“I will talk and Hollywood will listen
See them bow at my every word
Mr Spielberg look just what you’re missing
Doesn’t that seem a little absurd
Bow at my every word”
Williams/Chambers
Throughout our married life together , my Soulmate and I have a few clearly defined roles. There are many and varied ways that these roles can be observed, but in essence they all boil down to dependence on her , and her care for me. A simple illustration is whenever we get a new electrical appliance, such as a television. I will open the box like a seagull attacking a bag of chips. I will place it on a tiny table designed purely for the purpose of holding a television. I will manfully connect a cable from the television to the electrical socket, and I will ask everyone to step back so that I can figure out how to connect the Sky box to the television. Then I will have a cup of tea. After my cup of tea I will throw the empty cardboard box, and all the broken polystyrene blocks, behind the sofa, and arrange the curtain so that they can’t be seen from the door.
Then I will sit down and using the remote as if it’s a Star Trek phaser ‘set to stun’ , switch on the television.
Nothing will work.
I will call my Soulmate and say that there is something wrong with the television. She will ask where are the instructions, and I will say there weren’t any. She will ask where the empty box is and I will say that our cat , Tuna, was playing with it behind the sofa. She will then find the instruction booklet in the box , she will ask me to make her a cup of tea, and when I come back from the kitchen with her cup of tea she will be watching a film called ‘I Married An Idiot’ on the Hallmark channel.
I will put away the box , after I have popped all of the bubbles in the bubble wrap, and my Soulmate will place the instruction booklet with all of the other instruction booklets in a box on the bottom shelf of the press with all of the other practical things which are like Kryptonite to me.
I do not follow directions.
This is not a rebel stand, I just get bored and easily distracted.
Oddly this has not prevented me from becoming one of our Parkrun Directors. But in that case I’m giving instructions rather than receiving them, and I quite like that….actually I like that a LOT !
Last Saturday I was involved in filming a scene from the television series Bad Sisters. I hasten to add that this was not a scene in the Apple TV series ‘Bad Sisters’ with Sharon Horgan , but a scene like a scene from Bad Sisters but ‘starring’ a group of enthusiastic, and as it turned out , quite brilliant first time actors, and me.
It all started a few months ago when a chap called Peter called me and asked if I’d take part in a fundraising event for the Monaghan Harps GAA club. My only connection to the Harps up until this call had been getting collared by my work colleague Dermot to spend money on their weekly lotto draw. I grew up supporting Scotstown GAA as my teacher at the time, Gerry McCague played in goal for them and I wouldn’t have dared support anyone else, and latterly , we live in the parish of the Kilmore & Drumsnatt, so I support the mighty Sean McDermotts GAA. I should also point out that when I say support, I mean that I support them from a distance, and usually from the comfort of my sitting room where I’m much happier roaring on the Irish Rugby team.
I did play gaelic football , briefly in St.Macartan’s secondary school I nearly made it on to the Dalton panel, the school’s junior GAA football team. In the try outs I scored 4 goals. This was not due to any great footballing ability, I was a lonely forward and Michael Moyna was the captain of the other side and always screamed at their goalkeeper to kick the ball out to him, and I quickly realised that their poor keeper was as miscast as a footballer as I was and couldn’t kick it very far, so I simply stood about 10 yards in front of him, caught the ball and kicked it back over his head. I missed the next training session because I had a cold and Fr. McHugh contemptuously told me on my return that his team had no place for hypochondriacs and didn’t think it was funny when I replied indignantly ,
”I am not a hypochondriac, Father, I’m a Catholic !”
Anyway, Peter explained that they were running a fundraiser and they were getting groups of locals to act out scenes from famous films and tv shows which they’d film and then there would be an awards night , called the Oskars. He said that before I said no, would I just commit to attending an information evening. And so I said yes.
The information evening all made it out to be good fun, and I’d never acted before , so I said yes. A week or so later there were auditions and a week or so we were told what group we were in. Other friends were in the ‘Shawshank Redemption’ group, the ‘Fr.Ted’ group, Calendar Girls, Bridesmaids, Forest Gump, and Derry Girls. I’d heard of all of those. I was in the ‘Bad Sisters’ group. I had never seen Bad Sisters. I had heard of it , but it’s on Apple TV, and we don’t have that, we just have Sky, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount, RTE Player, Channel 4 Player, and YouTube.
The other thing that I hadn’t been familiar with up until that point, largely because up until that point we hadn’t been told, was that we were also expected to fundraise. I am not averse to fundraising. I have run marathons and raised money for the Capuchin Day Centre, and Crocus Cancer Care, and only a few weeks ago I was happily terrifying children out in Rossmore at Halloween for the Friends of Rossmore Park. But they are causes that appeal to me, and , honestly , raising money for the Harps felt contrary to the natural order of things , and somewhat sacrilegious.
But the other members of the group were very cool, so it seemed rude to bring it up, so I only mentioned it seven or eight times.
We were busy fundraising for a couple of weeks before we finally met up to meet our acting coach, and to get a script. Before we read through the script I was asked if we could film a few scenes in our house and I thought it might be fun, but I didn’t say anything until I’d had a chance to speak to Eileen. We got our scripts and I was told I was to play a character called John Paul. In the opening scene my character is dead and lying in a coffin in his kitchen as his grieving wife prepares sandwiches for the wake.
I read through it in a sort of a daze.
In a later scene , which actually goes back in time to before his death , the other characters are wishing he would die, and one hopes he gets cancer.
As you are reading this blog, you most likely know that I had major operations a few years ago and now live with high end
stage 4 cancer. And as I have written about it openly..and some might say extensively, my role came as a shock. Living in a relatively small place, and not being shy , or private, I had assumed everyone knew. It transpired that no one in my group had known. They were all very lovely about it afterwards, and I received some very magical messages from them. I said that I was happy to play another role, but that I wasn’t keen oh hosting a dress rehearsal for my own wake in our house.
In hindsight ,the whole misunderstanding was perfectly in keeping with the black comedy contained within Bad Sisters itself.
After that we continued to fundraise, and we met weekly to rehearse and get some coaching. My role was now that of Tom Claffin, an insurance guy who was holding John Paul’s life insurance policy and was suspicious about everything and everyone.
Acting is a strange thing. On my own , in the car on my way to rehearsal, I can say all of my lines perfectly, and I also know the other characters lines that my character interacts with. But the moment that I have to say them to my fellow actors I stumble over everything and they each have to patiently start my line for me. But they are all incredibly good natured about it, and they make it all fun.
Last Saturday we filmed it all.
We only met the director as he started filming. We had six scenes to film, and he wasn’t taking any prisoners, or making friends. But that’s probably what we needed. My scene was the 4th one to be filmed and I was getting nervous. I’d witnessed the others coast through their scenes and only I knew it to be true, would have called anyone that told me they’d never acted before a goddamn liar. I wasn’t nervous or embarrassed for myself, I just didn’t want to let them down.
For my scene I had to enter the wake, in Claire’s kitchen. Claire is a real person , not a character in Bad Sisters, she was our groups coordinator and our acting Mammy. I had to make my way up to Niall , who was playing John Paul’s cousin , and commiserate with him before making mu way over to Stephanie, who was playing John Paul’s wife , and Aideen who was playing her sister, sympathise with them, eat an egg and onion sandwich, ask a question and then leave.
Simples.
We had to film my scene with Niall SEVEN times ! Apparently things don’t look like things on film , so we had to face each other, but not look at each other as we spoke to each other, and remember the exact spot we were standing on the last time. The director’s day job is filming Fair City. For my Blighty and Yankee readers ‘Fair City’ is a long running soap opera on RTE, Irelands television network. I’ve always thought that all of the actors in Fair City seemed sad, frustrated, and downtrodden. I now know why.
“No look here.”
“Here ?”
“No, here, here.” The director is now pointing to a spot that seems to me to be half a centimetre from where I was looking, but he doesn’t seem interested in any of my witty observations, so I just smile through gritted teeth.
“Oh yes. I see, here, here. Got it.”
In between our fifth and sixth takes he asks us to freeze in place while he tells the lighting lady to put the light back to where she’d had it a minute ago, but he’d told her she was wrong then, but he was right now.
Niall is trying not to look at me or smile.
“I must say Niall, that aftershave you’re wearing is gorgeous.”
Everyone laughs. The director tells us not to.
I then have to film my scene with Stephanie and Aideen. During this scene I have to take a bite out of an egg and onion sandwich in between talking to them. The director tells me to pretend to eat it, as we’ll probably have to film it several times and he doesn’t want me to be sick. The director has overestimated my acting ability, but severely my capacity to consume and enjoy copious amounts of egg and onion sandwiches.
We film this bit up to but not including the point where I got indigestion. Not that it’s ever likely to come up in a table quiz in Terry’s on a Friday night, but just in case it does, the answer to “How many egg and onion sandwiches can Paul Bond eat while filming before he gets indigestion ?” The answer is 7.
Stephanie and Aideen are brilliant, and make me look good by default.
We then have to get our extras moving about and we then have to film my entrance and exit several times from different angles. As I’m out in the back hall, I’m told loudly by the director, from a distance in the kitchen, not to enter the kitchen when he says ‘Action’ but to wait until one of the extras coughs, giving me my queue to enter.
When he finishes barking this instruction he shouts “Did you get that ?”.
“What ???” I shout back.
He starts to repeat it all. I interrupt him saying “Yeah I got that the first time.” He does not find this remotely funny. I giggle a lot.
And then my scenes are finished and everything moves around. I wait for a few more minutes, but the extras are leaving and my car is in someone’s way , so I leave too.
I don’t think I could go through it again.
I think I’d love to put others through it.
When I get home my Soulmate and our Jake are making dinner. I am handed an ice cold Moretti and told that I’ll be called when dinner is ready. I sit down and switch on the television. There’s an old episode of Fr.Brown Mysteries on. “Jeez, he fairly missed his mark there…that lightings poor…the continuity is shocking…”
I send a message to my Bad Sisters group :
“Darlings,
This whole project was not the sort of thing I’d do, or feel comfortable doing. And I did it with a lot of reluctance. But you guys made it easy and fun. I also think that a lot of you are natural at it ! I’m glad I did it, and feel very lucky to have done it together with you.
Thanks,
Paul
P.S. As we are all luvvies now we have to address each other as ‘Darling’ anytime we meet.”
Today I was walking around Peter’s lake with Ray and someone shouted hello to him , and then she said, ‘Oh Hello Paul, didn’t recognise you.” She had passed before I realised that it was Stephanie, so I roared across Flemings car park after her “ Hi Darling !”, and she roared “Darling !” back.
And that little moment made it all worth it.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. For Stephanie, Amber, Mo, Marylou, Alison, Claire , Aideen, and Niall this is the wonderful ‘I Will Talk And Hollywood Will Listen’
P.P.S This is a link to an audio of an old blog the story at the end of which has already evinced this review from my great friend Gerry, who preps the audio each week, and consequently is the first to hear it :
“Firstly, here is the link to audio for approval, and secondly, fuck you ! You caught me unawares there. I had to dry my face and compose myself after that.”
I messaged back that if I ever write a book, that’s going on the cover.
