Читать книгу Confessions of a Showbiz Reporter - Holly Forrest - Страница 8
ОглавлениеPart I: My First Story
‘Boyzone are outselling The Spice Girls by two to one.’
Not, I realise, a groundbreaking scoop up there with Kate Middleton topless or George Michael caught getting naughty in an LA loo (thank you to The Sun for their headline: ‘Zip me up before you go go’). Still, the battle between the Irish crooners and girl power will always be special to me. It was my first attempt to liven up my journalism course, and my first ever showbiz story. It was the scoop that showed me the way.
On that fateful day, half-asleep after another lesson in local government, I was instructed by my tutor to head into town and simply ‘find a story’. This is what, we were told, real journalists do when their publication or broadcaster is short of material. They just find out stuff and record it, like a nosey neighbour with a notebook. So, jotter in hand, I shuffled off into the streets to find a scoop. But I had a problem – if I tried to bluff my way through a chat about politics, the person I was talking to would easily catch me out. That I didn’t know the first thing about NHS funding or interest rates was written on my face. But if could find an entertainment story, I would be on safe ground. My fellow students could do with a bit of frivolity too.
An hour later, the whole class was back in our makeshift newsroom, preparing to share our freshly unearthed breaking news stories with our sniffy lecturer.
‘The housing market in the area has seen a significant rise in the last few weeks according to a local estate agent,’ said one girl, a 21-year-old like me, but with the smug air of a City banker on 200 grand a week, before snapping her notebook shut with a what-do-you-think-of-that? flourish.
‘Very good,’ replied my tutor. ‘That’s just the kind of thing we’re hunting for. Strong, clear stuff. Who’s next?’
A boy who had annoyed me from the beginning of term now piped up. Vocally religious to the point of tedium, he never wasted any opportunity to harp on about his piety.
‘The priest at St Michael’s is strenuously opposed to the prospect of a casino opening on the outskirts of town. I called by the church and he was more than happy to talk to me.’
‘Excellent,’ responded our tutor with ever-growing jollity. Our tutor was a dapper little man with an upper-class way of expression: ‘A top notch story. Follow that one up please.’ The Archbishop of Canterbury in front of me seemed to momentarily forget his modesty and looked extremely pleased with himself.
And then, it came. ‘So … Holly. Over to you. What eye-opener have you got for us?’
Okay. Here we go. I looked down at my notes then back up at the faces staring at me. I knew they wouldn’t like it. My peers were a surprising bunch, all of us were barely out of adolescence, but their earnestly worthy approaches to life were a real downer for me. Their heroes were Kate Adie and Trevor McDonald. Mine were French and Saunders.
‘Boyzone are outselling The Spice Girls by two to one,’ I blurted out, fully aware that this would probably go down about as well as a supermodel at a slimming club.
A couple of snorts came from the audience then a painful silence. The tutor in charge raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘And this is news because …?’
‘W-well,’ I stammered. ‘This is the big pop battle of the moment. Boys versus girls. And these sales figures, well they’re a sneak preview into who’s going to win the fight. The guy in HMV said he wasn’t even supposed to tell me but I bought the new Jamiroquai CD from him to help sweeten the pill. Midweek sales figures are a bit of a secret, you know.’ (A few years later websites would proudly print the official midweek sales figures without hesitation. Back then, things were a little more surreptitious.)
Silence. I suspected that the kind of numbers I was interested in – the Top 40 broadcast on the radio every Sunday – weren’t the kind he thought I should be spending my time on. That day’s FTSE figures, fair enough. But new entries and highest climbers? Big mistake.
‘Hmmm, I don’t think so,’ he replied with his military air. ‘It’s not really front-page stuff is it? A bit frivolous. Anyone got anything that’s proper news?’
The Spice Girls, I don’t need to remind you, went on to dominate both the music industry and the media all over the world. Everyone wanted to know about them. Posh Spice changing her hair from a bob to a pixie cut might not be as politically significant as the property market or Sunday trading, I knew that, but to suggest it’s not headline-worthy nor interesting to millions of people is to underestimate the power of the entertainment world – the industry, incidentally, that is Britain’s biggest export. Among my peers my interests appeared frothy, but I knew that when a star arrives that offers something fresh, something different, something exciting, millions of people want to know more. Passions are ignited and we can’t get enough. Sat there, head hung low, feeling as out of place as a porn star at Disneyland, I was more determined than ever to immerse myself in this business of escapism. I would prove to these squares that it did have a point. Showbiz was an inspiration to the world and I wanted to be inspired for a living. And to inspire.
Part II: The Lucky Break
At every opportunity over the next few months I dropped a showbiz story into our daily meetings. Eyes never failed to roll, but I didn’t care. I’d discovered how to enjoy myself. I kept my head down and, amid the atmosphere of collective paranoia in which my peers fought over the same job adverts in the Media section of The Guardian every Monday, I focused on one kind of career in one kind of place: I wanted to be a showbiz reporter in London.
It wasn’t long before I came across a ‘situations vacant’ that suited my ambitions. The advert had explained that the editor of an entertainment magazine in the capital was looking for a junior to help cover the slew of music festivals the summer had to offer and generally assist around the office. Perfect, I thought, as I sealed the envelope containing my CV. Unsurprisingly it was an ad all my fellow students had studiously ignored. After what seemed a lifetime’s wait, I got a call asking me to go for an interview with the editor. I couldn’t believe it. Apparently she’d liked the chatty, friendly style of my application. It was just after Easter when I finally headed down on the train to London, ready for my moment. The questions asked about the showbiz world didn’t catch me out, but I feared the awfully middle-aged green business suit I stupidly decided to wear could be my undoing. The editor sat opposite me in the boardroom, her face non-committal, her outfit effortlessly chic. I journeyed back to college that night hopeful but realistic.
The next evening I found out I’d got the job. I’D GOT THE JOB! I would start as soon as my course finished in June.
So it was, a couple of months later, that term ended and, as my fellow students headed off to write about budgets and elections in a variety of newspapers, I left small town life and headed south to the big city with only a portable TV and bag full of clothes to my name. I would be renting a studio flat on an inner city main road, sharing with my old Uni friend Erica, and earning barely £200 a week. My parents, I could tell, were petrified. But it didn’t matter to me. The dream was coming true.
The rest, as they say, is history …
