A Fanny Full of Soap

We ran the show twice a day, but now the high comedy had been confined to a bungalow of earnestness. Bland mediocrity had flattened individuality so, desperately clinging to the character Dan had created, I stuck out like an Alp in Norfolk.

Kelvin, the singing psychopath, had gone to Fox’s theatrical make-up emporium and bought every bit of false hair in the place. Unfortunately, the stress had put him back on the Silk Cut and, nipping out to the stage door for regular cigarettes, he went through three sets of eyebrows before the first preview. But that night we had more to worry about than the stench of burning hair.

The audience was made up of ticket agents, a few tourists who’d come in out of the rain and a scattering of Mesdames Defarges. This group of ambulance chasers went to previews for only one thing: to see a disaster unfold, the nastier and gorier the better. Each of them had tales of dance routines like bloody abattoirs and cat-fights in the chorus line. At the end, they grudgingly applauded our dreary curate’s egg, no longer fun, no longer camp and definitely not funny.

There followed days of chaotic lighting, sound and music changes from Izzy through his presence on earth, Susan. Occasionally she nodded or shrugged at me – I assumed these cryptic signs were notes on my performance as we lurched towards press night.

Thanks to him, Karen, Flossie and our composer Ildefonso Campi, my dressing-room was so full of flowers it looked like Golder’s Green Crematorium. Dan sent a single yellow rose; David, a solicitor’s letter accusing me of malicious damage.

I propped the bouquets up in the shower and stuck a bottle of champagne from my agent in the lavatory cistern, as the fridge was broken, then set about writing sincere messages in cards which, as there were 34 people to buy for, had been selected more for their low price than aptness for the occasion. For each performing member of the company there was a decent bottle of wine, the minimum expected from the leading lady. For the stage management, scotch and port. Some stars distributed Tiffany trinkets or engraved crystal. But they were on footballers’ wages.

Susan left more ostentatiously expensive bottles of wine outside each dressing-room, an inappropriate gesture from the soubrette but perfect for the anointed heir to Trevor Nunn. There was no hint of a note or gift from the Ducks, not just for me but for anyone – as shocking as the monarch not bothering with Maundy money. All we had to show that they existed was a card on which were written the words

the first-night party, to be given at a nightclub more famous for fighting supermodels than sophisticated theatrical soirées. At the bottom it said:

Outside the front of the theatre, a baroque conceit of gilt and plaster cherubs, a small huddle of paparazzi waited for celebrities. The few who had any idea who I was hosed me good-naturedly and wished me luck as I walked past to leave two free tickets for my agent at the box office. This traditional largesse towards the company had been incomprehensible to Izzy, until it was pointed out that the theatre would be empty if he didn’t cooperate. I’d offered mine to KT but he said he’d rather eat his own leg.

The youngsters, like virgins, rushed towards their deflowering filled with excitement – the possibility of disappointment incomprehensible. Trying to ignore the mounting hysteria in the corridors and the violent butterflies in my stomach, I joined Kelvin on stage, quietly warming up while the crew hoovered round us. The spotty lad was diligently polishing Izzy’s door knobs.

I stretched, sang a few scales, wished Kelvin good luck, then went to my dressing-room to calm my convulsing bowels and pray for a miracle. Morag put her head round the door.

‘No. Sorry Eleanor. This is me. I’m off. I cannae stand any more. I’m catching the eight o’clock to Glasgow. Going tae see ma mammy. Get a wee bit sanity. I’m sorry.’ She came towards me, arms outstretched. ‘Goodbye wee yin. All ra best.’

Sometimes the only thing keeping the audience upright is rigor mortis. But on this occasion we got a mob of whistling exhibitionists, most of whom seemed to be related to Lee.

He dropped any pretence of being in anything but a one-man cabaret after his fans stopped the show with shrieks more suited to a rock star exposing himself than a West End musical.

Susan, seeing the sensitive delicacy of her direction being decimated by his Panzer of a performance, rounded on him in the interval.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I have never seen anything so amateur, so vulgar, so destructive on a stage. You are a fucking joke.’

Lee tossed his head disdainfully. He would have tossed his hair, but there was so much product on it it wouldn’t have moved if Hurricane Rita had hit.

‘Well, if I’m a fucking joke, at least I get fucking laughs, which is more than you could, either as director or in that drag act you call a performance.’

He flew at her and yanked her hairpiece, which, being anchored with industrial rivets, came away along with a fair amount of her bubble perm. She screamed, burst into tears and slid down the wall, her head thrown back in loud wailing.

Lee slammed into his dressing-room, roaring: ‘That witch. That brainless, talentless, fat-arsed –’

Susan hammered on his door screeching. ‘I AM NOT FAT. I’m not the one who’s had liposuction!’

‘Susan,’ he shouted, ‘you could get it done free in Japan – as part of their whaling program.’ Then he opened the door and sprayed her with deodorant, sound and fury signifying nothing but the smallness of minds and largeness of the mouths of those involved.

Kelvin joined me, carrying two glasses of champagne, one of which he handed to me. ‘First time I’ve ever agreed with Lee. Here.’

‘Oh, come on, Eleanor, you don’t seriously think I’m going to do this shit sober, do you?’

The second act saw Susan deliver her number with such overblown emotion and at such a decibel level that people were pinned to their seats, the skin of their faces blown back as if in a high wind. At the end, she hit the money note, flung her arms wide and collapsed to her knees, heaving chest raised up to the gods.

‘Bloody hell, I haven’t heard anything like that since they decommissioned Concorde.’

I peeped through the masking flats and saw the faces of the audience. Many were open-mouthed, whether at the comment or Susan I couldn’t tell. Reluctant applause broke out, but Izzy was shouting and whooping as if she’d just ridden an unbroken bull round the circle. Before I looked away, I saw the critic from the Independent. He was sitting, slumped, head moving slowly from side to side.

‘Osama’ Kim Bardon looked like a trapped rat. Further down the aisle, one famous hatchet man was busy scribbling on his programme with a twisted smile of pure wickedness on his thin lips. The only critic I could see who was enjoying herself was a well-known alcoholic, who probably had no idea where she was.

As if in the grip of a hideous nightmare, I made my final entrance and looked down into the audience. They looked back as if I was a Rampton out-patient. I opened my arms to them as I sang and caught the eye of the Independent critic. He was still shaking his head. But this time it was personal.

The re-choreographed curtain call was as long as Tannhäuser, and several of the audience looked as if they were suffering from dehydration, but Susan was triumphant.

‘They were trying to prevent deep vein thrombosis,’ spat Lee, incandescent that only his claque had stood up for him. Two people had indeed jumped to their feet, shouting bravo for Susan alone: Izzy and Viola. The rest were critics stampeding to get out.

It was too much for Lee. He kicked his dressing-room door off its hinges. Susan blew me a kiss on her way up the stairs, smugly sure she had been launched into the firmament of stars.

‘Well, darling, what can I say? I’d better look around for something else. They’re looking for a rape victim in The Bill.’

Even though I knew it was a disaster, I was still upset. I had hoped so much I was wrong. Hope: what a waste of human endeavour was in that four-letter word.

‘Well, darling, she’s got a career scaring the pigeons out of Trafalgar Square if she wants it, and frankly, dear, for all the glitz and glam, he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. You’re in quite a different league, dear, quite different.’

‘Well, of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t represent you, would I? By the way, has he had liposuction?’

I arrived late and reluctant at the party, in a rickshaw pedalled by a Peruvian chemistry student. Two bouncers standing on a patch of red carpet inside a deserted rope cordon inspected my invitation, then waved me down the balloon-covered staircase.

In a swirl of blinding lights and deafening music, Izzy and Viola were in the centre of a group paying court to Susan.

‘Izzy,’ I shouted. ‘Thank you so much for the first-night present, it was fantastic! Amazing! I’ve never had a first-night present like it. Neither have the rest of the cast.’

His mouth opened, but nothing came out that I could hear. As I walked away, several people asked him what he’d given us.

The food had all gone, unsurprisingly, since the party started 35 minutes before we got off stage, and there were no clean glasses for the sour wine that was being circulated by irritable waiters.

Kelvin was getting drunk with serious dedication at the bar. I joined him, leaning on the luridly tiled surface. The place was packed with rejects from Big Brother and a Romanian double-act from the Eurovision Song Contest, who were effusive about my performance. Apart from them, no one had the bad taste to mention the show.

‘I have to see my therapist,’ was all Kelvin said, before sliding to the floor.

On the dance floor, Susan was rippling like a vast jelly in a spray-on, slit-to-the-thigh, green satin sheath. One bosom, making a bid for freedom, she rounded up and shoved back, as if it were a recalcitrant sheep.

God watched with fascinated revulsion. ‘The problem with you white people dancing,’ he sighed, ‘is you move too much.’ He and Glenda stayed aloof, bemused but smiling.

Lee, wearing a pale lavender suit, was talking animatedly to Viola. I caught the words ‘my encore’ and ‘new costume’. You had to admire him – even on a sinking ship he was trying to upgrade his cabin.

All around me, the company bubbled with the certainty that triumph had been snatched from the jaws of the reviewers. How could they not love a show that had been greeted with such wild applause and screams of delight?

Sitting with Tizer and a couple of the other chorines, I was ashamed of being a bitter old bag, with my cynical certainty that Izzy and Viola were shysters, my gnawing loathing of Susan and Lee, and my contempt for the ruin they’d made of the show. And what was worse, as I peered inside myself, was the twisted disappointment that perhaps I was wrong, that it hadn’t been a disaster.

As the wine took hold, I thought vaguely of publicly abasing myself by apologising to Izzy and Viola, of trying to befriend Susan, even of telling Lee I thought his performance was wonderful. Darling.

‘You all right?’ Tizer broke into my thoughts like a puppy through toilet paper.

Wearing a new, tweed flat-cap with his jeans and jacket, Izzy, cigar in hand, was clambering onto a small round table. Viola hovered behind him, her raised hands flapping feebly, presumably to catch him if he fell. Once he was upright, she folded her fingers under her chin, gazing up at him. I was surprised no one gave her a bone.

Izzy clapped loudly to bring us to order, but stood like Canute before the waves of sound until someone persuaded the DJ to silence. Reluctantly, the party came to order.

‘Hi, guys. I’m Izzy Duck.’ There was a huge cheer. How short memories were, when faced with free vol-au-vents and Croatian chardonnay. ‘And I have here the morning newspapers.’

Another cheer; whoops; whistles. Izzy brandished the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Guardian with the satisfaction of Neville Chamberlain.

‘So here goes, guys.’ He opened the Telegraph, unused to its size, crumpling the large pages as he folded it open. A chant started up.

Izzy’s sallow face gleamed with sweat. The shouting subsided. An uneasy silence settled on the room. Izzy threw down the broadsheet and snatched up the Mail. Smaller, easier to handle, he flicked it open and broke its spine, folding it back to reveal the verdict.

The Guardian he opened even more violently. He couldn’t have read more than the headline when he threw it down. The Independent was ripped in two and flung across the room.

He made a sudden and dramatic exit, forgetting he was on a table. Viola reached up to him, but he slipped, tipped, and toppled, crashing to the floor, with the bright, festive cloth-covering from his plinth over him. The table shattered into a pile of grubby chipboard.

There was a spot of blood on his temple, and his cap had fallen off to reveal the mottled skin beneath. Embarrassing in his indignity, he rushed at the stairs like an incontinent for a bathroom, followed by Viola.

‘Jesus.’ He said it quietly, with respect. Then he put the papers down carefully and walked out. Within minutes the room was empty.

The papers lay on the floor, sad rags after many hands had touched the words that hailed the most monumental flop of the year.

This hideous vanity project is entirely the responsibility of husband and wife team, Izzy and Viola Duck. One can only regret that duck-shooting is illegal in this country.

…The lachrymose sentimentality of one song, sung by a sumo wrestler in a chiffon mini-dress, made me feel physically ill…

…They say it isn’t over till the fat lady sings – and that’s exactly what she did last night – loud, flat and for far, far too long.

…There is no director credited with this horrifying spectacle. If there was, I would file for damages.

Viola Duck has created, seemingly with the assistance of her husband, an evening unrivalled in my experience for sheer awfulness…

…If we can deport clerics who threaten the nation’s security, surely we can kick out two Americans who threaten our sanity…

A vanity project with nothing to be vain about.

If this is Broadway, give me Southwold.

Rush to see this show! It won’t be there long…

Here we have caricature homosexuals, a torch-singer who deserved to be shot and Eleanor Woodwarde, who I must take to task for writing about this show. What she said was dreadful. But she lied. What I saw was much, much worse…

…There should be a law against those with more money than talent cluttering up London’s stages with drivel like this…

…Produced by the Ducks. One can only hope bird-flu is on the way.

Sunday afternoon, surrounded by the papers, Kelvin and I were watching brain-dead television with KT when the doorbell rang. None of us moved. Eventually, on the third ring, I hove myself out of my chair and answered it. Dan stood there with a bottle of champagne in each hand.

THIRTY-SIX