Her face reddened. She strode towards the door and knocked on it. Receiving no answer, she knocked more loudly. She put her hand on the handle and half turned it. Then she stopped. Glancing round, she saw that a number of her ex-colleagues were looking at her.
Then she left the building. She went to Soho Square and sat down on a park bench, where finally the tears which she had fought for so long flowed freely.
Final Selection
Bang on the appointed hour Calvin burst into the room holding a coffee, a croissant and a cigarette all in the same hand.
‘Morning, all,’ he said, lighting his cigarette, which was of course illegal in a crowded workspace but nobody would have dreamed of complaining. Everybody knew that Calvin played by different rules. It was what made him so special. It was because he played by different rules that they were all in work, and not just any old work but working on the most successful and talked-about show on television.
‘Morning, Calvin,’ the team replied and there was applause and one or two whoops.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Calvin said impatiently. ‘We’re not in America, for God’s sake.’ He looked around at the smiling throng. ‘Right. Let’s get on with it, shall we? Trent?’
‘Yo,’ Trent replied, jumping up and bounding towards the end of the room where the audiovisual equipment had been set up.
‘Yay!’ squeaked one or two of the younger girls as he passed. ‘Go, Trent. Bring it on! Yay!’
The room burst into more applause. Everyone was excited. Months of painstaking research and development were about to blossom into another smash-hit series of
Chart Throb
, the biggest show on TV, and the room was alive with a back-to-school buzz.
‘Steady on, girls,’ said Trent, smirking. ‘Easy now. Keep it real. Lotta work to get through,
long
way to go.’
At twenty-eight Trent was the senior member of the team. He had been there at the beginning, three years before, when everybody had been saying that this kind of TV was just stupid and demeaning crap and that it was all wrung out anyway. It was impossible to imagine now but there had actually been a time when people had even questioned the commissioning of
Chart Throb
, asking whether television really needed another talent show. They didn’t question it any more, not now that it had saved terrestrial TV. Not now that even the Prime Minister admitted to having voted in the final of the previous series.
Not now that the
Prince of fucking Wales
was going to appear.
Impeccably suited and booted, Trent stood before the enormous plasma screen like the favoured son. His high-button collar, knitted tie and Dolce & Gabbana spectacles gave him the air of a hip intellectual, which in a way was what he was, as he had done an MA in FMZ (Film, Media and Zeitgeist) at Hull. He made a sweeping gesture towards the table on which lay four stacks of photos and biographies accompanied by a pile of DVDs. ‘Calvin. May I present to you our Singers, Clingers, Blingers and Mingers?’
‘
Prospective
Singers, Clingers, Blingers and Mingers,’ Calvin corrected. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, the only one who’s through for sure is his royal nibs but we’ll discuss him separately.’
A shiver of anticipation rippled across the crowded room. Of course everybody on the team was aware of the exciting news about the Prince but they had all been ordered not to discuss it. If at all possible, Calvin wished for the penny to drop live on air. His plans for a royal victory partly depended on creating the impression that the supposedly pampered and dilettante Prince was doing things the hard way.
‘Yo, boss,’ Trent replied, taking a DVD from the top of the Mingers pile and slipping it into his computer. There followed a brief pause while the machine opened its programme.
‘Might have helped to have had this prepared,’ Calvin said, drumming the table.
‘Yo,’ said Trent.
‘And stop saying “Yo” all the time. You’re not black and you don’t come from LA!’
‘Y . . . yes, boss,’ said Trent, laughing and trying not to look like he had just been punched in the face.
People in the room shifted nervously. Off screen, Calvin was normally an easy-going sort of person and not prone to ostentatious displays of bullying.
After a few seconds an image appeared on the plasma screen, an image of a plump but personable young woman frozen in the act of drawing breath.
‘Glasgow girl,’ Trent said. ‘Can sing. Sweet laugh. Cling, with Bling rising.’ He pressed play and the woman leaped into life.
‘Hi, Calvin,’ she said. ‘Hi, Beryl, hi, Rodney. My name’s Molly Townsend and I’m going to rock your ass!’
Then, screwing up her face, she launched into the opening bars of ‘The Greatest Love Of All’, explaining with a fearsome passion that in her opinion children were the future.
‘Fine, we’ll see her,’ Calvin snapped after the girl had sung a dozen words. ‘Pretty anonymous but could be a useful filler. Next.’
The girl up next also sang ‘The Greatest Love Of All’, if anything with an even more fervent commitment to the sugary lyric, attempting to put at least three notes (sometimes three octaves) into each word she uttered in the manner made famous by Mariah Carey.
‘Fine. Bring her in,’ Calvin barked angrily.
Many hopefuls followed in quick succession. Some were selected, others were equally quickly rejected, every decision taken within a verse and a chorus. There was no other way to do it. Calvin was well aware that he was almost certainly missing the odd potential winner, but even after the massive winnowing process that had preceded his arrival he still had an impossibly large number of prospects to consider.
‘Darth Death Raider,’ said Trent as a black-cloaked figure appeared. ‘Comical Minger, claims to be an alien born in a separate dimension to ours.’
Trent pressed play and on screen Darth Death Raider began to sing ‘Dead Babies’ by Alice Cooper.
‘How many Goth Mingers have you got for consideration?’ Calvin asked over the noise.
‘Not as many as we’d have liked,’ Trent replied. ‘I think this one could be quite useful. Very, very full of himself, genuinely thinks he’s scary and he’s got a pierced penis.’
‘Fine, we’ll take Darth. Next.’
Next up were Graham and Millicent.
‘Why’s he wearing the shades?’ Calvin enquired, viewing the nervous-looking boy and girl on the screen. ‘Wanker?’
‘Blind,’ Trent replied proudly.
‘Good.’
Whenever Calvin saw kids auditioning in sunglasses he dared to hope they might be blind but ninety-nine times out of a hundred they were just wankers trying to look like Bono. Wankers were OK of course, wankers could be very good telly, wankers were the backbone of the Christmas
Greatest Auditions Ever
DVD. But in the long run wankers were rarely anything more than one-gag wonders. Blind, on the other hand, if properly developed, could be TV gold. Blind was a
story
.
‘She’s
not blind too though, is she?’ Calvin asked, suddenly looking worried. ‘A sightless
couple
would be
way
too much for Saturday evening prime time. I mean that’s just weird. Too many issues. Too many questions.
Way
too many worms in that box.’
Trent glanced down, trying to find the appropriate notes. Graham and Millicent had been Emma’s prospects.
‘Uhm . . .’
‘No. She’s not blind,’ Chelsie chipped in from the back of the room.
‘Thank you.’
‘Good,’ said Calvin. ‘A blind boy and a sighted girl is human drama. A blind
couple
is a freak show.’
‘Yes, well, the girl is definitely sighted,’ Trent added unnecessarily, trying to draw the focus back from Chelsie, at whom he had noticed Calvin smiling.
‘Can they sing?’
It wasn’t the first question that the assembled employees expected Calvin to ask. On
Chart Throb
an ability to sing was not the central issue.
‘I spend my life trying to avoid singers,’ Calvin never tired of reminding them. ‘They accost me in the street, push tapes on me when I’m trying to eat my dinner! Break into song when I’m shagging them, for God’s sake! I am
stalked
by singers.
Loads
of people can fucking sing. If we wanted the best singers we could go and see fucking
Chicago
or
My Fair
fucking
Lady
or
The
fucking
Lion King.
London is full of sexy kids who can sing, they’re all queuing to get into the chorus of
Mamma Mia
and we don’t want ’em!’
What really mattered to Calvin was backstory and personality. But the one time singing really mattered to him was when real talent was
combined
with a great backstory; that was gold, that was
his
dream, to combine a heartbreaking family history with real talent. Such a thing would validate the entire series and silence for ever those carping critics who claimed that his great achievement was just a tawdry, manipulative pile of old schlock.
If these kids could
sing
, the entire Righteous Brothers back catalogue beckoned.
‘So can they?’ Calvin asked once more.
Once again Trent did not know the answer. Once more Chelsie did.
‘Yeah, they have really sweet voices and they’re lovely kids.’
‘Trent?’
‘Don’t get excited, boss. They can both hold a tune but the harmonies are thin, mate, very thin.’
For a moment Calvin seemed distracted, his mind elsewhere, and wherever that was was not a happy place. His mood remained dark.
‘Trent,’ said Calvin, ‘this is
Chart Throb
, not the Royal College of Music. If they can hold a tune and sing a harmony, no matter how fucking thin, this kid and his girlfriend can sing.’
‘She’s not really his girlfriend, I’m afraid.’
‘They’re just friends,’ Chelsie added.
‘Has she ever been his girlfriend?’ Calvin asked.
Trent leaped in once more. ‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘They spend a lot of time together, rehearsing their act.’
‘Trent,’ Calvin snapped, ‘read my lips. Has – he – ever – shagged – her?’
‘Uhm, well, I don’t know,’ Trent stuttered, coming to regret forcing his way back into the centre of Calvin’s focus. ‘We don’t normally go into their sex lives, do we, boss?’
Whatever it was that had dented Calvin’s normal good humour was still on his mind, for he responded ferociously.
‘There is no normal, Trent!’ he said, raising his voice despite the pin-drop silence all around. ‘I had thought that perhaps, after three years working with me, you might have worked that out. If there was a NORMAL I could get the IT department to write a selection program and we could run the applications through that. Then I would not have to spend vast amounts of money employing hordes of dimwits like you to turn up at final selection meetings with no fucking clue about the prospects they have chosen. Every case is different, sex matters
sometimes
! Does it matter with game old grannies singing “Daisy, Daisy”? No, I don’t think so. Does it matter with a single mum struggling to bring up three gorgeous little kids who are SO proud of her? Probably not, although maybe. Male Mingers trying to rap? No. Dwarf breakdancers singing “Eye Of The Tiger”? Not on my show. Cute boy bands that we drop at round three? No. But does sex matter with blind young men and their devoted, pretty female accomplices? Yes! Yes! Fucking YES! How are we supposed to plan a story for these two if we don’t know if they’re sleeping together?’
‘But . . . but . . .’ Trent began.
‘Now listen up, ALL of you.’ Calvin surveyed the room as every senior researcher, junior researcher, production assistant and secretary attempted to exude alertness so that the great man might be assured that they at least were giving him their most rapt attention.
‘What is this show
not
?’
The answer would have surprised the show’s legions of fans but everyone in the room knew it.
‘A talent show,’ they all said in virtual unison.
‘That’s
right
. We are
not
a talent show. What are we?’
‘We’re an
entertainment
show,’ his people replied.
‘My job, your job,
our
job is to
entertain
. If dumping the best singer is more entertaining than keeping him then that is what we do because the public are
not interested in the singing
. The singing is a necessary evil. The public are interested in the
singers
. The
people
singing the songs. Pop is dead. People think I’m so clever because the winners of our show will be signed to my record company. Oh wow! Look at me! I’m
such
a Svengali. Big deal. I get to make Joe Nobody’s one and only fucking record. Fuck that! I make more out of
five minutes of telephone voting
than I will out of the entire recording career of most of this year’s finalists. Yes. Think about it. He, she or they are worth more to me
before
they win than they ever will be after. Do you know what sort of sales it takes to get a number one these days?’