Feature Writing
Why January should be banned
By Alice Richardson
January is a cruel and unnatural
month. It is a month of diabolical weather, spotty skin and disease. It
is the Monday of the year. After a month of festivity and fun we are made
to suffer the severest of anti-climaxes when we wake up on January the
first. Down come the Christmas decorations; up go the back to school signs.
Grey skies suffocate and hooded figures huddle past each other in rain-
soaked towns. No one smiles; they can’t. Cashiers with pissed off
pony- tails sell you your groceries; knot- faced taxi- drivers splash
past you when you are too tired and wet to carry your groceries home;
and when you arrive home with spongy feet, dripping nose and no key, you
are too ill and wet, even to cook your groceries.
I propose that the year should officially begin in February. Or even March.
January should be a time of natural hibernation; a month pre-prepared
for, in which we stock up on all the supplies needed, rendering it unnecessary
to leave the house at all. I am not suggesting that we all sit around
watching telly for a month, but that we use this time to nourish ourselves
physically and mentally so that when work begins again in February we
are healthy, happy and more productive.
Think about it: most of us spend January moaning about it being that time
of the year and isn’t the weather awful. It’s as though we
all suffer one giant pre-menstrual crisis together. Wouldn’t it
be far more practical to just skip this bit out and create an organised
slump? One in which books are read, good food is eaten and sleep is had?
We are mammals, we are not supposed to be awake right now, let alone operating
heavy machinery, making executive decisions or conducting relationships,
on any level.
January is a soul-destroying experience we could all do without, should
all do without for the sake of the rest of the year. Why immediately cast
a shadow over the next chapter in everyone’s lives? So I for one
am going back to sleep and I will see you all in February.
A day in the life of a writer
Pete Richens – Scriptwriter
Pete Richens has been writing
comedy screenplay for nearly thirty years. He dreamed of being a Science
Fiction novelist until he met a group of aspiring comedians in London.
I went and spent the day with him on the film set of his latest project,
and observed the ambiguous yet vital role a writer plays when the two
industries merge.
07:00hrs
It is a cold November morning in a street in South London. Lighting vans
and catering lorries cluster around a large, square house, creating an
isolated buzz of activity on the dark, sleepy street. Equipment is being
unloaded by puffa-coated crew who look tired and cold. But cigarettes
are passed around and the film-set banter, (not unlike war-time camaraderie)
bounces around effortlessly. Pete Richens is drinking his second coffee
out of a polystyrene cup as the frosty sunlight starts to emerge from
behind the rooftops. The expensive frenzy that evolves around him is dictated
by a few flourishes of his pen. Last night he and the director changed
the entire ending to the script. A few twilight hours in one man’s
hotel room has changed where, when and what will be happening today. Yet
here he is, backed up against a lighting van, shredding a polystyrene
cup.
Pete has been writing comedy scripts since he was in his twenties and
has been involved with the making of most of them, yet he could be mistaken
for an anonymous bystander as he watches on the sidelines.
Pete’s role on the set is an awkward one. He is a writer and production
teams can make writers feel unwelcome. This is because they have a tendency
to complicate things. They add lines and make changes without thinking
about camera angles or budget. This set has a nice atmosphere though and
Pete is enjoying his last day.
09:00hrs
Filming has begun inside the house. Although it is spacious inside, the
people and equipment make it a claustrophobic tangle of obstacles. I follow
Pete closely. He expertly dodges cameras and tripods. Up close though,
the chaos is organised and everyone knows what they are doing where they
are going.
The set is bathed in artificial sunlight and is bristling with activity.
A serious looking young assistant charges past with two cups of steaming
coffee whilst a couple of make-up artists are laughing in the corner.
A young actress sits on an up-turned box, smoking a cigarette, her hair
piled up in pink rollers. Dry ice is pumped around the room and it billows
and blooms making everyone choke. The first assistant shouts, the clapboard
snaps shut and Pete’s words start to come to life.
Pete ducks into a small dark room where the soundman has set up his temporary
office. He is a good person to find on set because he has a monitor and
a place to sit down, ideal for watching at a distance. Pete sinks into
a leather sofa and watches the monitor intently.
1400hrs
Lunch time: The catering crew chirp away as they serve hot plates of salty
food to the ravenous film crew. Pete takes his lunch and climbs to the
top floor of the double-decker dining bus. During lunch, he sits with
the director and checks the script, pencilling minor changes here and
there. Pete is astoundingly blasé about his career and his talents.
He speaks about it as though it were a shirt he happened to be wearing.
He is negative about the script, he always is, but the director is choking
on his food laughing. Like most of his scripts, this one was born out
of something he saw, an encounter or a dysfunctional relationship that
made him laugh. Sometimes his ideas peter out, but sometimes they have
legs that carry them- like this one.
Soon the noisy bus reluctantly clears as the crew swarm back into the
house. A woman wearing an apron stands on her doorstep glowering at the
film set circus. A young, handsome runner shouts something charming and
she smiles reluctantly and shuts the door.
Pete takes another cup of coffee into the house and stands at the edge
of the brightly lit room. A few people slap him on the back as they walk
past. There is a rap (end of filming) party tonight and he gives a non-committal
laugh when asked if he is coming.
1800
It is cold and dark outside now. The director is talking to the actress
and the make up artists are brushing each other’s hair. The whole
room is as alive and brimming with energy as it was this morning. The
filming will probably go on for a few more hours, but Pete’s work
here is done. He buttons up his grey coat and weaves his way through the
tangle of lights, wires and people. No one sees him go and I feel that
he wants it that way. Before he walks away from the noise and chaos he
says, ‘It’s a bit like being a director without the responsibility
or the fun. But the writing makes it all worthwhile. Writing scripts has
never felt like a job to me and anyone that can get to the age of sixty
without ever doing a day’s work, has had a life well spent in my
opinion.’
The Lizard
By Alice Richardson.
A long, winding road dotted
with signs for campsites and cider shops opens out into a small town green.
Welcome to The Lizard, Britain’s most Southerly point. On this cold
day in November it is deserted. Fairy-lights dangle from a few lamp-posts
and all the gift shops are closed. The only sounds are the squawking of
seagulls and a radio that is somewhere playing Boy George. Two women stand
talking outside a peeling black and white building, that is Lizard General
Stores. Next to Smugglers fish and chip shop there is a pub called The
Top House. I go in to ask for directions.
I follow the narrow lane down to the sea. As I get closer, the grey sea
appears in the distance. Either side of the lane are scraggy winter fields
that run down to the sea. A white lighthouse stands starkly against the
moody sky. I can hear the sea rumbling and can see the dark jagged shapes
of the Man Of War Rocks jutting out of the white foam. The short stay
car park stands empty and a large painted sign directs me to the Wavecrest
Café and also the Point. A Cornish Coffee sign sits garish and
rude on the pathway. I hear a whirring sound coming from a cheerfully
blue building. A sign hanging above the door reads, P.L Casley and Son:
Local Serpentine Stone Specialists. Inside it is brightly lit and cut
and polished stones glisten on all of the surfaces. Mr Casley stops work
to talk to me. He gives me some tourist tit-bits about the famous headland,
telling me that the name ‘Lizard’ comes from the Cornish ‘Lys
ardh’, meaning High Place and that the lifeboat station down on
the beach was closed down in 1962 because it was a difficult and dangerous
place to launch from. Although it rescued many sinking ships, the rocks
below claimed many lives. In fact the bell from a German ship called Adolf
Vinnen is in the Top House Pub. She sank on her maiden voyage. The old
boathouse used to be up where the café is and the crewmen would
have to crawl on their hands and knees around the hairpin bend at the
top of the track to stop the wind from catching their bulky oilskins and
blowing them off the 100 foot cliff so they built a new boathouse which
is down on the beach. Mr Casley has finished his cigarette so I thank
him and start down the steep, curving path to the beach and lifeboat station.
The Unstable cliff sign worries me slightly but I keep walking.
The beach is very small and has dark, charcoally sand. Copper coloured
seaweed is strewn everywhere. The slipway that runs from the building
into the sea is crumbling and skeletal and chunks of it stick out of the
water eroding like old teeth. Coves, caves and sheer cliffs are gouged
out of the dark rock including a circular pit to the East of the lighthouse
that is called The Lion’s Den. Today the sea is rough. It crashes
and froths and the sea spray veils everything in mist. A flock of seagulls
cluster on one of the jagged rocks a little way out and other sea birds
soar and screech. The lifeboat-house is large and has black double doors.
Black and white photos of the lifeboat station in its prime hang on the
doors. Thirteen men stand proudly in front of their boat called the Admiral
Sir George in 1903. Tankers, yachts and cruisers lie wrecked and torn
on rocks in the grainy grey photos. Tales of tragedy are told in a passionate
tone on the notice- board: The Royal Anne was driven onto the rocks in
a storm in 1721 killing all 200 hundred crew. They are buried in a mass
grave called Pistil Meadow a mile away. A heavy fog claimed the Socoa
in 1886. It was San Francisco bound with 69,000 barrels of cement, meant
to re-build the city after the 1902 earthquake. Pictures of the lifeboats
being launched in front of a crowd of people emphasise the lack of movement
around me now. Today only fishermen moor their boats. Three white rowing
boats called Girl Frances, Veronica Rose and Sandali lie where the lifeboats
once did. Below a record of the services rendered by the Lizard lifeboats
is a proud statement:
‘From this point and on the night of the 17th of March 1907 and
throughout the following day, was witnessed the greatest ever rescue operation
undertaken…when the White Star Liner SUEVIC stranded on the Maenheere
Reef in thick fog and heavy seas…four lifeboats took part…those
of The Lizard, Cadgwith, Coverack and Porthleven. All 521 persons rescued
without loss. The Lizard lifeboat accounting for 167 in six trips.’
The sky is getting ominously dark so I start to walk back.
As I walk up the path, I spot three wooden crosses stuck in the brown
earth on the edge of the cliff. Up ahead the coca cola vending machine
glows, outside the café and I see Mr Casley shutting up his shop.
I take one last look at the humbling view of dark, jagged cliffs and the
sturdy, empty boathouse and walk back to my car.
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