The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe Page A

“superjumbo” to be introduced in 2007. BMW were selling off the Rover factory at Longbridge—which was all very sad, of course, and a Birmingham story of sorts, but hardly the stuff of comedy. The only item that struck Paul as at all promising was the news that EU ministers had at last agreed to allow the sale of British chocolate in other European countries: previously it had been ruled that it contained too much milk and vegetable fat, and not enough cocoa solids.
    He mulled over this last development and had cautiously begun to feel, by the time he went to bed, that here was a story that might well suit his purposes. For one thing, the main beneficiary of the ruling would be the Cadbury factory in Bournville: by mentioning it, then, Paul would appear to be speaking up for Birmingham, his home town, where he generally seemed to be regarded with suspicion and almost invariably got a bad press. Also, it was a positive, upbeat story about a much-loved British product, so he would certainly endear himself to the party leadership by bringing it up. (Much more so than by dwelling on that miserable Longbridge business.) All he needed to do, then, was to think of a joke on the subject, and to make sure that somehow or other he was able to shoehorn it into the programme.
    â€œAnd what did you come up with?” Malvina asked the next day, as their taxi stopped and started its bottlenecked journey through the central London traffic in the direction of the South Bank.
    â€œNothing much so far,” Paul admitted. “The only thing I could think of was—isn’t there a sort of . . . old cockney expression, or something, ‘I should coco’?”
    Malvina nodded solemnly.
    â€œWhat does it mean?” he asked.
    â€œIt means, ‘I should say so.’”
    â€œWell, perhaps I could say that.” In response to her blank stare, he added: “It would be a pun, you see. A pun on ‘cocoa.’ ”
    â€œYes.” She nodded again, seeming to weigh his words with uncommon seriousness. “And when are you going to bring this up, exactly? How are you going to . . . drop it into the proceedings?”
    â€œWe could be talking about the EU story,” Paul explained, “and one of the other guests could say to me, ‘What about you, Paul? Do you like British chocolate?’ And . . .” his voice faltered, losing all confidence, in the face of Malvina’s unwavering stare, “that would be . . . when I said it . . .”
    â€œFrom what I’ve heard,” she replied, after a significant pause, “they have gag-writers on the set. They can supply you with material if you get into trouble.”
    Paul looked away, glancing out of the taxi window, offended. “It’ll be funny in context,” he said. “Wait and see.”
    And he was still turning the joke over in his mind as he sat in his make-up chair later that afternoon. The last two hours, which had been taken up with rehearsals and awkward small-talk with his fellow-panellists, had done nothing but make him even more nervous. He didn’t understand any of these people, didn’t speak their language, couldn’t even tell half of the time whether they were trying to be funny or serious. Having been provided with a list of the questions that were supposed to provide a springboard for the televised banter, he was alarmed to see that the subject of European sales of British chocolate was not mentioned anywhere. He had raised this issue with one of the producers, run his “I should cocoa” joke past him, and been rewarded simply with incredulous silence.
    â€œHe just ignored me,” Paul complained to Malvina. She was sitting in the chair beside him as he waited in front of a brightly lit mirror for the return of the make-up girl, who had been called away to the telephone. “Just looked at me and didn’t say a word.”
    â€œI wish he’d ignore
me,
”