Chapter 16

It was a lovely day for our trip to Bognor Regis, about fifty miles away on the south coast. We didn’t spend a lot of time on the beach, it was far too stony, but we spent an hour strolling on the pier, had a walk round the town and spent some money in the amusement arcades. On the way back we stopped off to eat at a place that Phil had recommended., The Crown Inn at Chillingfold near Godalming. It was excellent, but pricey at nearly a hundred pounds for the two of us.

Friday was the day that I was finally called in for costume fittings. It was lucky, they all fit well and didn’t cause the dp to object on grounds of potential colour problems.

Monday saw my first meeting with the cast. I’d expected that it would be at Pinewood, but it was being held in a conference room in the hotel. Phil explained that by comparing the cost of hiring a conference room at the hotel with that at the studio, the hotel won. While I was in that, Cal had a day in the hotel spa being pampered.

A lot of the characters in the first film had been killed off and this one was going to concentrate on the space cadets at the academy rather than the adults. So, although there were some faces I recognised we were a pretty new bunch.

Apart from Phil and his assistant, Claire Burns, there were twelve of us in the room, the twelve main characters. Phil announced that where we had lines uttered by any other character who wasn’t present, they’d be read in by either him or Claire. Then we started the tedious process of introducing ourselves.

Phil rose to his feet, having already told us all who he was.

“Now I believe it is important that we all believe not just in our characters, but that we are our characters, so what I want everybody to do is introduce, not yourself, but your character to the rest of us. So, David there, I want you to give us all a picture of who Greg Paradise is, what his life is like, his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations. Or indeed, her dreams and aspirations for those of you of the female persuasion. As we go through rehearsals and filming, I’d like you all, please, to refer to each other by your character names, rather than your real ones, to get you all deep inside your characters.”

Personally, I thought it was a lot of pretentious nonsense, but I was willing to play along. The whole thing took over two hours, by which time we knew nothing about any of the newcomers to the cast and precious little about their characters. What we were was ready for lunch. Lunch was taken in the restaurant, as it would be every day while we were working in the hotel, which meant I could actually have lunch with Cal, sharing a table with Maisie West, who was playing my love interest, Sarah Noble and Steve Busby, my younger brother Steven. It was a first film for both of them, although Steven had done a couple of TV adverts and Maisie was currently enrolled at the Italia Conti school in London.

By the end of lunch I seemed to have picked up two apprentices and Cal and Maisie had exchanged mobile numbers. I suspected that Maisie was now Cal’s spy. After lunch Cal went back to being pampered in the spa, we went back to work.

As I walked back to the conference room, Steven caught up with me.

“Your girlfriend is gorgeous,” he said, “I don’t suppose she has a sister?”

“Nope, she’s an only child,” I replied, “I’ve got one though.”

“Yes, but not one that looks like Cal.”

“No, she doesn’t,” I said, “she’s more beautiful. And closer to your age. And has a boyfriend.”

“Damn,” he said, “I never have any luck.”

“Don’t worry, this time next year, you’ll be knee deep in girls back at school.”

“Yes, right,” he said sarcastically.

“You wouldn’t believe what being in a successful film can do for your popularity with the girls.”

“Is that all you boys ever think about?” Maisie asked.

“No, is it all you girls ever think about?” I replied.

“I don’t think she likes us,” Steven said.

“Well that should make for some interesting love scenes then.”

When we got back, Phil was waiting for us. Once we were all assembled he let us know what would be happening for the rest of the week. This afternoon we were going to do a simple readthrough of the script, then for the rest of the week, we’d start putting in some notes on how he wanted a particular scene to be played, how we’d deliver individual lines and maybe starting to put together ideas for bits of business.

“I want to make it clear that although I’ll be the director of this movie, it’s a collaborative effort, so, if you have an idea on how to make something better, even though it’s not in your part, don’t stay silent. We want this to be something unusual, a sequel that’s actually better than the original.”

We applauded him, with various levels of enthusiasm and he asked us all to open our script.

“Where’s your script, David?” he asked.

“On my laptop up in my room, don’t worry, I don’t need it.”

“Why do you think you don’t need it?” he asked.

“Because I know my lines, my cues and I know the action instructions attached to my part, it’s just the way I work.”

“All right,” he said, “but if we find that you’re holding us up, I’ll insist on you bringing it with you in future.”

“Fair enough,” I said, confident that it wouldn’t be me who caused any delays.

The estimated running time for the finished film was said to be two hours and forty minutes although that would probably be changed pretty often between now and the world premiere so I was guessing that the readthrough would probably take about two hours.

In the end it took three, because one or two of us had obviously not done anything more that have a cursory read-through of the script. I’ll admit that even I, who normally arrives word perfect made a few mistakes.

“Thank you for your efforts today, folks, even though you have given me a heck of a lot of homework to do tonight. So, let’s call it a day there and meet again tomorrow at nine. Although if any of you are in the bar around ten tonight, I’d be happy to let you buy me a drink.”

“That’s so very generous of you,” Pete Gregory, who was playing my father, replied, “whatever have we done to deserve it.”

“I’m sure you’ll be forgiven one day,” Phil said, “go on, go away before I find something else for us to do.”

We all headed to the lifts on the way back to our rooms.

When I arrived at mine, Cal wasn’t back from the spa yet. I decided to get a shower and changed, stripped off and headed into the bathroom.

Given that I was alone, I luxuriated in the shower, letting the water play over me for a long time, before turning it off and walking out of the cubicle. I picked a towel off the rack and began to towel myself dry. With just my hair left wet I walked out, nude and towelling my hair dry. As a result when I walked out I failed to notice the two other persons of the female persuasion sitting in the lounge area with Cal. The first hint I got was when am unfamiliar voice said “Well, there’s no need to ask what it is you see in him, that’s downright impressive.”

I almost ran back into the bathroom and nearly slammed the door behind me, took a robe down from the back of the door, put it on and walked back out.

I entered the room to whistles and clapping, ignored them, gathered up my clothes and returned to the bathroom.

Just a few minutes later I was out, fully dressed and took a seat next to Cal on the sofa.

“Well,” I said, “I hope you girls weren’t too disappointed with your welcome.”

“David,” Cal began to speak, “this is Manda and Trudy, I met them at the spa today. Ladies, my boyfriend, David James Barker. I believe you should pay up.”

I looked confused.

“We were talking about our boyfriends and what they do,” Manda said, “mine’s a medical student an UCLH, Trudy’s is an Engineering student up in Manchester. When she told us that hers was a film star we didn’t believe her, so we bet her a fiver each that you weren’t really. You are really.”

Each of them opened their handbags, took out a five pound note and handed it to Cal.

“Well,” I said, “at least I know how much I’m worth to you now.”

“Oh a lot more than a tenner, love,” she said, “I’ve seen your bank balance.”

“I know what my bank balance is,” I said, “it’s fifteen pounds and twenty-two pence, I got a balance from the ATM at lunchtime.”

As we spoke my phone rang. I pulled it out and looked at the caller ID, it was Sam in California.

“Hey Sam,” I said as I answered, “nice to hear from you. Is something wrong?”

“No,” he said, “I just got off the phone with Phil. He’s very impressed with you. Likes your sense of ethics.”

“Ethics, I thought that was a county just north of the River Thames,” I replied, “what specifically does he mean by it?”

“The fact that you showed up for the first read-through knowing your lines and coming in on cue at the right times.”

“Well I did do a couple of fluffs.”

“Accidentally on purpose?”

“No, entirely accidentally,” I replied.

“Good, I need to talk to you about Phil. Are you alone?”

“No, I have Cal and two other girls with me.”

“Three of them?” he queried, “isn’t that a little ambitious.”

“Jealous much?” I asked.

“I’ve had my moments, boy. Can you go somewhere that the strangers aren’t, what we discuss may let some details out that we don’t want publishing.”