The Dead Side of the Mike (11 page)

Charles looked at the table. ‘It's obvious what some of this stuff's for. I mean that bell on a spring must be for a shop doorbell.' Keith regarded this as too obvious to be worthy of confirmation. ‘And these buzzers are for other doorbells . . . And the telephone's self-explanatory. But what the hell's that for?'

He pointed at what appeared to be a shoe box covered in brown paper and sticky tape. He had judged his quarry right. The opportunity to demonstrate his skills to the ignorant prompted some reaction from Keith, who picked up the box.

‘It's for marching. Listen.' He placed one hand on either side and shook it rhythmically.

The sound was startlingly like a squad of soldiers on a parade ground and Charles said so. ‘Is that how you usually do the Effect?'

‘Yes. Cheaper than getting a real lot of soldiers into the studio and the BBC's always keen to find the cheapest way. It's just sand and gravel inside. You can do all kinds of other Effects with it. Listen . . . Halt. Or, if you like, a ragged halt. Stand at ease. Present arms.'

He illustrated each order with the appropriate twitch of the box and, for a second, looked mildly interested in what he was doing. ‘Of course,' he said, ‘this studio isn't really designed for Effects. Some of the Drama studios have got steps and gravel pits and rows of different sorts of doors and stuff. I used to do a lot of Spot before I got into the Radio Two group.'

He seemed to lose interest. He put down the marching box and his expression of lethargic distaste returned.

‘That's for a bit where the family goes to the holiday camp run on military lines?' Charles tried to keep the conversation going.

‘Yes.' Keith expelled the word as a long sigh, expressing what he thought of the script and life in general.

‘It must be an interesting job,' Charles offered.

Keith just looked at him, and he backed down. ‘I mean, not all the time, but it must be quite interesting sometimes. And no doubt it's a step in the right direction of production if that's what you want to do.'

‘For the last six months,' Keith reflected bitterly, ‘I have been working as a producer. This week I'm back here banging doors and rattling tea-cups. Not even doing music, which is what I specialise in.'

‘Oh, did something go wrong?' asked Charles, deciding not to appear to know too much.

‘Not really. It was just a six-month attachment, working for Radio Two. Now I have to sit and wait for a job to go up on the board and apply for it and . . . oh, shit, it goes on for ever.'

‘Did you enjoy producing?'

‘I liked the music sessions. The rest was okay. The money was nice. Mind you, you're really cheap labour on an attachment.'

‘Oh well,' said Charles comfortingly, ‘I expect a job will come up soon.'

‘I suppose, if I'm still here, I'll apply for it.'

‘If you're still here . . .?'

‘There is a world of commercial-music production of which the BBC seems unaware. In fact, so far as I can tell, the BBC is a conspiracy devoted to keeping from people their market value in the world outside.'

‘Perhaps, but a lot of people seem to like working for it. Commands strong loyalty.'

‘Not from me it doesn't. And I'm not going to let the BBC or anything else stand in the way of what I should be doing.' This outburst had a sudden intensity. Keith Nicholls was very ambitious and had the share of ruthlessness that that kind of ambition needs.

Charles steered the conversation into calmer water by pointing at another of the Spot Effects on the table. It was a small box, about the size of a clarinet case, painted in black and yellow stripes. There was a latch from which a padlock had been released.

Keith picked it up with a cynical grin. ‘That is here because the bloody writer of this abortion can't think of a pay-off to the camping holiday scene. If you can't keep the audience laughing then at least keep them awake.' He flipped back the lid to reveal a very businesslike revolver.

‘That looks distressingly real,' observed Charles.

‘Oh, it is.' Keith picked the gun out of its padding and pointed it at him. ‘It's the real thing all right.' Charles knew the young man was only fooling about, but there was an unpleasantly hard glint in his eye as he looked along the barrel.

‘Presumably you only get blanks with it.'

‘Oh yes, it's no fun. Just a bloody nuisance actually. You have to get it signed out of the safe in the Effects Library and you aren't meant to let it out of your sight while you've got it. Don't know why, the barrel's spiked, so even if you got a real bullet, it couldn't do much harm.'

‘That's a relief. Otherwise you could have some nasty accidents.'

‘Hmm.' Keith weighed the gun gently in his hand. Then, in a new, distracted voice, he said, ‘I don't think there are any accidents really. I think everything's meant.'

The Paris had once been a cinema and its layout as a radio studio made no attempt to hide that origin. Set below street level, the main studio area contained about 350 seats facing a deep bare stage, with grey curtains at the back, where once the cinema screen had been. Behind the audience, beneath the former projection box, was the Control Cubicle. Through a glass window, from behind the long and sophisticated mixing desk, the producer and senior SM looked down towards the stage. The back row of seats was about two yards from the producer.

However, on that Monday lunchtime, the nearest member of the audience was a good fifteen yards away. Only three and a bit rows at the front were full, and those present sat with the resignation of a geriatric specialist's waiting room (where, judging from their appearance, they probably spent most of their time). The only advantage of their age was that they were well qualified to remember the days when ‘This is Stockin knockin' was on everyone's lips. (Charles, who had never heard the catch-phrase before, secretly wondered whether such days had ever existed, save in Dave Stockin's imagination.)

Tickets for radio recordings were free, and so the shows built up a repertory company of regulars. (No, actually it was not the shows that built up the following; it was the studios. The regulars turned up
whatever
was on.)

Because it was now mid-July, the regulars couldn't be accused of being there for their usual reason, which was to sit in the warm for an hour, but they still presented a somewhat motley appearance. One or two were just well organised pensioners, taking advantage of free entertainment, but others manifested more positive eccentricity.

Charles was given a run-down of who to expect from the Drama Rep. actress. There was the Indian who wore a Union Jack waistcoat and socks and toted round a polythene carrier full of framed photographs of the Duke of Edinburgh. There was a beaming Spanish matron, who didn't understand a word of any of the shows, but applauded all the music links. There was a tall intense lady who sat in the front row eating bananas and who always tried to get every member of the cast and production staff to autograph her bank paying-in book.

And there was The Laugh. A lady in late middle age, who must have been destined at some point to win the Radio Personality of the Year Award, so great had her contribution been to the cause of radio Light Entertainment. Not a comedy show was broadcast without her trademark, a long trilling cackle, like a demented duck being goosed by a swan. Many comedians and personalities had suffered the diminishing effects of that laugh. Some had tried to defeat it (‘All right, lady, you lay 'em, I'll sell 'em', or ‘I'd call in the plumber to have a look at that, madam', or ‘I think you got the wrong date – the bullfrogs' convention is on Tuesday'), but The Laugh could not be deflected and always triumphed. It became such a regular feature of radio comedy programmes that the listening public might have missed it if removed.

Needless to say, its effect was most devastating in a small audience. There was no hope that it might be swamped by sound from the handful assembled for
Dad's the Word.
And, with an uncanny instinct for immortality, The Laugh was always seated directly under one of the audience microphones.

Charles first heard The Laugh in action when Nick Monckton went on to do his warm-up. The poor young man looked even more nervous as he plunged through the curtains to face the senescent apathy of the audience and welcome them to the Paris Studio. But maybe the reaction to his first line would relax him. He said, ‘Welcome to the Paris Studio' and he got a laugh, which should have been an encouraging start. Unfortunately, the laugh he got was The Laugh, and it seemed to fluster him more than ever.

When Charles heard it, he started to giggle. Childishly and uncontrollably. When Nick introduced him and he came on stage to a palsied rattle of applause, it seemed funnier still. The sight of three rows of Old Age Pensioners sunk in their seats and clapping like glove puppets soon had tears running down his cheeks. He sat on his chair and stared fixedly at the script; that should have been enough to stop anything from seeming funny. But for the next five minutes his eyes streamed, he let out spasmodic snorts and his chest ached from the effort of control.

Nick Monckton told the audience that it was a funny show and that they should laugh and, if they didn't understand a joke, they should still laugh and work it out on the way home, and, if someone raised both arms to them, it was a signal for them to clap and not to get up and leave. Then he introduced the ‘star of our show, Dave Stockin' and went off ‘to see how Max is getting on in the box.'

Dave Stockin walked up to the microphone and said, ‘This is Stockin knockin', which was greeted by a death rattle of applause. He then told the audience that it was a funny show and that they should laugh and, if they didn't understand a joke, they should still laugh and work it out on the way home, and, if someone raised both arms to them, it was a signal for them to clap and not to get up and leave. He then told three jokes, two slightly smutty and one extremely unwholesome. The audience laughed more warmly, in expectation of further filth (an expectation soon to be dashed once the cast started wading through the script, which was as clean as a whistle – and about as funny).

Dave Stockin then, to show what a warm, lovable personality he was, said, ‘Finally, there's one more person who I got to introduce to you, a very important person, who's a great chum of all of us here. This is a BBC show and a BBC show can't start without a genuine BBC announcer and we're very lucky to have with us today a very fine announcer, one of the best, who's a terrific fellow and someone we've all known for years – ladies and gentlemen, will you put your hands together and welcome – Mr Roger Beckley!'

Dave Stockin gestured off towards the curtain and a young man in a tweed suit entered diffidently. Stockin threw an arm round his shoulders and led him to the microphone, where the young man said, ‘Roger Ferguson is my name actually'.

The recording started. The bouncy signature tune, sounding like all the other bouncy signature tunes on the mood music LPs from which they have been selected from time immemorial, bounced out of the speakers, the announcer made his announcement with a little chuckle in his voice (because he had been told this was Light Entertainment) and the script trickled out.

The audience didn't find it any funnier than Charles had. But they were willing to laugh and react, if only someone told them where the laughs should be. They were fine on applause; every time someone raised their hands, they clapped long and vigorously, with the result that scenes which had gone through without a titter would be greeted at the end by a huge ovation. But laughs were more difficult to orchestrate. Dave Stockin worked very hard and found he could get some by sticking his tongue out or clutching his crotch on relevant lines. He was obviously quite capable of dropping his trousers if necessary.

It was a strange experience for Charles, something his acting career had not up until that point encompassed. Working from a script was one thing, and playing to an audience was another. It seemed odd to see actors standing at a microphone reading to a live (well, almost) audience.

Sharing the microphone with Dave Stockin was also a novel experience. In fact, sharing was not the appropriate word; it was a question of elbowing in and raising one's voice or being totally inaudible. Either because he was a complete egotist or, more charitably, because he was used to doing stand-up routines in clubs, Dave Stockin worked directly in front of the microphone and very close. This meant that the rest of the cast were put at a considerable disadvantage. The microphone was live over a fairly limited arc, most of which the comedian hogged. The rest of the cast were increasingly pushed round to the flanks, on to the dead side of the mike, where their words made no impression.

The regular cast members coped well with the hazard. Everything is experience, and they had learnt to throw their lines in over Stockin's shoulders, bobbing in and out like small fish scavenging from a shark's teeth. Charles did his best to imitate the trick.

He gazed out over the audience. It was impossible not to see them all. Unnerving. Like his only experience of Theatre in the Round,
The Lady's Not For Burning
at Croydon (‘Last night an audience with a hole in the middle was treated to a play with a hole in the middle'—
Croydon Advertiser
).

And then he saw a face he recognised. Sitting in the audience was Mark Lear.

It felt odd to have given a performance (however minimal) and be finished by lunchtime. He remembered the same emptiness after doing his one-man Thomas Hood show, on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. And he remembered from then that the best way of resolving the mood was to have a drink.

The watering place for people working at the Paris is called The Captain's Cabin. There Nick Monckton bought a huge round of drinks, terrified of missing out the most menial member of the cast or production staff. Dave Stockin then took him to one side and lectured him on why the show would be better if he had more lines and the rest of the cast had less.