At last it is finished and I, for one, have no idea what the whole thing was about. I thought I knew the story of Oliver Twist and I never remember a bit when everyone wore gas masks and hit each other over the head with cucumbers. Nor the scene when Fagin takes Oliver to a brothel and every bed has an alligator in it. Most directors would have settled for dummies but Loser has to ransack a private zoo. Not only that but he has this bleeding great gorilla that moves up and down the corridor. I was dead choked because when I heard about the brothel sequence I thought I was going to be in like Flynn. But not a sausage. Loser did want somebody to get into bed with an alligator but I did not reckon it was my cup of tea. Even though the bleeding things were supposed to be under sedation they kept rolling off the beds and scuttling across the floor. Very unpleasant it was. One of them bit through a power cable and electrocuted itself and I wished it had been holding hands with its mates at the time.
The gorilla was no charmer either. It did take a fancy to Sid though and kept trying to stroke him. Naturally everybody used to ask Sid when they were getting hitched and this drove him mad. On one occasion I gave Charley – that was the gorilla’s name – one of Mum’s bananas – you know, the brown ones – and it galloped across the set and shoved it in Sidney’s cakehole. Didn’t even take it out of the skin either. I tried to make Sidney see the funny side but his sense of humour deserts him sometimes.
With the film in the can the next thing to look forward to is the première and remembering Sid’s words about the Empire, I am eager to find out where this world-shattering event is going to take place. I have always imagined myself wearing a white tuxedo and hot-knobbing with a bunch of Lea-crazy starlets. The flash-light flashing, the champagne corks popping. Then, the excited whisper going round the assembled throng as we form a line to curtsey to some regal personage: Lew Grade, Bernard Delfont, someone like that.
‘The Bioscope,’ says Sidney.
‘The what?! Where’s that?’
‘Notting Hill Gate.’
‘You’re going to have the première there?’
‘Justin says it’s more fashionable to have your première out of the centre of London these days.’
‘Oh, Justin says that does he? Well, that must be all right then.’
‘No need to get all narky,’ says Sid menacingly. ‘You don’t have to come.’
‘I’m not certain I’ll be able to. Have you got a map of the area? I’ve never heard of the Bioscope.’
‘It’s an underground cinema.’
‘Oh, it’s in the underground, is it? Doesn’t the noise of the trains –’
‘Shut up! You know what I mean. It specialises in revolutionary cinema. Underground films. Wendy Arsehole, that kind of thing.’
‘You mean Andy Warhol, you berk.’
‘Him too. No need to get all worked up about it. I watch BBC2 as well, you know.’
‘Only Floodlit Rugby League. Oh, Sidney, I can’t believe it. This blooming great cultural masterpiece creeping on at the Bioscope, Notting Hill Gate.’
‘Don’t knock it! Ken thinks that it’s exactly right for the film. He doesn’t want it to go in to one of those big, flashy places where they clean the wash basins and the pile on the carpet tickles your tonk. He says this is people’s cinema.’
‘Well, I hope he’s right. I hear we haven’t got anyone to distribute it yet?’
‘They’re just hanging on for the reviews. There shouldn’t be any problem. Not with Loser’s name attached to it. I’m expecting a couple of the big boys to come to the première. I reckon they’ll be impressed.’
‘Talking about who’s coming to the première, Sid, what about Mum and Dad?’
‘Yeah, I thought about that too. I can’t see your old man in a dinner-jacket somehow. Now a straitjacket, I can see him in one of those all right.’
‘It would break Mum’s heart if she didn’t come.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’ll invite them and hope Dad doesn’t show up. Once we mention he’s got to wear a dinner-jacket that should put him right off.’
But it does not put Dad off. Though he shakes his head and says ‘Notting Hill Gate! I thought we’d given them their independence years ago.’ I can see him filing the date away in his evil little mind; fully intending to put in an appearance.
The night in question is dark and drizzly and instead of searchlights sawing the air there is the fluorescent light from the ‘Sixteen machine – no waiting, 24-hour-a-day Laundromat’ next to the Bioscope, which seems to be drawing a slightly larger crowd than our première.
Sid and I stand next to the pay box, or in the foyer as Sid chooses to call it, waiting with Justin to receive the guests. I notice that some of the fat, elderly men who were at the casting session are also present. This time accompanied by plump, furry women with hair that looks as if it has been stuck together with Araldite and then sprinkled with Christmas-tree glitter.
‘Oh, my Gawd,’ says Sidney. ‘Take a butcher’s at that.’ I follow his eyes and see Dad who is approaching us dressed in morning suit and top hat.
‘At least he’s left his binoculars at home,’ I say but Sid is in no mood for jokes.
‘It’s diabolical,’ he says. ‘He’s trying to make a laughing stock of me, I’ll swear it. Did you ever see anything like it?’
‘Now that you come to mention it, Sid,’ I say, ‘Yes. I have. Cop a load of Mum.’
Yes, Mrs Lea has not been left behind in the smutter department. She looks like a cross between a pearly queen and one of those daft birds you see photographs of on Ladies’ Day at Ascot.
‘Blimey, I’ve never seen so much jewellery on anybody,’ says Sid. ‘She looks like a mobile junk shop.’
‘Yoo hoo,’ hollers Mum, as I try and hide behind Sidney who is trying to hide behind me. ‘Ooh, but we did have a lot of trouble finding this place. My feet are killing me. We had to stand on the bus.’
‘I’ve got a diabolical crick in my neck,’ grumbles Dad. ‘Standing downstairs with one of these hats on. I was bent double.’
‘Why didn’t you take it off?’ I ask.
‘He couldn’t, dear,’ explains Mum. ‘It was a bit big so we had to wedge it on with pieces of newspaper.’
‘I hope it was the Sporting Chronicle,’ snarls Sid. ‘Whatever made you put that lot on?’
‘We both wanted to look nice for your film,’ says Ma indignantly. ‘Don’t start having a go. If you knew the trouble I had to get him to wear something nice.’
‘He looks smashing, Ma,’ I say hurriedly. ‘You both do. Don’t you reckon, Sid?’
Sid swallows hard. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,’ he says.
‘Let me introduce you to one or two people.’
Even Justin looks a bit taken aback when he meets Dad, but under thé influence of a few stiff scotches which are being dispensed from the pay desk, I begin to feel much more relaxed. Dawn Lovelost rolls up but does not get out of her car because not enough people have arrived. She has departed to drive round the block a few times when Glint Thrust appears, supported by two incredible blonde birds with legs going up to their armpits and smiles as wide as watermelon segments. When I say supported, I mean held off the ground. Glint is so stoned he staggers into the Laundromat and tries to check his cloak in to one of the washing machines. He slumps down in a chair and is only just prevented from knocking back a beaker of detergènt powder.
Sandra Virgin’s knockers are the