‘Yes, of course.’
The team then retreated to set up their camera. Emma called ‘Action!’ then ‘Cut!’ almost immediately after.
‘Millicent,’ she said, ‘do you think you could possibly
lead
Graham?’
‘What, by the hand?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve got my stick,’ Graham shouted. ‘And I can hear Milly. I don’t need leading.’
‘Yes but . . . well, it looks . . . it looks better.’
In the end Graham’s desire to please the TV people overcame any wounded pride and he allowed himself to be led by Milly through the car park to join the end of the ‘queue’, which Gary and Barry had carefully placed by the front door and by some miracle managed to persuade to look cheerful.
When the shot was completed Emma leaned on a car and lit another cigarette.
‘Long way to go yet,’ said Chelsie.
‘Yes. I know.’
‘Better get a move on, hadn’t we?’
Emma did not move. For a moment she closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.
‘Did you see that girl Shaiana?’ she asked eventually.
‘Yes, of course,’ Chelsie replied. ‘Absolute nutter.’
‘Did you think she was a bit
too
intense? A bit scary?’
‘I didn’t think there was such a thing on
Chart Throb
?’
‘Yes,’ said Emma, laughing slightly too loudly. ‘I suppose if she kills herself we can always lose it in the edit.’
‘Bollocks, Calvin would put it in the trailers.’
Mission Statement
Next came the part of the afternoon Emma had been dreading most of all. It was time for her to play her role in the final humiliation of a person whom she saw as a decent and hard-working old man who just happened to be heir to the throne.
‘Wales!’ she called out, following Calvin’s instructions to treat their celebrated entrant no differently to the others.
‘Good afternoon, young lady,’ said a gentle voice almost at her elbow. ‘Wales here, reporting for duty. All present and correct.’
Emma could hardly believe it. He had been not four metres away and she had not even noticed him. Among the wall-to-wall pulsating egos screaming for attention he had simply become invisible, and his detectives even more so.
Emma curtsied. She had not meant to, and she had not expected to. She had not, after all, curtsied to any of the other contestants and she was supposed to treat them all the same but she could not help herself. This was
the Prince of fucking Wales
! To her at least this man meant something. Despite the endless embarrassments, the constant erosion of his dignity and authority, the comically anachronistic nature of everything about him from his trousers to his very office, he
meant something.
Not
him
so much as his position. He was history. His family embodied the nation. A collective focus that stretched back a thousand years.
Emma cared about that. Despite living in a world where anything that was not beautiful or fashionable was deemed worthless, Emma considered this man important. She
wanted
to be respectful to him. That was surely the point of having him. As far as she was concerned if you’re going to have a Prince of Wales, play the game and curtsey. Otherwise spend the public money on something else.
This man was the
heir to the throne.
He was also, it seemed, an embarrassingly naïve wannabe media celeb and she was the Mephistopheles who was soon to hang his sorry, terminally compromised arse out to dry.
‘Uhm, hi, hello, uhm, sir . . . I’m Emma.’
‘
Hello
, Emma. How
nice
to see you. How
are
you? Are you well?’
‘Yes. Yes, sir. I’m fine. It’s . . . it’s an honour to meet you, uhm . . . Mr Wales. To have you here.’
‘Oh no really, I’m just happy if I can
do my bit.’
‘Well . . . we’d like to get a few words to camera, please.’
‘Certainly. Certainly. Absolutely. Where would you like me?’ he replied, with a deprecating laugh. ‘After all, nobody ever accused muggins here of being
bashful with his opinions
, eh? Some people think I should just
pipe down.’
‘Uhm, this way, sir,’ Emma said.
Together with the camera crew, Emma, the Prince and the detectives made their way over to a section of the crowd that Gary and Barry had assembled in order that His Royal Highness might be ‘discovered’ in it.
‘I heard you speak once, sir,’ Emma said. She had not meant to bring it up but she somehow couldn’t help it.
‘I expect I was
awful.
Was I? Did I make a
hash
of it?’
‘It was at a Holocaust Day ceremony. You spoke about the need for greater understanding and integration in multicultural societies.’
‘Bloody obvious really but worth
saying
, I always think.’
‘You were very inspiring.’
‘Was I?
Thank you
. One does
try
,’ the Prince replied, clearly delighted.
‘You’ve always struck me as a man of principle, sir.’
‘Well, as I say, one
does try
.’
‘So . . . may I ask you something?’
‘Yes, yes of course.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, that’s
very
simple. I want people to get the chance to see
the real me
!’
It broke Emma’s heart. She wanted to cry. How
could
he be so stupid? A man who had met and spoken to
everybody
, making such a foolish mistake as that? Of course they all did, everybody, great and small, rich and poor. From
Big Brother 12
to
Politicians in the Jungle
, everybody thought that if only they could get in front of a camera they could show people the
real them
. Had they learned nothing from watching the very shows they aspired to be on? Could they not see that between them and the public whom they wished to influence stood the
edit
? And the edit would make of them what it pleased. It would not necessarily be brutal, it might as easily create a hero as a villain, but what it would never
ever
do was show anybody as they
genuinely were
.
By this time they had arrived at the appointed place and the Prince of Wales, unable to suppress the instincts developed over decades in public life, turned his attention to the group of people who had been assembled.
‘Good afternoon . . . hello . . . hello there,’ he said, leaning towards people with an expression of rapt fascination. ‘How are you? Do you think it will rain? I must say I had no idea this hall was so
vast
, had you?’
‘Sir . . . I mean, uhm . . . Your Royal . . . uhm, Mr Wales?’
Everybody laughed at Emma’s confusion, including the Prince. The crowd were, of course, amused at Emma’s efforts to think of a way to address a person who was so obviously a lookalike, and an extremely good one at that.
‘Perhaps you could speak to us?’ Emma continued.
‘Yes, yes
of course
,’ the Prince replied, apologizing to the people around him. ‘Excuse me, I’m afraid I have to speak to this lady and her camera. I’ve enjoyed meeting you so much. You’ve all been
marvellous
.’
From the breast pocket of his waistcoat HRH produced some handwritten notes. He spoke first of the ‘much-maligned’ celebrity culture and of the need for community leaders and politicians to embrace its values rather than condemning them.
‘Canute could not turn back the tide and nor can we,’ he stated firmly. ‘If we cannot go where young people go, if we cannot engage with them in a language that they understand and on subjects that interest them, we risk being left behind. I believe that children are the future.’
For one horrified moment Emma thought that the Prince of Wales was about to launch into ‘The Greatest Love Of All’ but in fact His Royal Highness had been unaware that he was quoting from that
Chart Throb
favourite.
‘Young people have been intellectually and politically disenfranchised,’ the Prince continued. ‘Conventional news and current affairs programmes do not reach them, because they do not watch them. That is not their fault: the responsibility lies with the broadcasters, the politicians and those like me who have the privilege of high office. We have a duty to find a way of reconnecting with a lost generation.
‘I do not believe that young people are stupid,’ the Prince continued. ‘Nor do I think them shallow, self-obsessed and interested only in fame and fashion. They are the life’s blood of this country and they need to be taken seriously. I look forward very much to meeting with and talking to as many of the contestants here today as possible. I’m certain that I can learn something from them, just as I hope perhaps they can learn something from me. I imagine that many of them will not have considered the organic option when preparing their shopping lists, nor perhaps will many of them have given much thought to the urgent need to preserve our historic buildings and to consider the
human scale
in town planning. They may possibly not even be aware of the healing power of herbal infusions or the fact that in many of our inner cities young black boys are as likely to find themselves in prison as in employment. These are things I can share with them just as they can share their knowledge and their experience with me. In conclusion, of course I am mindful of the fact that this show is about having fun and there is nothing wrong with that. I may be heir to the throne but I’m also a pretty mean crooner and I look forward greatly to what I believe is called shaking my booty and strutting my funky stuff.’
‘OK, that’s great,’ Emma called out. ‘Thanks, that was brilliant.’
She realized he actually meant it. He truly believed what he was saying and that some significant part of his three- or four-minute speech would find its way on to the programme. How could anyone be so stupid? Emma knew exactly what part of his carefully prepared statement was likely to make it through the edit. The last sentence:
‘I may be heir to the throne but I’m also a pretty mean crooner and I look forward greatly to what I believe is called shaking my booty and strutting my funky stuff.’
Telly did not get much better than that. If Emma knew Calvin she was pretty sure that the public would be seeing the Prince of Wales utter that ridiculous line many, many times in the weeks to come. In fact she imagined it would probably form the core of the teaser trailers that would herald the upcoming season.
The Bites
Emma returned the Prince to his place feeling sad and shabby and her mood was in no way improved when Chelsie appeared with the news that the ‘Bite’ team were ready to rock.
‘What do you want first?’ Chelsie asked. ‘Clingers, Blingers or Mingers?’
Emma swallowed hard and felt once more for the comfort of her cigarette packet. Gathering the ‘Bites’, as they were called, was hard and emotionally draining work.
‘I
hate
doing this,’ Emma said.
‘Best bit,’ Chelsie replied. ‘You need to see it as a hunt. Besides, this is what they
want
. They’ve come here to get on the telly. The ones you should feel sorry for are the ones we
don’t
choose.’
‘They came here to sing,’ Emma replied. ‘Bites don’t get to sing.’
‘They came here to get on the telly and the ones we choose will get on the telly.’
It was true that Bite selection was the last chance rejected candidates had of national exposure. They were the amusing rejects, the one-shot wonders with which the shows would be stitched together. Anyone who had shown any
real
talent at Cling, Bling or Ming (or even Sing) had been picked up at their audition and sent to join the pre-selected group marked down for more concerted exploitation in front of the three judges.
‘Have I got time for a fag?’ Emma enquired.
‘I can do this on my own if you want,’ Chelsie replied.
Emma was not having that. She might have been finding her job increasingly draining but it was still her job, she was the senior researcher and Chelsie was the new girl.
‘No, let’s get on with it.’
Bite selection was tough work. It was no easy task to locate the shortest, fattest, ugliest people in the crowd and then persuade them they really wanted to announce to the world that Calvin Simms had missed his chance of discovering the next Robbie Williams. That, however, was what classic Bite selection was all about. The collection team would trawl the growing number of rejects, searching for those personalities who not only looked the most pathetic but who were also most likely to deliver an entertaining sentence or two which would make them look deluded and stupid. Those selected were then taken to the Bite Back Box and cajoled into making fools of themselves.
The important thing was to gain the trust of the victim. The Bite collector needed to form an instant sympathetic bond with their prey, assuring them that they felt their pain and empathized with their outrage. It was probably the part of the job that Emma hated most but Chelsie enjoyed it, viewing it as an amusing game, a challenge, and she had already proved herself particularly adept at it. Chelsie positively revelled in persuading middle-aged female midgets that it would be a good idea to claim to be a cross between Jordan and Nicole Kidman. She would lurk among the rejects and quickly assess their visual potential, then she would pounce.