‘You know what? You owned that song.’
And then Keely turned to Rodney for his comments. There were laughs, cheers and boos at this because by now it had become something of a
Chart Throb
ritual that Rodney would damn Iona as much as his two colleagues had praised her. Tonight, however, he threw caution to the winds and went off script. Avoiding looking at Calvin, whom he knew he was disobeying, he launched into a carefully prepared speech.
‘Iona,’ he said, ‘I have something to say now that I know will surprise our viewers but that I hope may not surprise you so much. The whole world knows that for this entire series I have been very, very hard on you, I’ve said things that have hurt you and that perhaps you thought you did not deserve. Do you want to know why I did that? Do you, Iona?’
‘Because you’re an idiot, Rodney?’ Calvin said in a steely tone as if warning him to be very careful.
‘I did it because I respect you, Iona. I wanted to put you on your mettle, to test you, to make you prove to the world just how tough you could be, just how fine an artist you are. Everybody knows that last year I supported you wholeheartedly so if I’d just done so again nobody would have taken any notice. They would have thought I was saying it out of guilt and my praise would have been meaningless. By dissing you as I have, I’ve enabled you to show the world you don’t need anybody but yourself. That was a brilliant performance, Iona. ‘The Skye Boat Song’ is a tough song to own but you owned it, Iona. You’ve owned every song you’ve ever sung.’
There was a brief silence in the studio before it erupted into cheers and applause.
‘Is there anything you would like to say to Rodney, Iona?’ Keely asked.
Iona appeared to have tears in her eyes.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for that, Rodney.’
Next there was an advertising break, during which Rodney seized the opportunity to apologize to Calvin. He was so scared he could scarcely look him in the eye.
‘I’m sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘I just couldn’t stick to the script today, not with what I have to say later.’
‘Well, you know that normally I would consider going off script a sacking offence, Rodney,’ Calvin said sternly.
‘I know, I know.’
‘But I must say it was a surprisingly clever effort. I didn’t think you had it in you and as it happens I’m happy for you to start supporting Iona now because I don’t want her to win and the quickest way to alienate a performer is usually to have you support them.’
‘Thanks, Calvin. You’re a mate.’
After the break it was the turn of the Prince of Wales. The show was going out on the Saturday night before Remembrance Sunday and in a fit of inspiration Calvin had decreed that HRH should sing ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’, dedicating it to ‘our brave soldiers, the ordinary lads and lasses who pay the price for the vainglorious folly of old men like me’. It was a master-stroke, and the studio erupted.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ gushed Beryl, ‘you owned that song so big time it wasn’t funny and that’s coming from a mum.’
‘Your Royal Highness,’ Rodney raved, his eyes wet with tears, ‘you are a true star and you have a big recording career ahead of you.’
‘Your Royal Highness,’ said Calvin, putting on his sensible and honest face, ‘when you came into this competition quite frankly I didn’t rate your chances. I was wrong. You’ve worked hard. You’ve listened to the judges’ comments, you’ve learned and you’ve grown and you know what? I think you could go all the way.’
‘Your Royal Highness,’ said Keely, ‘great comments from all three judges there. Is there anything you would like to say in reply?’
‘Well, they
are
kind, Keely, aren’t they?’ the Prince replied. ‘I’m sure I don’t deserve a word of it but
thank you
!’
During the next advertising break, Emma managed to grab hold of Calvin when he was briefly able to leave the judging platform.
‘Oh Calvin,’ she said and there were tears in her eyes, ‘that was brilliant. Just perfect. I really do think you’re doing something wonderful and empowering here. Something amazing. I mean isn’t it incredible that the only programme in Britain that is actually attempting to show the next head of state in a positive and thoughtful light is
Chart Throb.
It’s actually quite noble. You should be very proud.’
‘Oh, I am.’
‘And I’m proud too because I’m the one who made you do it.’
‘Yes, you are, darling.’
With that, he put his arms round her and kissed her in full view of the audience, which of course earned a huge cheer.
‘Easy, tiger. You haven’t won yet,’ said Emma, but she was clearly thrilled.
There being so few contestants remaining, each one of them was expected to sing twice. Calvin had ensured that the Quasar’s second effort did him no favours. The ex-stripper’s whole appeal was based on his exuberance and an amiably oafish lack of talent, so Calvin’s suggestion that he cover Sondheim’s sensitive torch song of sadness and regret, ‘Send In The Clowns’, was certainly a mistake. The Quasar had of course recognized this himself.
‘That song is boring, geeza,’ he had complained to Trent when given his instructions. But, like everybody else, he was bound by the watertight contract he had signed and must do as he was told.
Iona fared better, despite Calvin’s efforts at sabotage. She had won the nation’s heart as the sweet-voiced country girl and so Calvin had decreed that she be given The Sex Pistols’ ‘Anarchy In The UK’ to perform in her last appearance in the hope that this would alienate her mumsy fan base. In fact she played it kookily and with a sense of humour, proving that she could rock, and the song was well received. Calvin was not overly concerned, however, for he knew he had an ace up his sleeve.
When Keely brought on the Prince of Wales for his second performance, Calvin announced that before the Prince sang he felt it was his duty to pay tribute to the courage that the heir to the throne had shown by facing his critics and coming on the show at all.
‘And more than that, Your Highness,’ he said, ‘I want to thank you for the way you have nurtured and cared for all the contestants throughout this whole process.’
‘Oh
pish
,’ the Prince mumbled, clearly rather embarrassed.
‘No, it’s true. You have been like a father figure to us all and, although so much that you have done must remain unreported as I know you would wish it, I do want to say that little Sam has now got a date for his bone marrow transplant and I believe that to have been as a result of the advice his mother received from your office, which incidentally strikes me as the way community leaders
ought
to behave in this country but rarely do . . .’
Calvin was forced to stop briefly for applause that for once Gary and Barry did not have to grind out of the audience.
‘I should also like to say,’ Calvin continued, ‘that Bree, the victim of domestic violence whom viewers may have seen His Royal Highness counselling in an earlier show, is now in secure accommodation and has found, let us hope, some modicum of peace.’
In the control booth Chelsie was stunned and thrilled at Calvin’s audacity.
‘He means she’s back in the refuge that I found her in,’ she gasped.
Meanwhile, in the studio, in a last, brilliant piece of theatre Calvin summoned Troy up on to the stage.
‘And finally,’ Calvin said, ‘I think somebody wants to wish you luck.’
Troy, who had been well rehearsed and knew which side his bread was buttered, threw his arms round the Prince before announcing to the audience that he now had a reading age of eight! The crowd cheered and cheered, imagining that this was a mighty leap forward for the lad and the result of royal reading lessons. Emma too shouted and clapped until her voice hurt, as unaware as everyone except Calvin and Chelsie that Troy had had a reading age of eight when he had first entered the competition.
After that the Prince scarcely needed to sing at all, but his performance of ‘The Greatest Love Of All’, delivered in his pleasant light baritone, was rapturously received. Keely could scarcely calm the audience down enough to ask for the judges’ comments. Beryl spoke first and she had clearly managed to overcome any moral objections she might previously have harboured regarding blood sports.
‘You know what, Your Royal Highness?’ said Beryl. ‘You are so sexy, sensitive and gorgeous it isn’t funny. I
love
older men. I’d like to . . . I want to . . . I wish I could ooooohhh.’ Beryl was momentarily lost for words so instead she stuck her tongue out and wiggled it about. ‘If I wasn’t a faithful wife and working mum,’ she said, recovering herself somewhat, ‘then watch out, mister! In fact if you fancy a threesome with me and Serenity then get yourself over to our place big time because you were utterly fantastic. You owned that stage. You owned that song. You know what? You went out there and you rocked my world.’
Rodney was equally effusive.
‘You know what?’ he said. ‘You went out there and you owned it tonight. The audience love you, you’re a natural entertainer. I think you have a big recording career ahead of you.’
Calvin, realizing that his job was done and not wishing to gild the lily, confined himself to a few words of simple praise and Keely announced that the voting lines were now open.
There now followed a half-hour’s pause in the programme while the news was broadcast and the phone voting was conducted. Calvin and Emma retired to Hospitality, leaving Gary and Barry to maintain the audience at a fever pitch of anticipation. Emma looked hard for Shaiana as she and Calvin left the main auditorium but she was lost in the crowd.
‘Forget her,’ said Calvin. ‘I’ve told you, worrying about these people is a sickness. You simply cannot let it get to you.’
The hospitality room, although large, was crowded and unpleasant. Every reality TV star and member of the wrong end of a boy band seemed to have pitched up and the noise was horrible. On top of that, Beryl and Priscilla Blenheim had finally found each other and neither of them seemed very pleased about it.
‘I am not selling my accessories through you,’ Priscilla was shouting. ‘They are my dildos, I designed them . . .’
‘Ha!’ Beryl snapped back.
‘Well, I was fucking
there
when they
were
designed, which shows I fucking care about what I put my fucking name to. Unlike
you
, Mom, fucking whoring yourself to every fucking supermarket chain in Britain.’
Serenity tried to intervene but as she’d had a drink she found it impossible to manoeuvre her lips with sufficient dexterity to make herself understood.
‘Shut up, Serenity, you’re pissed, which is not a good look for a recovering alcoholic!’ Beryl shouted. ‘Now have you got all the arrangements made for tomorrow, Priscilla?’
‘Yes, Mom! How many times!’
‘And you’re sure this guy’s good? We start
The Blenheims
in one week and I do not want to be on TV with two black eyes and a throbbing twat.’
‘Mom, a few jabs of Botox, a coupla stitches round the eyes, a fold or two of new labium – what’s to heal?’
The Final, Part Two
‘In third place,’ said Keely, relishing the enormous pause that had become something of a trademark for her, ‘it’s the Quasar!!’
The Quasar took the microphone and screeched, thrust forward his pelvis and performed his trademark drop split, then he thanked God, Jesus Christ, his mum and dad, his fans, Baby Jesus and all the children of the world, and committed his life to the ideal of happiness and the spreading of it, particularly, he hoped, to children.
‘I will now announce the performer that the public have voted as this year’s runner-up,’ Keely proclaimed in her most portentous tone, and then after a long pause, she added, ‘after the break.’
This was an old
Chart Throb
trick to keep the audience in suspense a little longer, but by now the judges at least knew who the runner-up was and Rodney in particular could not wait for her name to be announced. As the minutes ticked by, he fidgeted like a nervous schoolboy. It was a very long break, and as this was the peak moment of the most popular show on television, advertising space was at a premium. In the studio Gary and Barry were screaming themselves hoarse in their efforts to keep the crowd in a frenzy of excitement.
Eventually the broadcast began again and after another outrageous series of pauses finally the moment arrived.
‘The runner-up is . . . Iona!’
There were cheers and tears. Iona’s family were pictured in the front row jumping up and down and screaming and crying. Iona was crying too as she also thanked God before going on to pay tribute to old bandmates without whom nothing would have been possible and expressed the hope that this result might draw a line under the difficult experience that she and the other members of Shetland Mist had had the previous year.
When Iona had finished speaking, Keely stepped forward once more.
‘Which means that this year’s Chart Throb is—’
‘One moment, Keely,’ Rodney shouted from the judges’ table. ‘I have something to say.’