July 6th, 1995, and after over ten years on the programme Letitia Dean left the cast of EastEnders, not to return until the next century was well under way. Obviously this was of much interest to Joe and I so we didn't leave for the Adelphi until the credits had rolled. It had been a typical filming day, which is to say that not much had been done, and we'd knocked off early in preparation for the evening's festivities. I felt particularly in need of a fine, roistering night out, having received a letter from home that very morning. Enclosed within was a cheque for £100 and genial but firm note assuring me of my place in my family's affection but making it absolutely clear that this was it as far as handouts were concerned.

So it was a relief to forget about all that and head off to the club for the big occasion. The Adelphi was an unusual establishment even by Hull's standards: it had started off as a residential home in a terraced street and only been converted into a nightclub at a much later date. Its origins showed. The pool room was clearly the old front room, the bar and tabled area had once been the living room, while the dancefloor and stage were where the kitchen and bathroom had once stood. But for all its weirdness it was one of the focal points of the Hull music scene and while not exactly a regular I knew the place and liked it very much.

As the majority of the regular punters were students, who by now had
nearly all cleared off for the summer, it was quieter than usual that night. All of our crowd had showed up, though. There were three bands performing: top billed was Graeme's band, Pavane, and supporting them were Chris and his friends ('Scram'). But on first, and if we're really honest only there at all because every other group in the city had a prior engagement, were an outfit revelling in the name of Gingham (That's Sh*t) - my asterisk, by the way.

Gingham (That's Sh*t) were four young men in shabby black suits, one of whom I recognised as yet another ex-philosophy student. Their approach to music was, at best, situationist. none of them could actually play worth a damn and at least one number consisted of one of them ranting at the audience while the others noodled away on their instruments in the background. But song titles like 'Slay Your Gnome' had a certain catchiness to them.

Joe and I were highly amused from our perch on a table near the back of the club. But the best was yet to come, as Gingham (That's Sh*t) laid aside their guitars and drums and took up two trumpets, a trombone and a tuba before launching into an audacious and startling attempt at a cover version. Now, your average young band will cut their teeth doing Oasis covers... or maybe covers of Travis or even the Stones or another band from the 60s and 70s. Uniquely, though, Gingham (That's Sh*t) decided to have a crack at a classic from an earlier era and treated us to an ambitious and almost unrecognisable version of 'Mars, the Bringer of War' from Gustav Holst's The Planets. The lack of a full supporting orchestra hampered them a bit, as did some wobbly playing and a fit of the giggles, but the effect was still stunning (much like being hit over the head by a sock full of gravel). It remains unique in my musical experience. Joe and I roared our approval but the band had run out of material (and puff).

Well, Pavane and Scram had a tough time following that - they had more musical talent (i.e, some) but were much less entertaining to watch. Chris' group were better musicians but Graeme and his friends had more polish and better tunes. I'd heard better, but I had no complaints about the gig at all.

Unfortunately Matt's scheme to drag everyone from the gig back to his
house to use as extras came a bit of a cropper as most of the audience
cleared off straight after the end of Pavane's set. But we had a few new
faces on the trip back to Matt and Erica's house - Caitlin's boyfriend had showed up, and so had... Darren.

Darren was in his late teens and technically homeless - he told me he'd recently been kicked out by his grandfather. He was 6'4" and built like a lightly shoddy concrete bunker, with nasty two-tone peroxide hair, a wispy goatee, and a face that betrayed a generally pleasant nature if a slight shortage of raw brainpower. I'm not sure he was even at the Adelphi that evening, he may have just seen the mob of us processing back to Matt's house and surreptitiously tagged along. It turned out he was a big film fan and keen to do anything to help the project. Needless to say Matt and Erica virtually adopted him on the spot and he repaid this generosity with unswerving loyalty.

Anyway, back at the house we got down to the business of filming the big party scene. Everyone was roped in and Erica's box of hats and other bits and bobs was brought into play to help disguise the fact that most of the party guests were also playing the leading roles in the film. Matt decided that only Erica and I would be playing our 'proper' parts and that I should demonstrate what an awful boyfriend I had been by engaging her in unscripted tedious small-talk at the start of the film.

This was the shot: the camera was to sweep down the street, turn left
suddenly up Matt and Erica's front path, go in through their front door and into the depths of the house (passing all our not-very-heavily disguised performers as it did so), finally settling on Erica, seated near to the kitchen door. At which point her narration would kick in and we'd be off into the, ha-ha, plot.

Everyone was ordered to think of good, visual party-activities to be
doing when the camera passed them and a moment later Chris and Joe
approached Matt. They were in costume: Chris in a hooded sweatshirt that hid his dreadlocks, Joe in horn-rimmed specs and a baseball cap worn at a shockingly jaunty angle.

'We thought we'd be drug dealers'

Chris said, in his usual Brummie
drawl.

'Great! Great!'

Matt said, fuse clearly once more a-sparkling. It sounded
like a terrible idea to me, mainly because they looked nothing like any drug dealers I'd ever seen before in Hull (or anywhere else, except perhaps on Babylon 5), but it was pointless arguing when Matt got like this. 'But how can we do it in a visual way?'

They looked at each other.
'Well'

Chris continued,
'what if we get something that looks like coke and pretend to snort it off your table?'

I watched in stunned disbelief as Matt agreed to this lunatic idea. The only cocaine lookey-likey in the house turned out to be a well-known brand of soap powder, a thin line of which was inexpertly laid out on the table. I noticed Joe was showing absolutely no signs of actually doing any snorting himself: an eccentric, yes - certifiable, no.

I had other things to worry about, anyway. My costume as 'awful
boyfriend' (I'd nearly suggested to Matt that Erica and I engage in some
a-huggin' and a-kissin' for the camera, purely to establish our relationship of course, but decided that a fist-fight might spoil the mood) consisted of my own jeans, a leather coat, big curvy shades, and something that would have made a pretty good Hawaiian shirt, if Hawaii had fewer palm trees and beaches and more stagnant marshland. I was aiming for a Roy Orbison-esque look but the final effect was probably closer to Carlos the Jackal. I sat down next to Erica and asked what my tedious improvised dialogue should be about.

'Dunno, just wing it!'

said Matt helpfully.

So I winged it, the camera cruising up the path, past the others, past the strange soap-snorting weirdos, and onto me and Erica. Off the top of my head I went into a monologue concerning the identity of the person who shoots Chris Penn's character at the end of Reservoir Dogs (which probably says much too much about my mental state in those days). This speech was of such unrelieved banality that Erica didn't need to act at all, and her look of aghast horror was entirely natural.

Matt called cut and when Chris had finished frothing at the mouth and
choking we watched the playback. By our standards it was a good shot, the camera movement was smooth, most of the extras were only vaguely
recognisable, and - even more startling - I was good in it! All those years thinking I had no acting ability, and here I was nailing a scene in one take!

Matt was clearly impressed and we quickly rattled off a few more 'awful boyfriend riffs about pop-culture crap' scenes. I was getting my laughs! I was, and no false modesty here, pretty damn good! The fact that success as a tedious git required no acting whatsoever on my part was something that I chose to ignore.

After a while - probably about half-past two in the morning - Matt
decided we'd earned a short break and we all put a few beers away to keep the mood stoked up. Chris had brought his guitar and shortly started to punish the fretwork energetically. Graeme joined in with the words, and then suddenly we were all belting out the words together as a succession of punk and new wave standards came from the guitar - 'Boys Don't Cry,' 'Down In The Tube Station At Midnight', and a drinking-song rendition of 'Anarchy in the UK'. Joe's revelation at this point that he'd actually met the Sex Pistols back in 1977 won him much respect - but knowing Caitlin's abiding love of Paul Weller I hoped he would keep his considered opinion of the Jam ('bl**din' social workers with guitars') to himself.

The community singing staggered on for an hour or so and as the sun began to stain the sky I wondered what on Earth Matt and Erica's neighbours were making of this terrible racket. Matt decided some more filming was in order but he'd left it too late - we were, to a varying degree, bombed, croaky-voiced, and exhausted. The spark had gone out of our performances and people were actually falling asleep in the middle of takes.

The final nail in the coffin was the appearance of two police officers at the front door. Not to complain about the din, surprisingly enough, but to investigate why said door was wide open at five in the morning. There were, they said, burglars about. Well, we already knew that - Chris and Graeme had had their TV whipped just that Tuesday. The dibble seemed a bit suspicious of Matt's claim to be a film-maker, but thankfully they cleared off without prying too much.

Matt reluctantly called it a night and we staggered off home gratefully. Things had not gone quite as planned, but - hey! - I finally had a part to play in these proceedings that I was a genuine success at, and I wasn't about to argue with that.

Next Episode: Caitlin tries to defy nature, and LA Law has an
unlikely impact on proceedings.

Adventures in Cinema Collection

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