The Sound of Laughter (20 page)

I used to go to the multiplexes all the time on my nights off. But it turned into a bit of busman's holiday, especially as I'd already seen most of the films at work, several times. The main draw for me was that they had a decent sound system and the Lido didn't. Instead of
having Pro Dolby Logic surround sound Bert just used to turn it up full blast and deafen the punters into thinking it was good.

One thing I did enjoy was building the huge cardboard stands that advertised the new releases just like the ones they used to have in the foyer of the Odeon. We also used to position them in the entrance and at the top of the stairs.

They'd come in very handy, especially in summer when the heat was unbearable. I'd sometimes remove a piece of card from the stand and use it as a makeshift fan. I never once realised how odd it must have looked to the customers, turning the corner to find me stood at the top of the stairs fanning myself with Gene Hackman's head.

That reminds me of the time we had a bloke come into the foyer who suffered from epilepsy. It was a Saturday afternoon, the place was packed out, we had over four hundred kids spread between two screens when this guy came in off the street. He looked pale and emaciated. He also had some spit in the corner of his mouth and was wearing denim. I thought he'd come to give us a quick rendition of 'This Ole House' but instead he just handed me a scrap of paper and said, 'I wonder if you can help me. I suffer from epilepsy and this is the number of my care –' and before he could say 'worker' he fell on top of me like a dead body in a film.

It took me all my strength to prop him up. Struggling, I shouted over to Jackie, 'Go and get Bert,' as he was the only qualified first-aider in the building. The only problem was he was four flights up and was just about to start showing
Jumanji.

'Hurry up, where's Bert?' I said. The guy was beginning to get heavy and, God forgive me, I dropped him. Well, what did you expect me to do? He was starting to jerk around in my arms. Anyway, the carpet was a thick shag so I don't think he hurt himself.

Bert arrived on the scene mid-fit and put the guy into the recovery position. Jackie called for an ambulance and his care worker. Luckily for us the foyer was empty but then I realised the time.

'Oh no!
Toy Story
's coming out in a minute. This foyer's going to be full of kids. What are we going to do?'

'Quick, get that thing,' Bert shouted, and before you could say 'Green Door' we were both carrying a ten-foot cardboard cut-out of Flipper across the foyer. We stood it upright in front of the fella and thankfully it almost covered him.

We were just in the nick of time. All the kids started pouring out of
Toy Story
and luckily they never noticed a thing. The paramedics turned up a few minutes later with the bloke's care worker.

'Where is he?' she said.

Guiltily, I just nodded towards the Flipper in the corner. All you could see was the guy's head sticking out at the end, next to 'coming this summer'. She must have thought we were sick.

We used to get some really thick customers at the cinema. They'd lean around the door in the foyer and say, 'Have you any idea what time the films start?' or 'Do you know what films you're showing tonight?' I wanted to drag them outside by their hair and show them the huge twenty-foot canopy displaying the film titles that you could see for miles around.

I remember someone coming up to the kiosk once. He looked at the admission prices, studied them for a second, then turned to me and said, 'Can you tell me if that's any good, that Senior Citizens?'

I said, 'It's like a Mexican version of
Cocoon,
now get out.'

I used to really enjoy telling people the endings of the films as they came in. Like the time when we were showing
Seven.
As I was ripping their tickets I'd turn to Connie and say, 'Hey, I didn't expect Gwyneth Paltrow's head in a box at the end, enjoy the film.' Or, when we were showing
The Sixth Sense,
'I was surprised when Bruce Willis turned out to be a ghost.' I know it was cruel but it helped pass the time.

I started to bring plays to work with me to read when
it was quiet. I had joined the American Literature Section at the Central Library in Manchester so I could borrow plays. I've always loved plays because I find them concise and to the point. They also tell you which characters are in the room. Novels confuse the hell out of me. I always have to go back a few pages just to find out who's where. I also never know who's speaking but with plays it's written there on the page, enter/exit, it's straightforward and you know where you are.

I must have read over twenty plays that summer and they taught me a lot about writing. Especially the plays of Neil Simon. I'd fallen in love with his writing after reading
The Odd Couple, Brighton Beach Memoirs
and
Last of the Red Hot Lovers.
I enjoyed the sarcastic humour and the wit. Plus I liked them because they were very thin books and I could easily conceal them from Mrs Hayworth in my trouser pocket.

Not that she ever said anything when she caught me sat at the top of the stairs reading. We'd come to an understanding, you see.

A few weeks earlier I'd been to the Warner multiplex in Bury and who should I see strolling out of
James and the Giant Peach?
Mrs Hayworth. Her face was a picture when she saw me standing outside the Gents mouthing the word 'Judas'. After all she'd said to us, preaching about the evils of multiplexes, making us all feel guilty
about going to the cinema and all the while she goes her-bloody-self. So I continued to read my plays that summer and Mrs Hayworth never once said a word.

How sad was I? Every few weeks I'd visit other jobcentres just to see what work was available. I'd go to Bury, Wigan and Manchester a couple of times a month and I'd always have a quick browse in the jobcentre while I was there. I was quite content working at the cinema but there's never any harm in looking, is there? In fact, if I hadn't bobbed into the jobcentre in Manchester when I did I wouldn't have got my last ever part-time job, working as a steward at the newly constructed Manchester Arena.

Being a steward, now that would be a crackin' job because basically I'd be getting paid to watch concerts. It'd also be good to be indoors. I'd started to hate going to outdoor gigs mainly because I was sick to death of being treated like shit.

The last one I'd gone to was U2 at Roundhay Park in Leeds and it was joke. The tickets cost a fortune and then there was the booking fee. We paid ten pounds to park in a primary school car park four miles from the gig and to make matters worse I'd had all my wisdom teeth taken out three days before and my cheeks were still severely swollen. I looked like Gail Tilsley bouncing about in the crowd. I really shouldn't have gone by rights but I didn't want to miss it.

We brought a load of food and drink with us but then some bollocks at the gate said we couldn't bring any of it in. We tried to argue the toss but it was pointless. They do that so you have no choice but to spend a fortune on their grub once you're inside.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. People were tipping their untouched food and drink into wheelie bins outside the gig. I thought, sod that, I'm not going to let the system beat me and so stubbornly I stood in front of the security blokes and downed all my food and drink in one. I felt like Paul Newman in
Cool Hand Luke.
And eighteen ham sandwiches and six litres of Tizer later I defiantly handed them my ticket, entered the grounds and threw up behind a tree.

Then once inside you're just herded like cattle. If you want to get close to the stage you've got to turn up to the gig a week before they've built it. You daren't go for a
piss because the Portaloos look like something out of
Tenko.
I ended up spending three quid and forty minutes queuing up for a warm can of Panda Cola and then by the time I found the others in the crowd I'd missed the support act. U2 eventually came onstage five hours later. We were so far away that I just ended up watching them on the enormous video screen. I'd have been better off sticking a portable telly at the bottom of the garden and watching a video of them live in concert, while sipping a warm glass of cola.

Toby Foster is a very good friend of mine and fantastic stand-up comedian. I remember him telling the story of how he took his girlfriend to that very same concert.

'I don't even like U2,' he said, 'but the girlfriend did and the whole day cost me a packet – tickets, merchandise, food and drink. The final insult came when Bono sang the only song I like, "Where the Streets Have No Name", and when he got to the chorus the cheeky bastard stuck his microphone in the air and shouted to the crowd, "You sing!" I shouted, "No, No, No, Bono, you've just cost me over a hundred quid . . . you fucking sing."'
^*8

And then when U2 finished we couldn't see anything. It was pitch black and we had to slide about in mud for ten minutes as we tried to find something that resembled an exit. Then to cap it all, as we wearily traipsed the four miles back to the car, I noticed hordes of scally kids sitting in backstreets feasting on confiscated food and drink out of upturned wheelie bins.

It was getting light when I fell into bed feeling as if I had been trampled on by a herd of African elephants. I quickly nodded off to sleep mumbling the words 'never again'.

I filled out my application to be a steward while I was in the jobcentre and within a week I was called to the Free Trade Hall in Manchester for an 'Inaugural Recruitment Campaign'. The place was packed. I'd never seen such a cross-section of people in one room at the same time. Every race, creed and colour that you could imagine was in the Free Trade Hall that day. Black, white, old, young, smackheads, hippies, ginger — it was like the enrolment day from
Police Academy.
And I quickly came to the conclusion that everybody who had completed an application form had been offered a job.

Marshall Entertainment were the Canadian company that had built the arena and their name was emblazoned everywhere. Banners, flyers, they even had specially
designed lighting gobos projecting the words 'Marshall Entertainment' on to the back of the stage. We took our seats and were each given an itinerary booklet the size of a small Argos catalogue. I thought, 'Jesus how long is this going to take? I was hoping to be home for
Countdown!
The lights slowly dimmed and dry ice drifted across the stage.

Then I heard the opening bars of 'Ride Like the Wind' by Christopher Cross (for what reason I'm still not sure). And as the music built from behind the curtain I saw the silhouette of a tall stocky man making his way towards a podium in the centre of the stage. The lights came up and the music faded clumsily. The man beamed a confident smile and hesitated as if anticipating applause – none came. Then there were a few embarrassing claps from other Marshall Entertainment employees at the back but they soon ceased when they realised they were on their own.

'Welcome, one and all, to this inaugural recruitment campaign for the new Manchester Arena.' He had a deep Canadian accent – I found it quite attractive, in a Paul Gambaccini meets James Earl Jones kind of way. I glanced down at page 1 of the bulky itinerary. It said, 'Opening Introduction with Marshall Entertainment's Director of Operations, Mike Gunner IV.'

'Manchester,' he continued, 'famous for many things
around the globe, like Manchester United.' There was a bit of a mixed reaction to that mainly from the Manchester City supporters.

'Famous for its weather, in particular its rain,' he laughed – alone.

He was starting to struggle a bit with this crowd and from where I was sat I could just make out the beads of perspiration as they began to roll down his forehead.

'And Manchester – famous for Boddington's Bitter.'

There was a huge cheer and you could see the relief in his smile, finally having made a positive connection.

'Yes, that's right Boddington's Bitter and just like Boddington's it's my belief that you too are the cream of Manchester.' Nice pun. 'You have all been individually chosen, hand-picked from thousands of prospective employees.' I could have sworn I heard someone cough out the word 'bollocks' on the row behind me.

We were in there for what seemed like for ever. And they could have condensed all the information contained in their itinerary booklet on to the back of a fag packet for all the good it was. I even nodded off at one point. They ended by subjecting us to an excruciating training video from Canada – 'How to Give Customers a Solid Gold Service'. It was corny and clichéd, with all the 'dos' in colour and all the 'don'ts' in black and white. Every time one of the 'don't' scenarios
came up all the wannabe stewards laughed. I could see Mike Gunner IV and his associates looking increasingly worried at our responses. Why were we laughing at all the bad scenarios? The cream of Manchester my arse.

We were told to reconvene a week later for an initial training course at a secondary school in the centre of Manchester. We had the place to ourselves as the kids were off on their big summer holidays. The weather was glorious outside and I found it quite claustrophobic being cooped up inside a classroom for three days listening to a couple of clowns from a specialist security company called Live Sec.

Their names were Sean Bannon and Chris Choi and they'd been brought in to teach us the basic skills required for being a steward. Both in their late thirties, Sean was a completely bald Geordie, with no eyebrows or nasal hair, nothing. Chris, on the other hand, was hair personified. He had it draping down over his muscular shoulders. He spoke in a deep South Yorkshire accent and could have passed for an ageing rocker himself if it hadn't been for a very gay-looking handlebar moustache that sat perched on his top lip.

The way they delivered their spiel I could tell they'd done it a million times before. They had it completely off pat, even the bad jokes. It was slick and polished to perfection and I particularly liked it when they handed
back and forth between each other, like so:

'Now, what do you do if a member of the public alerts you to a suspicious package in the arena? Sean?'

'Thanks, Chris. Well, if a member of the public does alert you to a suspicious package the first thing you should do is tell your supervisor straight away because time saves lives, isn't that right, Chris?'

'That's right, Sean. Get your supervisor on the scene and please, whatever you do, don't try and handle the situation on your own. Sean?'

'Chris is right and one thing you must never do is run out on to the concourse shouting, "I think I've found a bomb." It'll cause just one thing: instant panic. Isn't that right, Sean?'

'That's right, Chris.'

Our heads were twisting from left to right and back again. It was like watching the men's semi-finals at Wimbledon listening to them talk.

Sean continued: 'I knew a young lad who tried to be the hero and he's now dead. You won't get any medals from the Grim Reaper. So don't be a hero, right, Chris?'

'Correct, Sean. Nobody's holding out for a hero apart from Miss Bonnie Tyler. Do the right thing and tell your supervisor straight away and they'll QQC the situation – Quickly, Calmly, Quietly.'

Quickly, calmly, quietly wasn't QQC but they were in mid-flow and I didn't have the balls to stop them. What they were saying was comedy gold and I couldn't write it down quick enough. My hand was aching. They even commended me at one point for my eagerness at taking notes.

'You've been warned,' Sean continued. 'Don't come running to us when you've had your legs blown off. Chris?'

We covered the lot over those three long days – evacuations, first aid, frisking. We spent a considerable amount of time learning how to conduct a complete and thorough body search.

'When we frisk the public what primarily are we looking for? Any ideas?'

An oldish bloke in front of me stuck his hand up and said, 'Knives? CS gas?'

Sean and Chris exchanged worried looks.

'Er... not really, mate, we're going to be hosting a lot of family events at the arena,
Disney on Ice, Postman Pat,
that type of affair,' said Sean.

I had to admit that I was still dubious about some of the other potential stewards. There were some right oddballs in the room, including a bloke who was sat by the side of me. He was very sinister-looking with dark straggly hair and a long black overcoat. I mean, what was
the crack wearing that? It was over seventy degrees in the shade and here he was looking like a cross between Edward Scissorhands and the Child Catcher from
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
I think he was just getting a kick out of being around a school, albeit an empty one.

We broke for an hour and then continued with frisking the public after lunch.

'There's one thing you've got to be vigilant for when frisking the public. One thing that has become the archenemy of every steward and performer in the world. Tell them what it is, Chris.'

And before Sean had finished his sentence Chris had already written two words on a blackboard behind him: 'Flash Fotography' (and yes, he did spell it like that).

'People might think we are being over the top when we talk about the dangers of flash photography but we've seen the dangers first-hand, haven't we, Sean?'

'We have indeed, Chris, many times. I'll give you a scenario. Somebody tries to take a photograph at a live event, a husband, a lover, whatever, and "bang", one flash, in all innocence. But what they fail to understand are the repercussions that single flash can cause. Because now the floodgates have been opened. Isn't that right, Chris?'

'All hell has broken loose, because once one does it, they all do it. We did a concert in Stockholm recently
with one major artist, I'll not give his name away but let's just say, "Wake up, Maggie". He was onstage parading an assortment of his classic hits when a member of the public who'd smuggled a camera into the arena let rip with a flash, and before you could say "Hot Legs" all hell had broken loose. It went flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash . . .'

He carried on chanting the words aggressively as if reliving the whole experience, with his eyes glazed over. Like veterans do in those films when they get flashbacks to Vietnam. Then just as things were becoming uncomfortable, Sean continued in an effort to snap Chris out of his trance.

'The whole concert hung by a thread and all for what? A selfish snapshot, Chris.'

'Luckily the band carried on and saved the day by playing a medley of his greatest hits. So please do be vigilant for photographic equipment at all times, it's your biggest enemy,' Chris said as Sean chalked the letters 'NME' on the blackboard behind him.

God only knows how they must be coping with all these camera phones today. Perhaps the inevitable tsunami of camera phones has caused Sean and Chris to leave the business altogether. Who knows?

'Now, when the public are entering the arena, men search the men and the women search the women. I
know there's probably a few of you who'd like it the other way round, but hey, hands off.' Then they both laughed. It was a bit of humour that they'd obviously banked on in the past but it fell on deaf ears that day and the tumbleweed that blew through the room was excruciating.

Sean quickly tried to pick things up. 'But seriously. . . when the public enters the arena always ask them politely to open their handbags and for God's sake never, I repeat never, put your own hands inside. Isn't that right, Chris?'

'That's correct, Sean. Always get the public to search their own bags because for all you know there could be a hypodermic needle or anything in there.'

I thought, Jesus, that's cheery. All I wanted to do was watch some free concerts and now there's a risk of HIV.