Look At Me! Actually, Don’t Look At Me

A

s musicals go, Carousel could be said to be have affected me more deeply than any musical has ever affected any straight man, as it also provided me with my first brush against the complexities of celebrity. Specifically, how the desire to attain self-validation can ultimately have the opposite effect. It's something I remain conflicted about even today, and this small incident may have been implicit in shaping my feelings on the idea of personal visibility to this very day.

I was hanging about backstage in full costume shortly before the show began, my older crew having given me the slip, or perhaps found somewhere safer to hang out and ‘forgotten' to tell me. In the show, the Snow children were dressed with Von Trapp uniformity in velvet jackets and little straw hats and knickerbockers. I needed the toilet before curtain up and I convinced myself the only way to do that was by leaving the backstage area, walking through front of house and out into the foyer where I knew there were male and female toilets. My memory tells me I knew this because of the Galaxian machine which stood against the wall between them; Gents on the left, Ladies on the right. However, having checked this out, I find it cannot be true because Galaxian didn't appear until 1979 and this was 1977.

Space Invaders didn't come out until 1978 so I have no idea what was between the doors of the male and female toilets on the first floor of the Gloucester Leisure Centre in 1977. Nothing? Was there really a time before video games? Strange to think of these invisible voids that exist around us, waiting to accommodate advances in technology that will soon become commonplace. So much so that it will be hard to imagine life without them. There were spaces on walls before light switches, let alone plasma TVs. Desks without computers, roads without cars, hands without mobile phones. Conversely, as microtechnology and digital storage maximise space and convenience, voids are opening up, subtly erasing any memory of the three­dimensional objects which filled them. The spaces occupied by photo albums, the box TV, filing cabinets, cassette decks, record players, books, ashtrays or more short-lived necessities like CD storage units, VHS players and tapes or hard-drive towers.

Computers have been shrinking since they first appeared. I wonder what the rooms that were filled with those huge, whirring, tape-spewing early computers are used for now. Are they empty? Or are they perhaps being utilised for an altogether more analogue form of storage? It makes you wonder what spaces will be filled or created by the next arrival or obsolescence. The mobile phone may well shrink out of our grip as the era of the cyborg approaches. Sounds like science fiction but we are inexorably approaching an era in which the phone will no longer be something we ‘pick up'.

The threat to the key has long been a possibility since the magnetic strip began to give us access to hotel rooms and office buildings, but now contactless technology has equipped us with locks that recognise corresponding chips when brought into proximity. How long before the chips housed in those keyless entry fobs creep under our skin, making us technically part machine, recognisable to our houses, cars, workplaces, parking spaces? Who's to say these chips won't be able to communicate over longer distances and ringing a friend will only require you to think their name? Although this would potentially lead to a lot of unintentional calls answered with the question, ‘Did you mean to call or were you just thinking about me?' Could be quite embarrassing.

The space around us has an intriguing potential to be cleared of things we need or filled by the things we don't yet know we need. That space between the male and female toilets at the Gloucester Leisure Centre was waiting for that Galaxian machine even before the leisure centre was built, when it was simply a volume of atmosphere, twenty-five feet above a field, or some woodland. The galaxy itself was waiting for the Galaxian machine in the same way it was waiting for Earth to settle into orbit around a sun that will eventually consume it. Oh balls, I've opened it right up now. I'm getting into the realms of chaos and consequence and our meaningless, flickering tenure, not only in space but also in time, when what I really wanted to do was tell the story of a seven-year-old show-off who needed a piss. I suppose what we learn from this digression is that you can't always trust your memory. It fills spaces with little inaccuracies, or else becomes a space in itself.

One thing I can be certain of is that there was a gentlemen's toilet on the first floor of the Gloucester Leisure Centre in 1977. I know because I distinctly remember entering it in my velvet jacket and straw hat and fishing my penis out of my knicker-lockers to relieve myself next to a punter who regarded me with nothing more than a half-hearted double take. What I really wanted was for someone, not necessarily the pisser, but someone, to say, ‘Wow, are you in the play? That's amazing! You're amazing! You are amazing for being in a play.' Nobody did. I don't even remember turning any heads, just experiencing a vague sense of embarrassment and regret and an awareness (even at my tender age) that my desire to be recognised was slightly pathetic.

When I returned backstage I was reprimanded by my mother, mainly for going missing for ten minutes but also for breaking the fourth wall, which apparently extended from the sides of the proscenium arch to the door that let the actors out into the auditorium. I remember her telling me it was unprofessional. I felt stupid and needy and suspected the people who had noticed me mingling, those that weren't in bizarre costumes, had thought me faintly ridiculous. This was the seventies though and, by contemporary standards, everybody was dressed in bizarre costumes.

I have never lost the perspective given to me by my journey to and from the real-world toilet, and although sometimes it's fun to relax and enjoy a degree of fame, I fully appreciate the transparency of the desire. The recognition that has resulted from the work I have done has fastened me into a pair of knicker-bockers, since at times getting noticed cannot be avoided. Being recognisable is like wearing a bizarre costume, particularly when you are with people that most keenly appreciate whatever it is you do.

The San Diego Comic-Con is an annual event, where almost half a million comic-book/sci-fi/movie fans gather together to buy cool stuff and see their favouriteactors/writers/artists/directors talk about their work and sign autographs over a single weekend in late July. It is one of the most shamelessly enthusiastic celebrations of all things fantastic in the world and I love it. People dress as their favourite characters and walk the convention floor without fear of ridicule or cynicism. Indeed, they are admired, complimented, even regarded as celebrities by other attendees.

Since much of my work has dealt with the nerdier side of popular culture, either being about the kind of people who attend Comic-Con or being the kind of film people who attend Comic-Con are into, it's safe to say that the kind of people who attend Comic-Con are my demographic. I never feel more known than when I am there.

As an actor or writer or whatever, you hope deep down that those who witness your output enjoy and appreciate it, or better still connect with it on a personal level. You also hope to achieve some confirmation of that, not just through box-office receipts or viewing figures but by personal interaction. Receiving positive feedback is as eternally gratifying as enduring negativity is devastating. There is a pleasure in knowing you have made someone happy by sharing an idea or telling a story, and you can experience that pleasure only if the happiness is somehow relayed back to you.

I don't understand how any artist can reject positive feedback as if it is an annoyance or, worse, a burden. A friend of mine told me a story about seeing a popular British soap actor approached by a fan in a shopping centre car park and rejecting the admirer's request for an autograph with a resounding ‘Fuck off!' We all have days when we want to be left alone, but even when you don't want your photo taken or have the time to stop and chat, you must surely decline with patience and good grace. Even if you have been approached a hundred times in an hour, whoever is approaching you is doing so for the first time and is probably nervous. The least you can do is acknowledge their good-natured bravery and respond with a smile, even if you don't have time to talk to their mate on the phone or allow them to lick your face.

It's not always the case that people's intentions are pleasant. I get shouted at a lot by people who simply want some facile interaction. Others will approach you specifically to tell you they don't know who the fuck you are, even though their coy mate, standing apologetically at the bar, does.

I hate being asked to list my celebrity credentials to rude, ignorant people who believe I owe them some sort of justification for my existence. Some people assume fame results in deafness and stupidity and, on recognising you, will point and stage-whisper, as if you're not there, ‘Who? Where? It's not, is it?' as if they hope you will spare them the indignity of acknowledging their awareness of you, by holding your hands up in surrender and saying ‘You got

me'. In those situations, I tend to play deaf and stupid. This is why I generally try to make my figurative knickerbockers as inconspicuous as possible. Not because I don't appreciate affirmation from those who enjoy my stuff, or that I am even forfending against people who get a buzz from being nasty (fortunately the latter are rare), but more because persistent focused attention is actually exhausting whether it is positive or negative.

People who are super-famous have to live bizarre, rarefied lives, far removed from any accepted notions of normality, simply because a regular existence is prohibited by their enormous, unmistakable knickerbockers. I'm not complaining by any means; I don't suffer the weirdness that others do, people for whom the spotlight has become blindingly intense. I keep my head down and wear a hat. I try not to hang out in places where famous people hang out, although it's nice to take my mum to the Ivy once in a while, and every now and again a premiere invite will land on my doormat that is way too fun to ignore. I reject 99 per cent of the social invitations I receive and as such don't get photographed that much (I was once snapped picking up Minnie's morning bowel movement but didn't feel too invaded since technically I was setting an example to other dog owners).

At Comic-Con one year, determined to walk the convention floor freely, without having to make too many stops, I purchased a Joker mask from a Dark Knight promotional stand and moved across the floor unnoticed. The irony being that it was necessary for me to wear an actual costume in order to disguise the figurative knickerbockers my profession had inculcated me with. It was an act that represented a huge gulf of experience between me and my seven-year-old self, scurrying through the crowd in the Cambridge Theatre foyer, with the specific intention of drawing attention.

With the aid of the ESTB I might have nipped back and solemnly directed myself towards the backstage toilets. Although perhaps not. Perhaps I would be depriving myself of a valuable lesson about the consequences of fame. Besides, as a naive little seven-year-old, enjoying his first brush with show business, I would probably have looked into the eyes of the 38-year-old time traveller and asked, ‘Why so serious?'

The jet lifted into the air like a big black aeroplane as the roof of Pegg Manor settled back into its mock-Tudor splendour, so that people passing on the A1 wouldn't know that billionaire philanthropist Simon Pegg had a heavily armed stealth bomber in his loft conversion. Canterbury, Pegg's faithful mechanical companion and butler, completed a number of pre-flight checks, flicking various switches and surveying an ellipse of readouts on the hi-tech dashboard.

‘Shouldn't you have done that before take-off?' enquired Pegg.

‘You seemed quite eager to leave, sir,' explained Canterbury. ‘I thought I might do it on the hop.'

‘I like your initiative,' mused Pegg with a small but devastating smile, which gave Canterbury a thrill even though he was a robot. ‘And you're right, I was eager to leave. We have to get to Morocco and find the Scarlet Panther before it's too late.'

‘That does sound awfully urgent, sir,' chirruped Canterbury, a note of concern in his synthetic voice. ‘What will happen if we don't find her?'

‘Well, you can kiss your metal ass goodbye,' Pegg returned with a gloomy heavy sigh. ‘Not just your ass but all our asses, every ass on the face of this planet.'

‘Go on, sir,' said Canterbury, encouraging Pegg to deliver much-needed exposition.

‘Two nights ago, I received a mysterious tweet that I simply could not ignore,' confided Pegg.

‘I thought you were switching Twitter off until you finish your book,' said Canterbury honestly.

‘Yes, well, I was just having a look at it one last time before I started in earnest. I wasn't pontificating or anything.'

Canterbury said nothing.

‘Look, the point is,' said Pegg heatedly, ‘last week the Scarlet Panther broke into the Museum of Egyptian Antiquity in Cairo and stole the Star of Nefertiti.'

‘Is that the thing that makes all the exhibits come to life?' enquired Canterbury.

‘This is reality, Canterbury!' roared Pegg. ‘The Star of Nefertiti is a magic diamond that when slotted into the lost tablet of Amenhotep IV fires a laser into the heart of the Sun, causing a solar flare that heats up the Earth's core and destabilises the tectonic plates that hold the very surface of the planet together, bringing about the end of days.'

‘Like in that film 2012?' offered Canterbury.

‘Worse,' said Pegg with enormous seriousness. ‘This makes 2012 look like 2001 in terms of action and excitement. We've got to stop her!'

‘But what of the tablet of Amenhotep IV?' enquired Canterbury helpfully.

‘Its whereabouts are unknown,' conceded Pegg grimly. ‘It used to reside at the estate of Colonel Barnabus McCartney in Surrey but when the Colonel died mysteriously in 1994, his possessions were distributed privately according to his will. It could be anywhere.'

‘Forgive me, sir,' said Canterbury, facilitating the divulgence of further information, ‘but if the Scarlet Panther knew the whereabouts of the tablet, why would she want to bring about the end of days by combining it with the Star of Nefertiti? She's just a gorgeous cat burglar/nemesis, with whom you have a passionate and complex on-off relationship.'

Pegg's eyes became unfocused as his mind drifted elsewhere followed by his penis.

‘I see it!' Canterbury exclaimed.

‘What?' said Pegg, adjusting his trousers.

‘She doesn't want to destroy the world. She probably doesn't realise the true power of the Star of Nefertiti. She simply acquired it and someone paid her very handsomely to do so.'

‘But whom?' mused Pegg.

‘Who?' said Canterbury very quietly.

‘That's what we have to find out, old friend, it could simply be a diamond collector or it could be someone who knows the whereabouts of the tablet of Amenhotep IV and wants to bring about the end of the world or else threaten to as a means of extorting money from the world's most powerful economies,' said Pegg without breathing. ‘Set course for Marrakesh.'

‘At once, sir,' replied Canterbury, snapping into important mode. ‘You will need to return to your quarters before I fire the special stealth retros.'

‘Can I just sit here for a bit?' enquired Pegg casually.

‘No, sir,' returned the faithful automaton. ‘The thrust in the cockpit would prove too much for the human body to endure without a flight suit.'

‘All right,' said Pegg. ‘Give me a minute.'

‘Of course, sir,' said Canterbury, pretending not to notice the fact that his master was severely tenting.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 845