of those tantalising gambles for an actor of standing, particularly a sir or a madam. The money is very good. The likelihood of the thing going to series is minimal. If it does somehow manage to ride the rapids to that glorious state, then poor Derek will have to move to LA, which he will hate, but on the other hand he will also be rich and, more importantly, able to grab the passing broomstick from Ian McKellen midflight and soar off into the stratosphere – next stop Dumbledore, Middle Earth, or even outer space. If the series is a success Derek will be giving his King Lear in the Hollywood Bowl rather than the Donmar Warehouse.
Anyway, for the time being all that is (or is not) ahead of us. NBC are ecstatic. Give and take is liberally applied in the lubed desert and they have given the go-ahead for Meredith to be in the series. So now we only have to cast Trey (Snoop) and the young female lead that Victor has conjured up to replace Glenn and Miranda who, he says, make the show too old-fashioned.
‘But I thought you wanted it to be like theatre,’ I whine.
‘Yes, but not that kind,’ snaps Victor. He is proving to be a real handful, a total megalomaniac.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Good Witches of
Beverly Glen
O n the way to the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel is a strange little basement coffee shop, a hangover from the old days. It’s a thin low bar – a large cupboard really, tucked behind a staircase – with ten high stools against a counter. A TV blares in the corner above the coffee machine. Waitresses in great nylon outfits make and serve the food in one endless movement back and forth behind the counter, crackling with electricity as they squeeze past each other to pour the coffee, flip the eggs and take the orders. They are observed – sometimes lustfully – by a row of locals rather than guests, hags and rats from the seventies, who clamber with difficulty onto their stools and know the girls and each other by name. The whole place is something that Hollywood no longer is, which is cheerful. It’s Louis B rather than Mel B.
I am sitting on a bar stool next to a couple of my favourite octogenarian girlfriends in headscarves and trouser suits, having waffles, when suddenly all transmission stops on the TV for an emergency statement from the White House.
Corky clutches Gladys’s arm.
‘It’s war!’ she rasps.
‘You’re hurting me,’ squeals Gladys, flapping her off.
There is a sudden hush in the coffee shop as all heads fix the TV with startled eyes. This is the moment we have all been waiting for. Even the waitresses freeze. On the screen, double doors open onto that corridor of ultimate power and Tony Blair and George Bush saunter to their podiums. There might as well be a trumpet voluntary. This is extreme entertainment. Our two leaders proceed to casually write off the United Nations, and declare that soon we shall be at war. Corky, who claims to be psychic and has a spirit guide called the Gypsy, has already declared that Bush is going to save the world.
‘We gotta do it,’ she says, shaking her head at the screen.
‘You’re crazy, Corky. You don’t know anything. Focus on your area of expertise, my dear. Who’d be better in the sack? George or Tony?’ asks Gladys, elbowing me in the ribs and winking, while Corky stares enraptured as Bush squints at his autocue.
‘How do I know? I am no longer interesting in these things,’ she says.
‘You’re the clairvoyant, my dear.’
I met Corky – short for Cora – a couple of years ago over breakfast in the coffee shop. She is a Nicaraguan refugee via Cuba with a thick impenetrable accent and a face that has been ravaged by ‘the four S’s, baby: Sandinistas, surgery, sun and sin’. As a result she looks like the plate that ran away with the spoon. She has tiny humorous eyes like raisins, a flat reorganised nose over a pair of gigantic lips in a face as large and round as a beach ball. She is probably seventy-five years old but no one
Anyway, for the time being all that is (or is not) ahead of us. NBC are ecstatic. Give and take is liberally applied in the lubed desert and they have given the go-ahead for Meredith to be in the series. So now we only have to cast Trey (Snoop) and the young female lead that Victor has conjured up to replace Glenn and Miranda who, he says, make the show too old-fashioned.
‘But I thought you wanted it to be like theatre,’ I whine.
‘Yes, but not that kind,’ snaps Victor. He is proving to be a real handful, a total megalomaniac.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Good Witches of
Beverly Glen
O n the way to the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel is a strange little basement coffee shop, a hangover from the old days. It’s a thin low bar – a large cupboard really, tucked behind a staircase – with ten high stools against a counter. A TV blares in the corner above the coffee machine. Waitresses in great nylon outfits make and serve the food in one endless movement back and forth behind the counter, crackling with electricity as they squeeze past each other to pour the coffee, flip the eggs and take the orders. They are observed – sometimes lustfully – by a row of locals rather than guests, hags and rats from the seventies, who clamber with difficulty onto their stools and know the girls and each other by name. The whole place is something that Hollywood no longer is, which is cheerful. It’s Louis B rather than Mel B.
I am sitting on a bar stool next to a couple of my favourite octogenarian girlfriends in headscarves and trouser suits, having waffles, when suddenly all transmission stops on the TV for an emergency statement from the White House.
Corky clutches Gladys’s arm.
‘It’s war!’ she rasps.
‘You’re hurting me,’ squeals Gladys, flapping her off.
There is a sudden hush in the coffee shop as all heads fix the TV with startled eyes. This is the moment we have all been waiting for. Even the waitresses freeze. On the screen, double doors open onto that corridor of ultimate power and Tony Blair and George Bush saunter to their podiums. There might as well be a trumpet voluntary. This is extreme entertainment. Our two leaders proceed to casually write off the United Nations, and declare that soon we shall be at war. Corky, who claims to be psychic and has a spirit guide called the Gypsy, has already declared that Bush is going to save the world.
‘We gotta do it,’ she says, shaking her head at the screen.
‘You’re crazy, Corky. You don’t know anything. Focus on your area of expertise, my dear. Who’d be better in the sack? George or Tony?’ asks Gladys, elbowing me in the ribs and winking, while Corky stares enraptured as Bush squints at his autocue.
‘How do I know? I am no longer interesting in these things,’ she says.
‘You’re the clairvoyant, my dear.’
I met Corky – short for Cora – a couple of years ago over breakfast in the coffee shop. She is a Nicaraguan refugee via Cuba with a thick impenetrable accent and a face that has been ravaged by ‘the four S’s, baby: Sandinistas, surgery, sun and sin’. As a result she looks like the plate that ran away with the spoon. She has tiny humorous eyes like raisins, a flat reorganised nose over a pair of gigantic lips in a face as large and round as a beach ball. She is probably seventy-five years old but no one
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