The King's Speech

Last night I went to see a film I’d been wanting to see for a long time – the much acclaimed The King’s Speech. It has got rave reviews recently in the press and so I went for myself to see if the fuss being made was justified.

The King’s Speech charts the struggle of Bertie, Duke of York (Colin Firth), who was to later become George VI – for those of you not clued up on British monarchs, he was the present queen’s father. He reigned from 1936 to 1952, and was thus monarch throughout the Second World War.

The film starts a little earlier than I expected, when the duke was still a duke and had yet to become a king – still, I hardly think “The Duke-cum-King’s Speech” would’ve sounded as good on posters. It starts off when Bertie is already married to Elizabeth (the late Queen Mother, played by Helena Bonham Carter) and is suffering from a terrible stammer, which proves crippling in his very public role of making speeches and generally being in the spotlight. To remedy the problem, his wife has taken him through all the professionals possible, before screening a bit of a maverick speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) as a last resort at his weather-beaten rooms in Harley Street.

I did wonder how the film would evolve – after all, there’s only so much therapy you can spin out for around two hours. Rather than focussing on the therapy itself, the film focuses on Bertie’s relationship with Logue, set amongst the heavy backdrop of events of the time. The film moves from Bertie as Duke of York, with his father George V still alive, through to George V’s death, through the short reign of Edward VIII, his elder brother, who then abdicates, and through the first few years of Bertie’s reign as George VI, up to the point where Britain declares war on Nazi Germany – which, at the end of the film, is where the big speech mentioned in the title occurs.

The film is in short excellent, and its acclaim is fully justified. It’s hard to judge who is the greater star of the show, for the three main characters of Bertie, Elizabeth and Logue are all played with such magnificence that each outshines the other, nay, they interlock. Even though Firth, Bonham Carter and Rush are all such famous actors, they all actually became the characters they portrayed. Firth’s portrayal of George VI was of a bad-tempered and irritable but well-meaning man who simply wants to be rid of his problem and get on with things. I found Firth’s voice particularly charming ... both he and Bonham Carter carried off with aplomb that very upper-class plum-in-the-mouth tone and manner. Bonham Carter really shone as Elizabeth ... the strong yet pleasant and snobbish and arrogant lady who, like her husband, has no qualms about pulling rank or having airs all too well suited to their station. Firth and Bonham Carter really conveyed that feeling of a couple of which he was reputed to be the shy and ill-tempered, and she the "iron fist in a velvet glove". The way they carried themselves was exquisite, polite yet haughty, dutiful yet imperious with those accents down to a Tee. Rush too, excelled as the gentle-mannered yet focussed speech therapist who on no uncertain terms was on a mission to cure his patient, royalty or not. The chemistry between Bertie and Logue and Bertie and Elizabeth was breathtaking, with Bertie’s relationship with each as intimate but as different as can be. It would not be difficult to see the Oscars being awarded to the three leads for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress respectively.
The sets were lavish, as expected of a production with such royal subject matter, with great substitutes for the royal palaces. Everything about the film was just right – tone, pacing, dialogue, all the pauses in the right place. It was engaging without being explosive, and was entertaining without being riotous.

It was, predictably, rather stereotypically monarchist. Certain facts were emphasised or ignored according to the film’s agenda, which I suppose is understandable, and the film was designed to portray George VI and his wife in a wholly sympathetic light; the idea of a man with a huge burden of kingship thrust upon him, a burden made all the harder to bear through it being unexpected, his character and his stammer. His ill temper was not portrayed as part of his character but as a result of frustration. The idea of Elizabeth being the power behind the throne, the doting and supportive wife so completely in love with her husband – even the fact that he proposed to her twice before she said yes being explained as not through a lack of love for him, but because she too doubted whether she could hack the "burden" of royal life. In short, we are given the stock version of the characters. No Nazi appeasement mentioned on anyone's part. No racism. Haughtiness, yes, but to an amusing degree, rather than inciting dislike towards Bertie and Elizabeth. The creation really was of the Poor Little Rich Boy Just Trying to Come Good, which numerous references and obvious name-dropping to former monarchs, British monarchical history and traditions ... it was quite a walking advert for the British monarchy.

In a lot of ways it mirrors another film with a similar theme: The Madness of King George, for which Nigel Hawthorne was nominated for an Oscar. It follows much the same pattern – the king’s duty is a burdensome one, he has a dutiful and loving queen by his side, the king has a problem (in George III’s case he went mad rather than stammered), a controversial therapist is sought for ... at first the king resists, but over time builds a trusting relationship with his practitioner, just in time for the problem to be solved. In fact, the two films chronicling the woes of both George’s are so remarkably similar that I wonder if historical events and character have not been ever so slightly bended if not by Hollywood then by the ages to please audiences who like a Happy Ending. It’s all a little too convenient that both stories run parallel to each other.

The film is tipped to win Oscars, and rightly so, because the acting is amazing, but I often wonder if in part it isn’t helped along by the “royal effect”. The Madness of King George, Elizabeth, Mrs Brown, The Queen and now The King’s Speech have all pulled in their fair share of Academy Award nominations or wins – and each time for an actor or actress playing the part of a king or queen. Perhaps The King’s Speech is part of this pattern. Hollywood loves chartering royalty, and no more so than when we are allowed a glimpse into their notoriously private lives. Perhaps through these royal films we create for ourselves a reproduction of what we perceive their world to be like – a world of riches, of palaces, of riches, of privileges, the social injustice of which is tempered by the millstone of “duty” which allegedly hangs round the royal necks. Perhaps it is that craving to see the royals as humans yet dare not believe that they be so, that drives the British and Americans alike to see these films about private royal lives. With royal films there is that desire to see the trials and tribulations, the headaches and woes of crowned heads, to prove to us that no-one has it all, and that apparently even the most exalted of society rest uneasy. Perhaps with these films we are creating what we wish to see, rather than what was actually there. If you are looking for this kind of feel-good injection, a very traditional view of a monarch and his era, along with genuinely superb acting, then with The King’s Speech you can’t go wrong.

Lights - Camera - ACTION!

Yesterday I was involved in something a bit out of the ordinary: I was an extra for a day.
I’ve always loved drama, and currently take acting classes and am avidly involved with my local theatre group. So when a mail came from the theatre group forwarded from a local production company asking if anybody wanted to be an – unpaid – extra, naturally I jumped at the chance!

I responded and was told by the production company that I would be needed on the Sunday (yesterday) and that I was to play a gang member. This made me feel a bit out of place, to be quite honest. Anybody who knows me knows that I’ve got the physique and demeanour of a gang member as much as Charles Hawtrey of Carry On fame! But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity and figured They Must Know What They’re Doing, so I was all set.

They rang me a few days before to confirm everything, and told me to turn up at 10:00am on Sunday for shooting in ... Trafford Park. I looked on the map and groaned, because Trafford Park is literally the other side of Manchester in the back of beyond from where I live. And I had to get there by public transport. And it was a Sunday. Fun.
I looked and looked at public transport options as much as I could, but it was impossible. Firstly, I could only find buses going to the Trafford Centre. Secondly, I couldn’t get those buses because they went from Stockport, and the buses TO Stockport didn’t depart until those buses had left. So I decided to fork out on a taxi, having got a reasonable estimate of £30 from a local company. I booked it for 8.30 on Sunday, and nervously went to bed.

The next morning I was all set – I got up early enough to have a shower and put on my garb (hoodie and jogging bottoms and trainers, as requested) and the taxi came early. I wasn’t sure whether they’d provide food on site so I stuck a piece of toast into a folder I had with the recording schedule I’d been instructed to bring.
After a nice little taxi ride, I was at the location at 9:00am. One hour ahead of schedule.

I presumed I’d only have an hour to wait ... but no. This, darlings, is the world of acting. There’s ENDLESS waiting around. There was a schedule, but they didn’t keep to it. The shooting sequence is so varied and changeable due to things like weather, some shots being shorter than others, changing the order around for what reason I don’t know, that the schedule basically goes to pot.

The actual thing being filmed was a documentary for a robbery of an airport warehouse. My scene, which I was to be involved in, was the robbers jumping out of a van and terrorising the workers, before themselves being unexpectedly ambushed by the police. I couldn’t really imagine what it’d be like as I’d never done this sort of thing before, so I was quite excited.

The actual location itself was a warehouse allright, and a grim one at that. We actors and extras waited in another equally grim warehouse round the corner. They looked deserted – they were completely empty, as was the business park, being a Sunday. The whole place felt rather sinister – disused warehouses in a grubby business park in the middle of nowhere, on a grey and relentlessly raining day. To say I felt stranded was the least of it, I felt positively marooned where we were, which rather effectively added to the feel that we were being taken hostage or in prison or something.

In the holding area (the second disused warehouse) there was absolutely nothing to do. The vast warehouse lay empty with bits of rubbish strewn here and there throughout the hall, with a small toilet, small kitchen and small empty office near the entrance. Working here full-time must have been depressing. There wasn’t even much to sit on, save for a few plastic boxes brought by the crew that held rations of chocolate and crisps. I suppose this was a sign that it was a smaller film company – a big one would’ve had lovely catering trucks and trailers, but we were a long way from Hollywood! I went into “make up”, which was basically two girls sat bundled-up and cross-legged on the floor of the small office of the abandoned warehouse. Very unglamorous. One of them, the make-up artist, had a kind of air pump machine that sprayed make up onto my face – about twenty seconds and it was done. It was quite uncomfortable because the jet of air went up my nose. It had looked very glamorous on the filming schedule we'd been sent. "Cast straight to make-up and wardrobe", it had said. Well there was very little make-up and certainly no wardrobe. Long way from Hollywood! No comfy trailers or dressing rooms here.

So myself and the other extras talked and talked until we had run out of things to talk about. Ten o’clock came and went, and we all got more and more bored. Thank goodness, though, that someone in the production team must’ve clapped eyes on me and instantly thought I’d make an awful robber. I had been getting worried about trying to act all macho and aggressive – in that I don’t think I would have been able to. The producer came up to me and looked me up and down and said “You’re going to be a worker at the warehouse that gets robbed, OK?” To which I nodded a grateful “yes”. “Do you have anything smarter on you?” she said, sizing me up again. “Er ... no” I replied (how was I supposed to know they’d change my role at the last minute! What was I supposed to do, bring some spare clothes along just in case? Lol). “Oh never mind” she said breezily. “We can work around that”. And I was promptly handed a fluorescent sort of waistcoat to go over my hoodie. To say I was relieved doesn’t exactly cut it. I noticed somebody else who had been destined to be a worker – a much, much more alpha male kinda guy – had been quietly swapped over to the gang of robbers. All of whom looked the part – built, aggressive, and ready to whack the nearest civilian on the head with a prop. Acting in role, of course! They had been given balaclavas to wear too, which made them look even more menacing, but I don’t think a balaclava would have helped me be a robber!

So we waited and waited some more in the scary warehouse. I spent the time imagining what it had been in a past life, and who owned it, and more significantly who on earth would pay good money just to be there, and perhaps even more significantly, what I was doing there, unpaid, with no reliable planned way of getting home. I resigned myself to just living for each hour and trying not to think about it.

I got talking to the other “workers” and it transpired some people had turned up at 7.30am ... and still not done anything. They’d been waiting four hours by that point. Other people, the actors and police extras and the robbers were coming and going, but we were just sat there, like lemons. And still waiting. They provided lunch for us, which were basically just ready meals hastily microwaved in the small warehouse kitchen. It wasn’t delicious. It was funny how they’d brought EVERYTHING with them to that abandoned place. Cutlery, microwaves, mugs, boxes or crisps, everything.

Then the producer came in. “Right, I need a worker” she said. She scanned round us until her eyes rested on me. “You’ll do!” she said, “come with me”. I followed her round the corner, through the derelict business park to the other warehouse, where filming was taking place. “You’ve got too nice a face to be a criminal, James” she said after asking me to remind her of my name, which I think was a lovely way to put that she thought me too shy and retiring to play an aggressive criminal. “Er yes, I had thought that” I said. “Are you the producer?” “Yes”, she replied “For my sins!”. I wondered if she really didn’t quite like her job or whether she was just saying that, the way a lot of people do when they’re perfectly happy but find solace in complaining with other people, as all the British do.
We arrived at the “set”, which was really just a warehouse with some very bright studio lights on the top of tall poles, and a sort of railway track opposite the large freight entrance on which the camera rolled (literally). A man who looked for all the world like Peter Jones off Dragons’ Den was shouting instructions, and I guessed he was the Director. He looked every inch the director, too, and by gum he knew exactly what he was doing, which shot went where, what everybody should be doing. He seemed a nice man, but very focussed and driven and intelligent.

“Right”, the producer said. She was a very well groomed and small lady, in around her late twenties, bundled up in stylish wools against the cold and the rain, and terribly polite ad well-spoken. “What we want you to do is go inside that warehouse, and when the van pulls up, you work the pulley that brings the door up. It’s really easy” she said, taking me inside the warehouse. “Look, you’d have to be a wimp to not be able to open that” she continued, as she opened the door a few centimetres. “OK!” Shouted the director. “When you hear a bang on the door, open the shutter!” So I took up position. I didn’t think I was quite the person for either the robbery or this macho thing either. I am skinny and a bit of a weakling and the last person to be relied upon to open a heavy chain-pulley operated metal shutter. But I waited anyhow, poised for action. After about two minutes, a loud bang resounded through the shutter. I heaved as hard as I could, and the producer had been right. It was easy to do. For a few centimetres. To do the whole thing though – and FAST, which the producer had quipped how they’d wanted it – was no mean feat. I did my best and huffed and puffed my way pulling the chain down and down so that the shutter slowly began to raise. I dallied a bit in the middle, at which point I wasn’t sure whether they were still filming or not because the director walked right across the shot, but I carried on anyhow. That chain nearly rubbed the skin of my hands, they felt extremely raw when I’d finished.

“OK that’s great.” Said the director. A small lorry was now pulled up, its backside facing the open door. “Now for the next shot, the driver will wave you goodbye, and you’ll give him a wave, and then you’ll let the shutter down. It’ll come down a lot faster than it went up. OK?” I nodded. “OK cool. Right then ...” I poised into position again. “Three, two one – ACTION!” I jumped, as I wasn’t really expecting it. It was the first time I’d been in front of a camera and someone had said that magic word!” I waved to the van driver, and he waved to me. The van began to pull off and I pulled the OTHER chain down as hard as I could. It seemed as though the harder I pulled, the slower the shutter came down. Again, they wanted it fast. This wasn’t easy – the shutter kept on tumbling down at intervals of its own momentum, which made the chain go insane, like a jumping snake, so it was hard to do it continuously. But I did it anyhow, and they said Thankyou, so I presumed that either what I’d done was OK, or that they were fed up and were going to cut it out of the whole thing.

Then it was back to waiting again. And waiting. And waiting. Conversation ran dry and we were all bored to tears. Some of the tougher guys had started a football match in the waiting room warehouse, and were kicking the ball around with all their might. I have to say I was impressed with their skills as footballers – they were doing all sorts of moves and tricks with the ball, which I wasn’t sure whether it was the norm for football games, since I don’t know as I don’t play football or watch it – or whether they were just showing off. I think they were just showing off. The moves got fancier and fancier and for a while the only sound that could be heard was polite chatter amongst those not playing and the slamming thud of the ball bouncing against the breeze block, grey walls of the warehouse.
After what seemed an age, the producer came in and said she wanted everyone on set. At last, the action was to begin! It was by now gone 4 o’clock. I’d felt like going home ages ago, and it showed signs of getting dark, but I wasn’t going to back out now. This is what I’d been waiting for!

We all went on set. It was a similar, abanonded warehouse, this time with the shutter opened and a van reversed into the warehouse itself ready to exit through the shutters. For this, my scene, were required the robbers and the workers. The scenario was that the workers, in their fluorescent jackets, were to be suddenly descended upon by the balaclava wearing robbers, all shouting and brandishing weapons, and thrown to the ground, while they found and started to load the gold bullion they were after into the back of their van.

We did a short rehearsal. I was a worker, along with the other four workers stationed in different places of the warehouse, going about his daily business when the robbers attacked. The director motioned to the robbers. “You, take this office worker here. You, take this one. Herd them over there. You – go after the bullion. All OK? Let's go.” As a short rehearsal, the men playing the robbers jumped out, clad in black with balaclavas, shouting and running towards us. It was quite scary and very realistic. They came up to us and stopped.“OK” said the director. “We’ll do that shot. Then we’ll stop, and we’ll pick up on the next shot where the police come in and in turn ambush the robbers. Get ready everyone...”

This was quite nerve-wracking. I got into position. I was stationed next to another guy playing a worker, none of us not knowing really what to expect. The three other works were placed elsewhere – two near the van, another not far away. The entire warehouse was loaded with islands of stacked cardboard boxes. The cameras were all inside the warehouse now, with the rest of the crew behind it like a hushed audience.

“OK, get ready!” shouted the director. My heart was racing. “Camera speed 300” Shouted the cameraman. “OK great” said the director. “Three, two, one ... and .... ACTION!”
Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. The van doors burst open, and the robbers swarmed out. We workers could not do anything but stare in a stupefied silence as their aggressive black figures lunged themselves at us, shouting and swearing and brandishing weapons. “GET THE FUCK DOWN THERE”, they yelled, and grabbed each of us roughly and threw us to the ground. The place was chaos.“KEEP YOUR FUCKING HEAD DOWN OR WE’LL BREAK YOUR FUCKING NECK! GET DOWN! GET DOWN! GET DOWN!” I was thrown roughly to the floor, into a heap with two other workers, where I kept my head as body as close to ground as possible. “YOU FUCKING LOOK UP I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT!” “ GET THE FUCK DOWN, DOWN!”. It didn’t feel like acting at that point. It felt totally and completely real, and just as frightening. I was no longer James. I was a warehouse worker being taken hostage. My head was against the cold and wet and muddy cement floor, and someone was piled on top of me. I didn’t know what was happening. I could only see the grey of the floor and the wood of some crates, and all I could hear was the yelling and the shouting and the swearing of the robbers. The commotion was raging. Then I heard more shouting, more swearing. "FUCKING GET DOWN! DON'T MOVE! FUCKING GET DOWN I TELL YA!" "NOBODY MOVE! GET DOWN!" It was as though a battle was raging. The hand that had been pushing me roughly to the ground was lifted, and I peeked up. There was still shouting, but the robbers were no longer terrorising us. They were lying on the floor, helpless. Policemen, who had appeared out of nowhere, stood pointing weapons at them. The robbers were at the mercy of the police who were now threatening them with machine guns. Still the havoc. Shouting and swearing ran amock, from police and robbers alike. The police had them cornered.

“And CUT!” shouted the director. “Fantastic!! That’s absolutely brilliant!” he said, with a big grin on his face. Everyone stood up straight, and the warehouse was civilised once more. Everyone was a different person to the one they had been a few minutes ago. The director had been extremely clever. He had told the robbers that they would cut when they had taken the workers hostage, and that they would film the police ambush separately. But what he had actually done was keep rolling and the police had come in on the same shot, taking the actors playing the robbers completely by surprise. The actors, like their robber characters, were completely unaware the police were to ambush them, and the clever director had got their looks of surprise all on film. It must have worked a treat.

“Now I want different shots”, said the director. We did around four more takes, not of the robbers jumping out of the van, but of them ambushing us, the workers, and throwing them roughly to the floor. I had been nervous at the start, but all that had quickly vanished, and I was now thoroughly enjoying myself. It was exciting being there, in a realistic location, being a part of the action. I completely forgot the cameras and the crew were on the other side of the room, I was so absorbed by what was going on. It was totally realistic, from the moment the director yelled ACTION! Perhaps a little too realistic at one point. During one take, as I was being pushed to the ground, I raised my head. I’d been asked to do this by one of the robbers, because then it gave them something to shout at us about. A robber pushed down on the back of my head hard, and slammed my nose against the concrete ground. I felt a crunch, and then a shooting pain, but carried on with the rest of the scene, where a police officer then drags us to safety. My eyes began to water and my nose was hurting as though someone had smashed it to pieces with a hammer, which for all I knew at the time wasn’t far off the mark. “And CUT!” Yelled the director. “Are you allright”? He said to me, my nose and forehead all muddy from the floor. “Erm, I think so” I said. “One of the robbers pushed my head down too hard and it struck the floor – is it bleeding?” “Oh dear, you’d better come and have a sit down” said the director kindly. “Don’t worry, it’s not bleeding – are you feeling ok?” “Yes, I’m fine, I’m sure it’ll stop hurting in a minute. I don’t think it’s broken or anything like that”, I said. I went to sit down behind the cameras, where the producer and members of the crew started fussing around me in a rather pleasant way. However, I’m pretty sure they were more concerned about getting sued for accidental injury than anything! “You poor thing!” Said the producer. “Are you ok?” “Yeah I’m fine, it’s starting to hurt less now” I said, but she asked me if I was allright another five times and scanned my face to check I really was ok and not going to faint on the spot or anything.

After a few minutes the pain subsided, and I noticed they were doing a scene without me. “Can I go back and be in the scene?” I asked the producer. “Sure” she said, and away I went into position again. The robber who had done it was also very apologetic – it was so strange seeing someone in then out of character in such a short space of time! Far from being an aggressive, bloodthirsty gang member, he was a really nice guy. “Don’t worry about it” I assured him “It was an accident and it doesn’t hurt now!”.

We did a few more scenes of the robbers being un-masked, which the director joked was very “Scooby-Doo”, and of the robbers being literally dragged kicking and screaming by the police, and then it was over, and they only had one more scene to shoot which didn’t involve us. “You guys are free to go now”, the director smiled at us – “thankyou for your time”. “Thankyou for yours,” I said, and shook his hand. I took off my fluorescent jacket, and with the other workers, stepped out of the brightly stuido-lit warehouse into the black and rainy outside. My filming adventure was over.