Читать книгу Little Me - Matt Lucas - Страница 8

Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 1987

A – Accrington Stanley

I didn’t often break into a run but on that spring morning in 1986 my pudgy twelve-year-old self jumped off the coach, hurtled along the path, took a left at the Art building, down the PE corridor, past the room full of state-of-the-art BBC Micro Model B computers, up the Chemistry corridor and into the house block.

There were already a few other boys waiting eagerly for the arrival of Barry Edwards, my lanky, mop-haired form master and proud writer of Columbus!, a new musical (score by Mr Hepworth) to be performed by the Junior School at Haberdashers’ that summer.

I’d already pondered the impending bittersweetness of appearing – no – starring in the show while my father languished in Spring Hill open prison, unable to witness in person what would surely be the beginning of my prodigious rise to fame and glory.

Edwards appeared, pinning the cast list to the noticeboard, before swiftly exiting. We clustered around it. Being one of the shorter boys, I had to wait a moment to get a peek. At the top it said that Oliver White – from the year above – was to play the title role. I cast my eyes down the list and noted the names of a couple of friends, delighted that we would be performing together.

I scanned quickly to the bottom and started again – thoroughly, this time – from the top. After all, there were a lot of names on there – at least thirty, I would say.

Mine, however, was nowhere to be found.

My initial surprise quickly gave way to disappointment, but even that gave way pretty quickly to self-flagellation, something I’d been given to a fair deal of late. What on earth had I been thinking? Little me, the tubby boy with no hair, at the bottom of every class – what right did I have to suppose that I might be any part of this?

At morning break-time I went to my locker, reached into the brown pencil case full of coins and took out a couple. I had been appointed class charity monitor at the beginning of the year and I collected a donation from the less forgetful boys each Friday morning, during registration. Lately I had been given to pinching a coin or two to spend at the tuck shop, cramming my fat face full of jam doughnuts and Lion bars.

I sat with my friend Andrew Bloch, who had also been waiting for the list to be posted, and who had evidently shone brighter at his audition than I had in mine. His glee at being cast was being kept in check so as not to make me feel any worse. There weren’t many boys like that at this school.

We sucked determinedly on our rock-hard Jawbreakers (gobstoppers, three for 10p, with chewing gum in the middle, if you ever actually made it that far) as the ramifications of the morning’s key event became clear. Throughout my disastrous first year at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School I had consoled myself with the thought that my impending brilliance in the Junior School musical would put everything else into context. Sure, I had failed academically across the board – a wobbly cast-off on the otherwise perfect production line of future Oxbridge graduates – but once everyone finally came to appreciate where my skills really lay, I, Lord Olivier elect, would be hailed by staff and pupils alike, my academic shortfalls a mere footnote. ‘He struggles with Physics, yes,’ they would say, ‘but his Hedda Gabler was sublime. Leave him be.’

Life returned to normality. I spent my days sat in class, utterly befuddled by an overload of information – the Treaty of Rapallo, lowest common multiples and oxbow lakes – and my nights in front of the television, watching Albion Market and Highway – anything – when I should have been doing my homework.

And then suddenly, one day, a couple of weeks into rehearsals, a rumour went around. One of the boys had pulled out of the show and Barry Edwards was to hold further auditions for his replacement one lunch break. I checked the drama noticeboard and sure enough there was another opportunity to be in the show. This was it. This was the moment. Like Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street (which I had seen that year at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), I was to save the day. Four of us put our names down and took it in turns to deliver the same speech. But then came the final insult: Edwards decided not to cast any of us, not even Russell Donoff.

On the coach home from school I sat with Andrew, prising from him updates on how rehearsals were going. My envy had given way to awe. I accepted my place under the table, happy to feast on the scraps.

A couple of weeks before Columbus! was to be staged, it was announced at Assembly that ushers would be required. I eagerly signed up for all three nights, herding a parade of old toffs and proud parents to their seats.

As despondent as I felt on the sidelines, it was exciting to watch my friends onstage and hear them sing. Whenever I encountered one of the stars of the show over the coming weeks, I would compliment them. I informed Benjamin Cahn that he had a lovely singing voice. I praised James Kaye for his exquisite comic timing. I even said well done to the identical Salter twins, who I had decided were only in the show because there was a magic trick in which the same person exited stage right and immediately reappeared stage left. I guess you could say I was a Columbus! groupie. I drank it all in, learning all the tunes and humming them to myself in my bedroom for weeks afterwards, imagining how I would have played each part.

Fast forward ten months. The architect of my doom Barry Edwards had moved to Highgate School. A new teacher, the sweet, softly spoken Ian Rossotti, was to direct this year’s musical which, it was announced during one Junior Assembly, was to be (drumroll please) . . . The Roman Invasion of Ramsbottom.

What? What on earth was that?

The Roman Invasion of who?

Couldn’t we do Oliver! I was really hoping we could do Oliver! and then I could play the Artful Dodger. Or Starlight Express? We could do it in the round in the dining hall. Hell, I know we’re a boys’ school, but couldn’t we even do Annie? I’ll play Sandy the dog, I don’t mind. Anything but The Roman Invasion of Ramsbottom, whatever that is.

The Roman Invasion of Ramsbottom was, it turned out, a daft comic romp that had been written a few years earlier for the National Youth Music Theatre, about the regulars of a Lancashire pub and how they successfully thwarted an attempt by the Romans to build a motorway through it.

This time the auditions took place on a Sunday afternoon in the school drama room. Mr Rossotti was joined by an intriguing figure, a warm, garrulous dandy with a head of wild, wavy curls and lashings of presence. I instantly adored him, for this was no mere English teacher. This was a man of the theatre.

He took us through our paces, getting us all to sing ‘Consider Yourself’ from Oliver! pounding away at the piano, bellowing directions. He invested in us, sought to get the best out of all of us. Some of the boys visibly withdrew from this attention, but not me. Hell, no. I was going for it.

For I had decided, given that we were singing songs from Oliver!, that this must surely be the great Lionel Bart himself.

I was wrong. I later found out it was actually Jeremy James Taylor, the co-writer of The Roman Invasion of Ramsbottom (which I will just call Ramsbottom from now on because I clipped my nails earlier with rather too much gusto, my index finger is a little tender and it pains me to type).

Sometimes you just know. You just know. And this time I just knew. I didn’t run to the house corridor. I didn’t need to. I sauntered over to the noticeboard, where a group of boys were studying the cast list.

And there in black and white . . .

ACCRINGTON STANLEY – MATTHEW LUCAS

I didn’t know who Accrington Stanley was and it didn’t matter. Details weren’t important. I had been cast in the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Junior School play. I was in The Roman Invasion of Ramsbottom. (Yes, I know I said I was going to abbreviate it from now on, but honestly I felt at that moment it was important to really sell it, do you know what I mean?)

I turned to Andrew, triumphant. His expression told a different story. He hadn’t got a part. I offered what words of consolation I could muster. He started to cry and wandered off. Unsure whether to be happy or sad, I decided in that moment it was okay to be both.

Rehearsals took up a lot of time. I was told by Mr Wilson, the Junior School Head, that I was not to let the academic side of things slide just because I was in the play. Actually, my confidence at a high, I started to do a little better in class. I made more friends. I had even joined Weight Watchers shortly after my bar mitzvah and was losing weight. Everything seemed to be coming together.

Accrington Stanley wasn’t the lead, but he was the star comic character, a boisterous, hearty Northerner. I had Brian Glover in mind when I played him. He didn’t appear in the first half at all, but in the second act, set in the pub, he had plenty of jokes to crack.

He also had a solo number. Eek. I was terrified at the prospect of singing solo. During music lessons in the first year I had sung very badly on purpose, on the advice of my street-smart older brother Howard (at the same school), who had warned me that any boy with any semblance of being able to sing in tune would be coerced into the school choir, which often rehearsed on Saturdays, which meant one less lie-in and missing the Arsenal match. Bugger that.

So I had avoided the choir but in the process had convinced myself that I couldn’t sing. Now I’m no Alfie Boe or even Alfie Moon, but I can hold a tune. I just didn’t know that then.

The musical director of the show was Mr Barker, a kind, diligent teacher who would call me Matthew during rehearsals and Lucas again during lessons. A few weeks earlier I had set my friend Jake Moore the challenge of looking at Mr Barker and thinking of a potato without laughing. He had failed in his endeavours, as had all of my classmates. Now I too was so distracted during these one-on-one rehearsals with him that I found my face creasing at regular intervals. To make matters worse, Mr Barker had decided that I should sing the song in falsetto, which was perhaps his revenge.

I bottled it. Blamed it on my voice breaking. Michael Bourne sang it instead. Beautifully.

I loved rehearsals even more than I had enjoyed drama lessons at school. There was a purpose, an end result – the world’s eyes would finally see the glory of the coming of the Matthew.

And then, one Sunday afternoon, as we rehearsed in the main hall, we were each handed a photocopied letter, explaining that the National Youth Music Theatre – of which Jeremy James Taylor was in charge – was taking a production of The Roman Invasion of Ramsbottom (again, it just felt right, sorry) to the Edinburgh Festival that summer. According to the letter there was a chance that one or two kids from our cast might be invited to take part.

Well now, this was something else. Suddenly the school play became a sideshow. I had my eyes on a bigger prize. From that point on I could think of little else. Even though I had never heard of the National Youth Music Theatre before, it sounded VERY IMPORTANT INDEED.

‘Hi, Jeremy,’ I would say, in as casual a voice as possible, ‘um, hey, just kinda checking in about that Glasgow . . . Edinburgh thing you guys might want me to do. I’m kinda interested, but you know summer’s coming soon and we’re thinking of booking a family holiday so I just thought I’d throw that out there, you know. Because I’d really hate for your people to come to me and then it’s too late.’

We were not thinking of booking a family holiday. The last family holiday we’d been on was five years earlier, when my parents were still together.

One afternoon, a week before the school production was to open, I dropped JJT my customary hint. He had been waiting for it. He led me out of the main hall and into one of the music rooms. I sat next to him at the piano as he played those familiar opening chords to ‘Consider Yourself’ and sang my bestest singing.

‘Jolly good. You’d better come to Edinburgh then, old chap.’

I gasped.

But first, the small business of the school production.

I paced backstage, listening intently to the first act, and then waited onstage behind the curtain during the interval.

The band started to play. The curtains opened and I was born.

And now I would like to take this opportunity to apologise wholeheartedly to anyone else who may or may not have been in the show with me, because I didn’t see you. I saw only my glorious reflection in your eyes. And I didn’t hear you. I heard only my voice and the audience’s laughter. I trod on lines, jokes, feet and bits of the set. I stood where I fancied. I gurned and grimaced and improvised and ignored pretty much everything we had so studiously rehearsed – and just had the time of my life. It was selfish and innocent and wonderful, and again I’m sorry. It was the only time in those first two years at that school that I felt good enough to be there. And the audience played their part perfectly, indulging me at every turn.

As we came offstage, I was blissfully unaware I had done anything wrong. In the changing room, packing my bag to go home, JJT quietly took me aside.

‘Well done, Matthew. Well done. Very good indeed. Wonderful. Can I give you a note, love? You’re going eighty-five miles an hour and you really only need to go seventy-five.’

A kind, smart note. But not one I was able to hear or understand, because I was now a star. Move over, Judy Garland.

There were two more performances. Ego swollen and voice a little tired from so much onstage shouting, I actually tried to convince an older boy who was looking after the technical gear to give me my own radio mic.

‘I’m only allowed to give them to the people who have solo songs,’ said poor beleaguered Shaun, whose father happened to be Alvin Stardust.

I considered this grossly unfair. I was, after all, the money. But my diva demands fell on deaf ears.

My family was full of praise. My mum, in particular, was thrilled for me, gushing to all and sundry about her marvellous son in the way only a Jewish mother can. We call it kvelling. I joined in too, instructing my friend Mark Weston, who went to Highgate School, to let Barry Edwards know how fantastic I was. In my mind Edwards would be lying in bed at night, kicking himself. ‘Damn! Damn! The one that got away!’

Other pupils were now stopping me in the corridors and saying nice things. I oozed charm in return, getting whatever I could out of it – usually a Nerd, some Scampi Fries or a bite of someone’s rock-hard Wham bar.

As the term ended, school was but a distraction. My focus now was on my career. Next stop: the Edinburgh Festival, to rehearse and perform the show all over again, this time as part of the National Youth Music Theatre.

The cast (including four of us from the Haberdashers’ production) convened at King’s Cross station one Sunday in July 1987 and caught the train together up to Edinburgh.

Arriving at Heriot-Watt University, where we were all going to be living, I set my bags down and went into the common room, where the casts of two other NYMT shows had already assembled. My jaw dropped as I caught a glimpse of an impossibly handsome bequiffed blond boy in a designer black suit, arguing with one of the staff. I instantly recognised him as one of the kids from a TV show I watched on Channel 4 called The Pocket Money Programme. He looked like a movie star – and he became one. It was Jude Law.

Clang! Sorry for the name-drop! There’ll be a few along the way. Keep a tally if you like.

Over the next couple of weeks we set about rehearsing Ramsbottom (we got there!). Many of the cast members were four or five years older than me and had also appeared in a version of the show at their school in south London. There was some consternation amongst them that I had taken the place of the boy who played Accrington Stanley in their production, and I sometimes overheard grumblings of ‘how Tom had done it better’.

I made some friends – well, some of the younger cast members tolerated me – but I didn’t make it easy for myself. Part of the problem was that I was a Habs boy. I’ll tell you more about the school later on in the book, but put it like this – when you assemble all the new boys on the first day of school in a grand old hall and tell them that they are ‘the cream’ of the country, well, you’re not exactly putting Humility on the school syllabus.

Up to this point I had struggled to impress in any department. Now that I was finally making a name for myself, I had become insufferable. Back at school it may have been the order of the day to crow about your achievements, but in the outside world people saw us for the entitled little shits we were. And while I had shone in the school production, I was certainly no better than anyone else in the NYMT. But I thought I was and it put a few noses out of joint.

I had trouble sleeping in the chatty, overpopulated science classroom-turned-dormitory and became tired during rehearsals. As I had done in the school production, I started to lose my voice. I remember feeling ill and mumbling during a run-through and some of the cast asking me to put in a bit more effort.

In fairness I was just a thirteen-year-old, away from home, going through puberty, and my home life had been rocky. At times I would be holding court, boring the others with the same old stories, but equally I could be moody and sullen, especially after a performance. As a counter to my arrogance, I was never convinced that I had done a good enough job onstage, and I would chastise myself endlessly. To this day I rarely watch things I have been in, because I am almost always mortified by the results.

There were happy times too. Although I was a nuisance, I could always find someone to while away the hours with, listening to Rick Astley on the radio (number one at the time with ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’), swapping jokes and dance steps.

I loved performing and definitely grew from the experience but offstage I was a polarising figure, still working out how to be part of something, instead of the focus of it. On the last night we were each given a poster advertising the show and we all signed each other’s. One boy simply wrote ‘fuck off’ on mine, in very small letters.