Dear Fatty (37 page)

Anyway, the day came to meet the music guy. The audition was arranged in a ‘quiet’ room at the very top of the Palace Theatre in Cambridge Circus. The lift was broken so we walked up the 8,462 floors to the top. A small, pert man, he bounced up the stairs ahead of me. A big, fat, lumbering woman, I hauled myself up behind him, puffing all the way. By the time I reached the top I knew I would need to sit down and recover with a KitKat and a cuppa for about three weeks, without moving, never mind singing. He introduced me to a bevy of bright-eyed chaps working in the office next door to the room we were to be ‘private’ in. A couple of the dandies made comments like ‘Ooh, we’re so excited’, ‘Can’t wait to hear you warble’ and ‘This’ll be our lunchtime concert, we’re not going out today, we’ve brought packed specially’ and suchlike. Oh God. I asked Mr Music if we really would be ‘private’ as requested. Yes, of course, he assured me. We went into the small room, which had a sofa
and
a keyboard. Oh double God, the keyboard. There it was, taunting me. I sat on the sofa and started wall-to-wall nervous fast gossiping so as to delay the awful moment. I noticed that I could hear the guys next door quite clearly and deduced that the reverse must also be true. Oh triple God. I thought we might start with some gentle scales, a little warm-up perhaps, but no, he sat at the keyboard, invited me to share the piano stool, and off he went pounding away at the keys with the fervour of Bobby Crush on acid, and before I had time to draw breath, we were away, singing like mad, one song after another, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Take a Chance on Me’, ‘Chiccyteeta’ or ‘Chicken Tikka’ or whatever that one’s called. It was fast and loud and furious. Each one was worse than the last, and the first was appalling. For some reason I don’t understand, not only did I sing dreadfully, but I sang worse than I ever have before. I kept saying, ‘Hang on there, fella, something’s wrong, let me get my breath and have another crack at that,’ and off we’d go again, ten to the dozen, and it would be dire. Worse than dire. An entirely tuneless, croaky, wailing, drony caterwaul of a noise. Inhuman really. The noise the dead might yawl as they roast and screech in hell’s inferno. A caw unburdened by tone or key. Horrible, horrible, horrible. All credit to Mr Music, he was tenacious, he was trying to remain optimistic, but very quickly I sensed he was beaten. After half an hour or so of this excruciating slaughter, the punishment was over and Mr Music bade me farewell with tears of pain in his eyes reflecting the damage to his ears. I rushed out, offering a hasty ‘Bye!’ to the poor witnesses next door, most of whose hair was standing on end and all of whom couldn’t look me in the eye for shame. My shame.

As I beat a speedy retreat, I turned my phone back on to see if there had been any calls, and it was ringing with my agent’s name, ‘MAUREEN-OFFICE’, flashing on the tiny screen. ‘Love, it’s not going to work out.’ ‘But, Maureen, I’ve only just left –’ ‘It’s just not going to work out, love –’ ‘But they said you’d have to sing worse than the noise a cow makes in labour …’ Silence the other end. ‘Maureen …?’ ‘It’s not going to work out, love …’ So that was that. I can’t sing. At all. Fatty was very supportive when I told her about the horror of it all, and in defiance, and an effort to reclaim some self-esteem, we decided to sing ‘Thank You for the Music’ at the end of our show on tour every night. We sang it loud and proud and I was gradually, nightly, clawing my way back out of the pit of zero confidence voice-wise and was really enjoying performing it with gusto until someone told me there was a reference to the song in a review which said we were ‘hilariously out of tune’. I surrender to the gods of music, to Pan, to Apollo, to Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Frieda. I am not your servant or your handmaiden or your daughter. I am your jester. That much is clear.

Anyway, sorry, Alfred, back to the opera. Of course they didn’t want me to sing. They had wisely decided to go with the odd professional for that. No, they wanted me to take a speaking part, a comic cameo normally played by an older soprano like Montserrat Caballé. Well, I had no reference for such a proposal so I called you toot sweet. You are, after all, not only my beloved buddy but also my oracle, my encyclopedia of all things opera. Anything, and it is a teeny amount, but nevertheless,
anything
I know about opera, I know because of you. I love our ritual. You call up, you have tickets, it’s
vital
to see this particular
production
because of this singer, that director, this conductor, that composer, etc., etc. I come to your flat in Fulham, we eat scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, we listen to a recording of said opera, you educate me about the story, the background, former productions and, my most favourite part, the gossip. Which diva is shagging which divo. Who is so fat they take up three plane seats. Who was booed off at La Scala and had a hissy fit, all that stuff. You are not only the font of all high information, you are the deliciously dirty dealer of the low. You are the
Heat
magazine of opera. Hurrah. That’s what makes it all the more intriguing for me. I can then watch the opera appreciating not only the soprano’s excellent coloratura, but also her bravura bosoms, knowing which dirty divo has had his mitts on ’em!

So, do you remember when I called you and told you about the production? ‘Who is in it?’ you asked. I told you. Juan Diego Flórez is the tenor, Natalie Dessay is the soprano, Laurent Pelly is the director, and so on. ‘There is only one word to use regarding this decision, Dawn,’ you said, ‘and that word is “must”. You MUST do this. If you do not do this I will kill you. No, seriously. Kill you. A slow, lingering, merciless death. Understand?’ Message received. You went on to explain that these people are the
corps d’élite
, prodigious talents at the top of their game, and the time was right, this particular opera hadn’t been performed at ‘The Garden’ since Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland did it in the sixties. It’s rarely staged because the tenor has to hit nine extremely difficult high ‘C’s in one demanding aria and there are very few singers alive who can do it well. Juan Diego is one such singer. And what’s more, you explained, he’s Peruvian and drop-dead gorgeous. Sold.

What a bloomin’ roller coaster! Opera is such a different world to the kind of theatre I am used to. My part was in French so I had to attempt to conquer that, which I never fully did, so we decided Franglais was a good, funny, alternative route. To be directed in French was quite an experience. I found out that operating in a language which is not your first language is potentially limiting, especially for comedy, because the nuances, the playing around, is curtailed. I couldn’t have as much verbal fun as I usually would in a rehearsal room, with shared jokes and running gags. I had to make myself understood with gesture and posture, which is suitable for big opera in a big opera house. I was also aware that my part was tiny and that a great big muscly machine of a production can’t wait about for one fat ol’ comedienne to arse about. It needed to be grand and slick, and funny. This, after all, is not my audience. They might loathe my intrusion, my style. Gulp. In the rehearsal space the singers mark their parts by blocking out their actions, but not singing out too loudly, in order to save their voices. The day comes eventually, when, after endless costume, shoe, wig, jewellery, make-up tests and fittings, you actually get on the stage for a dress rehearsal. Finally, the many different elements who’ve been rehearsing in many different rooms come together at last. That’s when the chorus are there to join in and when the singers sing out for the first time. That’s when my head was nearly whipped off with the full force of the sheer blast of power of their huge impressive voices. It was fantastic!

Luckily, the show was well received, and no one seemed to mind me, the impostor, too much. When opera audiences love a show, they
really
love it. We would bow our way through ten
curtain
calls with the entire opera house on their feet. It was utterly thrilling and I’m so glad I took your advice, Alf, to do it. I made some good friends, and I had a front-row, in fact onstage, seat every night to hear and see such phenomenal talents at their peak.

During the run, I kept complaining that I would finish my time at the opera house having never sung a note. Surely, I ought to be entitled to
one
note?! Then I’d be able to claim for ever that I had sung onstage at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. My final exit each night from the stage was a big huffy flounce off, accompanied by a loud angry roar because my character had been thwarted. It comes about three minutes from the end. So, on the very last night, instead of roaring I decided to sing that last moment of fury. I waited, I waited. The moment came, and I sang out loudly, one note, one word, ‘
Merde!
’ – and exited. Yes, ladies and gentlemen and my beloved Alfred, I have indeed sung onstage at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. I thank you.

BRAVO! And Toi Toi Toi!

WE’VE NEVER BEEN
a family where any one person’s achievements matter more than anyone else’s, so I really want to make sure you know about all the amazing stuff Mum and Gary have done.

Gary, it probably comes as no surprise, has been adventurous. He’s travelled a lot, especially in his twenties and thirties. He would work hard for a couple of years to fund each next journey, where he would have phenomenal experiences – for instance, actually building the main part of a hospital in a leper colony in India, or living with and helping Tibetan refugees. Then, when he’d exhausted his funds, he’d return and put his nose to the grindstone again. But even the grindstone has been an area of huge personal achievement about which he has been very quiet, very self-effacing. He’s worked mostly in housing, both in London and in Devon and Cornwall. At one time, he was finding housing for people on probation for whom life was pretty tricky, and he was later the instigator of an amazing ‘Foyer’ scheme in Plymouth. He’d seen a version of this scheme working on the Continent, where young homeless people are given a place to stay while they have access to an IT centre and careers advice which they can use to springboard them into jobs and consequently further housing. They are given counselling and lifestyle advice to help them bridge the gap between home (for many, this is a major problem area) and work. A crucial stepping stone for the young, vulnerable and disaffected. It sounds like the sort of thing you would have been
involved
with, Dad. Perhaps he is more of a chip off the old block than we know. He has married a fantastic woman, Sarah, with whom he has had two gorgeous kids, Hannah (the Heavenly) and Jack (the Lad). He is a great dad, for whom family comes before everything. They live happily in Cornwall, where Gary and Sarah both worked hard in housing – until recently, when Gary made a huge decision of which you would be so proud. He decided to change his life completely. No longer does he work nine to five for the city council, where he was snowed under with bureaucracy. He runs the cafe that overlooks Burgh Island at Bigbury-on-Sea in Devon. He is his own boss, he cooks the grub and makes the decisions. I’ve rarely seen him so happy. He is knackered a lot of the time, but he starts and ends his day with a cup of coffee, looking out to sea knowing that life is more than memos and meetings. Who knows what he’ll do next. He is willing and open and creative. He knows, as we all do so well in our family, that nothing is worth getting depressed about, that you have to expand your horizons and ‘follow your bliss’, as Joseph Campbell said. Gary knows himself and has listened to his heart. He’s still fiery-tempered, always fighting for the rights of the underdog or the unheard. He is remarkably unmaterialistic and generous of spirit, and he is a great listener. Certainly for me and for Mum. He loves his dog, his family and his friends, he loves to sail, he loves to read, he loves music, and chickens and pigs and food and Cornwall. Simple stuff really. Properly achievable, tangible happiness is his motivation and I really think he’s done that rare thing, and found it.

Mum rose from the ashes like a phoenix. She turned her grief and her loneliness and her fear into a snowball of energy that gained and gained momentum. One Christmas, maybe 1982 or
so
, I noticed she had an unusual amount of cards on her fireplace. As I read them each one was more effusive than the last,
Dear Roma, you are the light in my darkness, To Roma, thank you for saving my life
, and on they went. When I asked who these people were, it turned out she was opening her home to all comers, glue-sniffers and heroin addicts and alcoholics alike, to have a place to come and talk. Although it was a generous gesture, I was a bit concerned for her safety, and I felt that she would be more use to people if she had the proper training. Well, Dad, she was amazing. Mum, who had left school at 16, took herself off for, firstly, a foundation counselling course, then further qualifications to enable her to help the people she most wanted to. She was gripped with a desire to change what she saw was useless practice and bad law when it came to young mothers with drug problems. The typical process was that, once the mothers were discovered to be addicts, the social services would immediately take the children into foster care until the women had been through rehab and proven they were clean. It all had to go through the courts, so very often this process could take years, during which the mother and children were separated. Mum’s theory was: keep them all together in a safe place. They must recover and heal together because the kids are the ‘affected others’ and need to witness their mum’s recovery in order to trust her again. It’s no good separating them, it only causes heartache and alienation; but if the mums and kids are to remain together, it has to be controlled and supervised for the kids’ sakes. Meanwhile, alongside the rehab, the mum also gets cooking and parenting classes, the kids go to local schools and they all work together to slowly, carefully feed the family back into society when they’re ready.

In order to achieve this, Mum had to find the funding to buy properties that could be transformed into safe flats for the families, with a rehab centre attached. She somehow (I suspect by fair means AND foul, you know what a Boadicea Mum is when she sets her sights!) raised the cash, through a mixture of charity, fund-raising and the local council, to set up with her colleague, Bob Underwood (the ex-police chief), first one house, then two, then more, which became the Trevi House Project in Plymouth. The ongoing success rate was so good that the government, specifically Mo Mowlam, consulted with them to use their method as a blueprint for other projects around the country. As if that wasn’t astounding enough, she went on to acquire the magnificent ex-admiralty Hamoaze House at Mount Wise from the MoD, and with a dedicated team she created a drop-in centre there for drug and alcohol abusers and their families in Devonport, Plymouth, which has been a huge success. She has worked tirelessly for other people’s benefit for 30-odd years now, and when she retired a couple of years ago, the city gave her a posh lunch to thank her for all she’d done. And, like Gary, she’s done it all quietly. No hoo-ha. I took your lovely mum, Grandma French, along to the official opening of Hamoaze. I looked around the room and saw that there were four generations of our family there. If ever a family have been committed to the improvement of a city, the Frenchies have been to Plymouth. Your city, Dad.