All to Play For (11 page)

Maggie didn’t dare pursue an argument with her redoubtable opponent, often described by the critics as ‘the enfant terrible of television drama’. She knew she’d scored a disastrous own goal. Damn. Shit.

From within a red haze she heard a man speaking reasonably in measured tones.

“… traditionally speaking, the working class victim’s triumph over adversity is what audiences respond to
most
strongly.”

You understood me, thought Maggie, I love you. Who are you? He was a mature, pleasant-looking individual with wavy grey hair. She soon found out when Jonathan put his oar in.

“Basil’s right, of course, and we’ve got
Gas and Boilers
to prove that point.” A general nod in Basil’s direction credited him with the seminal sixties drama. “But there are some stories which
need
a tragic conclusion – look at the novels of Hardy, or Zola.” Basil acknowledged the truth of this by inclining his head in Jonathan’s direction.

The theme was picked up and tossed around the room, while Maggie sat back and resolved to keep her trap firmly shut for the rest of the meeting. So this was Basil! She was amazed to find that her two heroes were so different. Basil looked incredibly old-fashioned, not the sort of person she would ever have imagined herself working with. He was wearing a suit and looked almost like a Conservative politician, or at least a Liberal. Jonathan was perfect for him, of course; Basil would never want Maggie in his office, she felt sure. Stewart, on the other hand, was definitely more her kind of person, obviously a bit of a rebel. In fact if he was twenty years younger he would be quite fanciable.

By now she had lost track of the argument as well as her desire to participate, so she looked around the room, thinking there
had
to be at least one woman in the room who had agreed with her but was too bloody pathetic to say so. She caught Anthea looking her way, but she appeared to be wrapped up in her own thoughts. Maggie wondered how long the meeting would go on for. Now that she’d blown it she wanted to go home as soon as possible.

After ten minutes Fenella moved the discussion on to the film adaptation of Max Beerbohm’s
Zuleika Dobson
, a novel from 1911 about a young adventuress running amok amongst the eligible bachelors at Oxford University. Maggie hadn’t understood it, really, even though she had a degree in English literature. She had found it obscure and unfunny, a parade of men in blazers and boaters who did little but punt girls in long frocks through trailing willow branches in idyllic sunshine – unless they were attending sherry parties at which they embarrassed themselves by hiccuping in front of the Dean’s stuffy wife. At the mere sight of the doll-like heroine every man in it was reduced to a quivering wreck, and none of them was apparently capable of having a conversation with her.

However, Maggie now knew better than to say as much, which was just as well because everyone else had loved it to bits. They showered Donald, who had produced it, with praise. It was apparently sweet, enchanting, witty, and compared very favourably with Merchant Ivory films despite the budget being only a fraction of theirs. Maggie tried to damp down her bile by reasoning to herself that the corporation’s drama output needed to be broad, and that there was no need to deny audiences who wanted to see this kind of nostalgic escapism now and then, just because
she
thought it a waste of time. But she was puzzled when someone referred to the satire. What satire? It was a satire? What on? Someone was saying that they suspected the satire might have escaped some of the audience if they weren’t very familiar with Oxford. Maggie realised that she was one of them. Damn and shit. She felt outraged on behalf of the 95% of viewers who, like her, had never been to Oxford let alone Oxford University, and weren’t remotely interested in it.

Sally was defending the film. “Even if the satire
did
go over some peoples’ heads, they still enjoyed it on a literal level. My hairdresser
loved
it.” People chuckled.

Maggie spoke out without thinking, “On a
literal
level it’s totally crass. There isn’t a single character you can care about and none of them really communicate with each other. I really don’t see what it’s got to offer a nineties audience.”

Sixty heads seemed to turn as one and glare in disgust at Maggie. She almost gasped, and could hardly believe what she’d done. Her hands and armpits sweated as a drone of disbelief and noisy tutting rippled round the room. She rallied when a sarcastic woman said she presumed Maggie thought the women were misrepresented too. “They were no more stupid than the male characters,” she replied. Her heart pounded. She would have to maintain her dignity for now, but this was obviously the end of her career at the BBC. She had managed to impress herself on every member of the department as a whinging, humourless feminist – a stereotype which was evidently about as popular here as maggots in the canteen kedgeree.

After that, she really did keep her trap shut. She couldn’t leave early, it would look pitiful, so she sat out the rest of the discussion on
Zuleika Dobson
in humiliated rage, and barely listened to what they all said about the latest classic serial,
Eminent Victorians
. No-one else said anything controversial apart from Anthea, who remarked that apart from
EastEnders
none of the shows discussed featured black actors at all; the assembly listened in polite silence and gazed expressionlessly at the stained carpet.

Finally the purgatory came to an end, and Maggie shuffled out keeping her eyes low to avoid Sally and Jonathan whilst telling herself she hadn’t liked either of them anyway. A silver-haired man with whisky breath pushed past her and squeezed her arm. She looked up momentarily and he winked at her. What did he mean? Was that some sort of encouragement, or was he just laughing at her? She walked off as briskly as the crowd would allow.

As she neared the lifts she heard her name called, but she pretended not to hear – she just wanted to get out of the hateful place. The caller was not put off, and hurried up behind her.

It was me, chasing after Maggie. I’d watched it all unfold with my heart in my mouth. There was no way I would stick my own oar into that shoal of piranhas. I thought Maggie was right in most of her opinions, and I wanted her to know she wasn’t alone. They’d all made her look like an idiot, but she seemed like a good person to me. I caught up with her at the lift doors.

“Hello, I’m Rhiannon. I just wanted to say that I agree with you.”

“Thanks for your support!” she snapped sarcastically. I felt terrible. Perhaps I should have spoken up in the meeting – but it wouldn’t have helped Maggie, it would just have put me in the same boat.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m new to this kind of thing too.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I take it back.”

“I don’t suppose you fancy a drink?”

“Why not?” Maggie smiled, relaxing a fraction. “Just what I need. Shall we go to the club?”

The BBC Club was a big lounge area concealed on the fourth floor of the Television Centre doughnut (in the middle of the Light Entertainment department, inevitably). You had to join to use it, and there were two bars, tables and chairs, and little else. The atmosphere was relaxed, and it was the place to retreat to after studio recordings (or to spend an hour or two at lunchtime, if you were in the LE Department).

We found a quiet table near the window overlooking the grim redbrick blocks of the White City council estate, and introduced ourselves. We hit it off pretty fast. After half a pint of draught Guinness and three Marlborough Lights, Maggie spilled her despair at the awful impression she’d made in the meeting, and I tried to make out it didn’t matter.

“It’s not that your opinions were unreasonable, it’s just the way you expressed them.”

“Too blunt?”

“Just a tad. People here don’t say what they think. Not like they do in Wales.”

“Nor in Yorkshire. A spade’s a fucking spade there.”

“Now Maggie, you’ve got to learn to think of it as a traditional implement for the manual rearrangement of the alluvial crust.”

She laughed. “You’ve got these southerners sussed, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been studying them for several years now. And keeping my ear to the ground.”

“Can you hear the cavalry?”

“Oh yes, I know exactly what they’re up to.”

Maggie looked at me with a sparkle in her eye and went to get the drinks in again. When she returned from the bar she launched into a deconstruction of Fenella’s management style. I contributed my own angle on BBC employment practice as I had observed it in operation.

“Did Fenella appoint you?” I asked.

“No, I was interviewed by someone else, who’d already moved on by the time I started.”

“That’s it then. Fenella’s not interested in you because you’ve been foisted on her.”

Maggie was puzzled. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Just politics. She probably favours the other new girl, her sister’s friend from Cambridge, what’s her name – Sally.”

“Sally Farquar-Binns? I thought she’d been here ages.”

“Only a couple of months.”

Maggie was gobsmacked. “You mean – she’s no more experienced than I am?”

“Rather less, I should imagine.”

Maggie looked exasperated, and lit another cigarette. I watched sympathetically as reality emerged for her. Sally had none of Maggie’s knowledge of theatre and audiences and the practice of drama, but she had the social expertise to navigate the arcane traditions of the BBC. She knew the ropes, the rules, the manners, the language, and most importantly, the right people. She was a bona fide player while Maggie’s arse was glued to the subs’ bench. Fenella, whose job surely included responsibility for all the trainees, had no intention of furthering Maggie’s career in any way. She was probably hoping that Maggie would stumble off into the sunset after her contract expired. Eventually Maggie sighed and gave me a wry smile.

“What a prat I’ve been. I actually thought I had some sort of worker’s rights. I thought now I was on the payroll I could follow a career path of some kind.”

“It is a career path, of sorts. Think of it as a kind of outward-bound challenge. You’re on your own, you have to work out the rules of engagement for yourself, hack your way through the jungle with nothing but a knife and fork, and capture a tiny bit of territory by getting your own programme commissioned. Then you’re on the map. Unless they shoot you in the back first.”

Maggie nodded. “You’re right. It’s obvious, now you’ve said it. I’ve been spoiled, working in theatre. I was daft to imagine that the telly industry would be the same on a larger scale. I’ve been acting like a bull in a china shop, haven’t I?”

“I rather admire that, actually. I’m far too polite. I daren’t rock the boat. I’m so chuffed to be working here at all that I tend to keep my head down and get on with the job. It’s easy to do that when you’re on a show. Being in development’s a lot more complicated. I wouldn’t wait around for Fenella, if I were you. I’d go and pester all the producers, one of them might take a shine to you and take you on, you never know.”

Maggie’s face collapsed. “If only I hadn’t made such a tit of myself in front of them all this evening.”

“Don’t assume they all hate you. You’ve shown the courage of your convictions. That deserves respect. The whole thing was just about arse-licking, wasn’t it?”

“You what?” Maggie fixed me with a look of consternation.

“You must have noticed that the only show to get slagged off was the one without a producer in the room. No-one dared criticise anyone’s work to their face. Except you, of course! Some people love that. Stewart Walker does, for a start.”

“Really?”

“As long as you don’t become a bore, like poor Anthea.”

“I don’t know what to make of her. I don’t disagree with anything she says, but I can’t seem to get along with her. She’s closed off, somehow.”

“She’s got bitter. She’s been trying to get a trainee script editor’s contract for years, but they see her as a secretary and that’s that.”

Maggie’s face radiated another shaft of inner sunlight, and a faint smile lifted her expression at the thought of Anthea feeling envious of her own crummy contract. There was really someone in the department who was even more disadvantaged than Maggie – someone who wasn’t giving up. Anthea would continue to put her case until the BBC finally caught up with the rest of the arts world, which had treated equal opportunities and integrated casting as standard practice for a decade already. Maggie was suddenly filled with respect for Anthea.

“I wish I had her tenacity,” said Maggie. “I normally walk away from people I don’t respect. At speed.”

“Anthea’s got a bigger battle to fight than either of us.”

Maggie nodded. “The only other black faces you see here are serving in the tea bar.”

“Or cleaning the toilets.” We contemplated this grim fact in embarrassed silence.

“It really makes me angry.”

“Imagine how Anthea feels, then!”

“You know who annoys me the most? That Jonathan Proulx.”

“Basil Richardson’s script editor?”

“What sort of a name is Proulx, anyway? It’s ridiculous!” I surprised myself with this outburst; I hardly knew him. Maggie glanced at me quizzically.

“I suppose it must be French. Why don’t you like him?”

“He’s just so bloody tall and blonde and handsome, he’s straight out of
Brideshead Revisited
. Life is so easy for people like him; they glide through it on gold-plated roller skates. It drives me insane. He’s always surrounded by posh girls exactly like him. They’ve all got trust funds and families with three houses, and they’ve no need to earn a living at all – this is all just a game for them. To the rest of us it’s life or death! Well not exactly, but you know what I mean.”

Maggie laughed. “I agree. He’s a supercilious creep.”

“He epitomises everything we’re up against. The old boys’ network. They just carry on as they always have, they don’t really notice the rest of us at all.”