhere. He comes round, up to a point – he’ll find a better partner too, in time. But he does feel very betrayed because he’s a decent bloke and he’s never let Sharon down. He’s a good father too, and he’s damned if he’s going to let her take Chloe away from him.”

“Hmm, it’s very linear, isn’t it?”

I sighed, realising how right he was. “We could use flashbacks? Or make things more complex – what if Luke’s connected to Sharon and John in another way – maybe Chloe’s actually fifteen, and he’s going out with her – then he falls in love with her mother?”

“
Romeo and Juliet’s Mother
!”

“Yes, well, maybe not. Shall I take it back to Jill and see what she can come up with?”

“Yes, do that. The other issue is the shape of it: it seems that three-parters are going out of style with the controllers, especially if we want to get this on BBC1. It’ll have to be twice ninety minutes instead.”

“No problem,” I assured him. “We just structure it with one cliff-hanger instead of two. Can we commission Jill at this stage?” I mentioned this with false nonchalance.

“Yes, as soon as possible,” was the unexpected reply. “I can still commission treatments without running it past this new editorial board they’ve set up, but who knows how long that’ll last. We must smuggle as many good projects through as possible while we can.”

“Wonderful, thanks so much!” I could have hugged him. Whilst it was going so well I risked another step, “I was wondering whether I might possibly be able to produce this one, if it gets that far?”

“I think that would be a very good plan,” said Basil, astonishingly.

“Would you be Executive Producer?”

“Certainly.”

“Wow. Thanks so much!” I couldn’t think of any other response. I was bowled over. You could have knocked me down with a flicked paper clip. I really hadn’t expected it to be this easy… it wasn’t.

“There’s another project I’d like you to have a look at,” he said. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course.”

“It’s something of Jonathan’s,” he said, and I held my breath. Oh no. “It’s going to be his first role as producer, and he needs a good experienced script editor. Preferably a Welsh one. I thought of you right away.”

What could I say? It had to be yes.

I tried to forget about Jonathan’s project whilst I got on with my own. Ordinarily I would have gone straight to his office to introduce myself properly and offer my services, but I decided to let him find me instead. I resented the idea of his being above me in seniority, given that my own experience was much greater. He might have worked with Basil for five or six years, but I had many more broadcast hours on my cv. To put it bluntly I considered myself better qualified than he was to produce his show, but I was expected to assist, hold his hand in case he made a bad decision, and tactfully save him from disaster. Add that to my Welsh chip and my dislike of posh Englishmen, and it made an explosive brew. Poor Jonathan!

It was a couple of weeks before he knocked at my door. By that time the editorial board had commissioned both of our projects to first draft. I had made up my mind that my show would go ahead, and his would be dropped. Mine would be a howling success, win BAFTAs galore, and his would be quietly forgotten. Does this sound a tad arrogant to you? Me too. Embarrassingly so. But that’s what happens when people are set against one another to compete for living space: they fight to the kill. Clever people are just as bad as anyone else. They knife one another metaphorically, which can be a fate worse than death.

He stuck his head round my door and said, “
Jones the Script
, I presume?” with a half-hearted twinkle and jolly eyebrows. I detached my eyes from what I was reading and stared at him, open-mouthed. How long had he spent working on that line? It was worse than I’d expected. He looked embarrassed and asked if he could come in. I recovered myself, gave him a seat and offered coffee, which he refused. He began making small talk in a polite effort to find common ground.

“Nice office you’ve got here.”

“Yes, not bad. Not much of a view, but at least it’s not too small.”

“Is that Snowdonia? Looks beautiful.”

He was looking at a little print my dad gave me that I like to keep on my office wall. “Cader Idris, actually. Have you been there?”

“No, but I know the tune, I think – it rings a bell from my schooldays.”

I was beginning to feel guilty for having made him do all the running. There was a status imbalance in making him come to my office, as if I were the senior officer. I rather enjoyed playing the cactus, if I’m honest. The truth is that the irritating aspects of Jonathan’s poshness had by this time evaporated, but I hadn’t noticed and didn’t want to know. I was happy to leave him in the box marked
rejects
. However, part of the script editor’s role is to act as the producer’s assistant, it’s understood that you’re on that career trajectory and you learn an enormous amount that way. It’s up to the producer to decide exactly what tasks you carry out, the more willing and versatile your response, the better. I had no right to give Jonathan a hard time, however prejudiced I was. I decided to start afresh.

“I’m really sorry I haven’t been to see you before. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own project – ”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t expecting to see you before it was commissioned,” he assured me. It was gracious of him, there was no edge of sarcasm at all. “I don’t want to interrupt you, I’m just dropping off the proposal for you to look at. Maybe we can have lunch soon and talk about it?”

“Yes of course,” I said, surprised. “We can talk now if – ”

“No no, that’s fine. When you’re ready.” He smiled again and got up to go.

“Thanks, I’ll look forward to reading it.”

He left, and I thought with relief, that wasn’t so bad, he’s not going to power-trip me. Maybe he’s alright. I glanced at the proposal and decided to read it, I was expecting Jill to come in for lunch, and I had time to spare. I leaned back and propped my feet on the desk.

It was called
The Medical Miracle
and was by Jim Johnson, a writer I knew only by reputation. His story began with a Welsh hill farmer attempting suicide because of mounting debts. His son found him just in time and his GP managed to save him. The farmer then explained it was impossible to make a living from farming any more, and how he felt a failure since the land had nurtured many generations of his family. It was much bigger than a simple business collapse; it was a matter of identity, of national history…

I threw it down, stood up and walked to the window. I could hardly believe what I’d read. It was practically a carbon copy of Maggie’s Welsh project, which she’d put so much effort into, and which had been cruelly rejected by Chris at the big meeting. That was why she’d given up on development and gone off to
Casualty
. Jonathan was at the same meeting, wasn’t he? He must have heard it all. He’d pinched the idea, changed it a bit and flogged it under another title to BBC1. Outrageous! Did he think I wouldn’t notice? Perhaps he didn’t care. Maybe he thought it was acceptable to steal ideas. I picked up the slim proposal to finish reading it, but the phone rang, it was reception to say that Jill had arrived. I stuck the thing in a drawer and stomped off.