Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) (68 page)

Eventually the level of laughs begins to drop as the situation becomes more familiar and some LE casting, music and direction fail to lift it to the level that JC’s performance merits. He comes in well ahead of the field with Frayn second and Morahan plodding along way back. Too safe by half.

Sit with Eric and Tania and Terry J and Steve and Iain Johnstone. John is relaxed and eventually sits with us and we have the sort of chat which shows the best side of the Pythons. Sensible, generous, but critical. John, far from being put off, listens intently and agrees wholeheartedly that the ending does peter out – with no satisfactory resolution.

Just before I leave, JC takes me on one side and asks, almost apologetically, if I mind him writing a part for me in his next film. He says it’s a four-hander. Me, Kevin Kline, John, Jamie Lee Curtis!

A dark, gloomy morning. To work, but phone calls dominate the morning.
The Mirrorstone
comes back from J Cape with lots of ‘as’s’ and ‘buts’ queried, but basically almost there. Read through and ring Valerie K back and by early afternoon the copy is agreed, finished and I can forget that for a while.

To the dentist at five. Kieser opens a bottle of champagne afterwards to celebrate New Year – funny drinking with five other people all in white coats.

I’m rung by the British Council to ask if I will go to Czechoslovakia with
Private Function
at the end of the month. I’m very keen to see Prague – one of the few European capitals I still haven’t visited, so say yes, providing it can be a weekend.

TJ says EMI have today withdrawn their offer for foreign rights to
Personal Services
. Michael Hordern turned down the part of the Wing Commander who, at one point, TJ admits, does have to be masturbated by one of the ladies. Apparently Alec McCowen is happy to do it.

Into taxi for one of the more important meetings of my life – the Transport 2000 introductory party and board meeting at which the fate of my chairmanship will be sealed. No turning back after today.

The organisation’s offices are in a drab, low, sixties building beside Euston Station. They’re the HQ of TSSA, the railway white-collar union. (I am moving into a world riddled with initials.)

Susan Hoyle, who is humorous in a rather deadpan, busy way, takes me across the Euston Road, pointing out one of the most dangerous pedestrian crossings in London, to meet Jimmy Knapp and Ray Buckton
¹²¹
at the NUR HQ. This is an ’80’s block and more like Madison Avenue or a TV company than a railway union. But amongst all the smoked glass and tastefully-designed wooden furniture, there is a tell-tale British touch. On the desk at reception is a ledger headed in scribbled biro ‘Air Conditioning Complaints’.

Up in the lift to a floor where all is soft carpet and silence. No-one seems to have much work to do. After a short wait, Susan and I are shown into a spacious, smart, though not intimidating office.

Jimmy Knapp, taller than I expected, a big, genial man with an almost albino-pink complexion and a jolly thatch of white curls which spill down onto his upper cheek, rises to meet me. Ray Buckton is on the other side of the table.

Knapp is easy, friendly, unforced. He flicks through my CV, but clearly
knows nothing of my past work (perhaps a good thing).

Buckton just goes on about my speech at Durham. Flatteringly, he seems to have remembered more of it than I ever could. He says it was one of the best he’s ever heard.

After 20 minutes or so, we take our leave. Jimmy Knapp assures me that if we ever want any help or support from him or Ray B it will be forthcoming.

Back perilously across the Euston Road and by this time about a dozen people are in Richard Faulkner’s office for the buffet lunch to meet Michael Palin. The older members – representing Wales and Devon, for instance – are very gentlemanly and courteous.

A number of people arrive by bike, and the big, bearded, Northern CAMRA Mafiosi – who, I am to find out, virtually run the board meetings – are a little guarded, perhaps feeling their power threatened. I don’t know.

Harley Sherlock, the outgoing Chairman, is enormously nice. Affable, straightforward and competent, with lashings of the best sort of disarming charm.

I have prepared a short statement of my qualifications and disqualifications – emphasising that I don’t regard my appointment to the chair as a fait accompli – and until it’s put to the vote later this afternoon Harley is still Chairman. He’s obviously held in great affection and I am most envious of his fluency and patience and diplomacy.

At 4.15 I make my apologies and, with a well-received ‘May the best man win’, I leave them to the ‘election’. Out in the windy streets I seek out a 24 bus to take me home in preference to a taxi. Symbolic gesture!

An hour or so later Susan H phones me at home to tell me that I have been unanimously elected Chairman of Transport 2000.

Ring Ma on her 82nd birthday. (If I live as long as her I’ll see 2025!)

At quarter to twelve drive out, through a fierce hailstorm and some fine celestial lighting, to the Film and TV School at Beaconsfield. I have an appointment with Colin Young – the head of the school.

Colour photos, well taken and expressive, of all the students and teachers are stuck on a notice-board and this companionable feeling – of an enlightened university campus – is quickly evident.

After showing me two studios, Colin gets hold of a lean, intense man
with big eyes and high cheekbones called Paul. He is the No. 2 here and Colin asks him to lunch with us. We talk, Paul and I, for a while about what has to be learnt about directing.

Colin takes us into ‘New’ Beaconsfield to an almost deserted Chinese restaurant of very good quality, where he orders authoritatively. ‘The only thing you need to be a director is confidence,’ he asserts confidently.

Then they ask me about my film (the one that I want to direct). I feel apologetic and faintly embarrassed as I take up their time waffling about my inability to start writing.

At the end of the meal, as we sit in the car, Colin (like Jimmy Knapp yesterday) insists that I should call him if there are any problems and that I should consider coming for a one-week session at the school in the summer, but the last thing he says, of my desire to direct, is ‘We do think you should do it’. Well, this is the year of trying new things, I think, as I head out onto the M40.

Fancy the Crown for an evening meal, but Ma is quite shocked by the £10 price for a three-course meal and dismisses it.

A diplomatic call upon the Haythornthwaites, mainly to thank her for all her work on the hallway. Have a scotch and a chat.

He was in the Parachute Regiment. She is the daughter of a Jewish father who worked in the film business for a while. She went to work on
Vogue
– hence the good taste of the decorations. Very complimentary about my mother, ‘Very game’, ‘Out in all weathers’.

To the T2000 office. Meet Susan H.

Over a very good Indian meal, we talk a bit about each other and backgrounds. She’s twice married, a first in PPE from Somerville, has a son called Tom who’s a year younger than Tom. She’s persuasive, talkative, sharp, restless and enjoys gossip. I like her. I feel rather dull and soggy but hope it doesn’t show.

On to transport business. Do we want to supply a judge for
Motor Transport
’s awards for the most environmentally-sound lorry? We shouldn’t be endorsing lorries at all, but we should be aiding any belated
recognition that they damage the environment. Susan is in favour of agreeing.

Then she talks at length about personalities in the office. I still feel like a prospective fiancé coming to meet his new family, so I listen and avoid too much judgement.

Home via Belsize Park with a feeling of slight unreality. Can I really fulfil all the functions (to quote the Bank Manager in ‘Eric Olthwaite’)? I know here and now that I shall not be able to take on the workload when I’m making/selling the next film. Next year something will have to change.

David Leland calls and offers me the part of Eric in
Heartbreakers
, which he’s directing for Channel 4 in the autumn. Eric is a ‘totally charmless’ character and David L is interested to see how I could do something which doesn’t rely on charm.

He also says something about wanting to push my acting a bit further out. I know what he means. Take a few risks. Well, again, it all fits in with Putting Myself on the Line Year. Agree to read the script.

Not since
Private Function
’s Royal Premiere 14 months ago have we dressed up together like this. [For the
Evening Standard
Film Awards.] After one unsuccessful attempt and a whole day’s shopping last week, Helen has assembled a very stylish, elegant outfit. She’s bought long earrings to go with it at Camden Lock today, and new evening bag, shoes, etc.

Arrive at the ‘river entrance’ of the Savoy Hotel about seven.

There are only about eight awards. Alan and Malcolm win the first – Best Screenplay for
Private Function
. Alan’s speech is short and to the point – ‘It just shows you can’t go wrong with incontinence.’ Norman Garwood wins the next award – Technical Achievement for
Brazil
.

Joanna Lumley gives a very generous, clear and humorous intro to my award, which is number four.

Stephen Frears collects the Best Film award for
My Beautiful Launderette
from Rod Steiger, who looks as if he is in a catatonic trance. But his ringing inspirational clichés bring a nice touch of Hollywood to this rather low-key, ‘British’ evening.

George, exceedingly nervous, and Denis, even more so, go up to collect the last award of the evening, one given to HandMade Films by the Duchess of Kent. George describes her as ‘Your Majesty’, inadvertently. She counters that that is ‘one or two up from me’, to which George, quick as a flash, replies ‘Nothing’s too good for you, ma’am.’

Arrive at TV-AM just after dawn. A more comfortable, relaxed, expansive feeling to the place now it’s comfortably ahead of BBC’s
Breakfast Time
and expanding its advertising revenue. Roy Hattersley and Nicholas Ridley are sitting in the foyer. Not talking to each other.

I chat to Hattersley briefly about Sheffield. He asks me where I am from. When I say ‘Ranmoor/Crosspool borders’ he gestures with his forefinger under his nose … ‘Oh, the posh end.’

He goes in and scraps with Ridley over the upcoming Commons emergency debate on the Westland leaks.
¹²²
Ridley is dismissive, patronising, and can’t have done himself any good.

Nick Owen, one of the presenters, reveals that I was his house captain of football. He was at Shrewsbury for one term with me, and I had written about him in the house football annals. All this poured out onto a million breakfast tables.

Also Jimmy Greaves, quite out of the blue, declares his love of
Ripping Yarns
and especially ‘Golden Gordon’.

Home and an interrupted morning’s work. Phone calls from Maggie S (‘Darling, you looked about 12, as usual’) and an interesting job offer from
Jackanory
to read
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
.

Evening at home, fairly quietly, with the TV. Thatcher chews up Kinnock. She sounds like some pre-historic bird swooping, shrieking about her nest. News item of the day – ‘The remains of a Polish tax-collector have been found in two suitcases.’

At seven Angela comes round for supper and a natter. It’s a pity so much of her brightness and energy is unexploited. She is still quite brittle and castigates herself for everything. She feels she hasn’t lived and has had her eyes tested today and been told that she’ll have to wear glasses when driving. All this depresses her more than if she were a placid, easy-going type like her brother.

Terry seems remarkably unruffled by the fact that Zenith have now withdrawn their money from
Personal Services
and the project looks doomed. Most backers can’t see the humour, only see the outspoken sex.

Mum rings to say Mr Haythornthwaite across the way has died. I liked him, glad I knew him.

Read Kundera’s
Joke
for most of the evening – as a sort of preparation for Czechoslovakia, where the book and the author are banned.

Not much to see of Czechoslovakia until we break out of the clouds and head in over one of the most enormous factories I’ve ever seen. Note from my reading that it was a Czech (Čapek) who coined the word ‘robot’.

At Praha Airport are planes from China, Cuba and Algeria. We are the only capitalist airline. Met by a slightly harassed, chatty, humorous Englishman called John Green. He’s the cultural attaché and looks like Alec Guinness playing Alec Guinness. He wears a sheepskin coat which has seen better days and looks less smart than most of the Czechs.

He moves me briskly through the formalities (‘You never get much trouble if you come in from the West, it’s the East Europeans they give a rotten time to’). John Green is the first of many people over the weekend who emphasises that the Czechs do not think of themselves as East Europeans, but as Central Europeans (we are, after all, further west than Vienna). They hate the Russians (in common with nearly every other Soviet satellite). They were the fifth most prosperous economy in Europe before WW2 and had close cultural links with Great Britain.

To Wenceslas Square, which is in fact a gently-sloping rectangle, with
wide road and sidewalks. Hotel Jalta, in heavy National Socialist style, but comfortable inside with mini-bar, bathroom and radio and TV. The breakfast menu offers ‘grey bread – any chosen sort’.