DAY TWENTY – SCLUB AND CLONE SCLUB DANCE THEIR WAY OUT OF TROUBLE (AGAIN) AND FOIL VICTOR’S DASTARDLY PLAN. Like the last day of term you normally look forward to the end of the shoot with such joy and anticipation but I arrived on set full of dread – so much to do. I draw a 2 inch square post-it drawing for each set up we need to accomplish and, though people swear it’s helpful, they joke incessantly about how many little squares there are up on my board at the start of each day. The grips and sparks look over with furrowed brows – each scribble represents hours of toil and sweat for them. After a full morning’s work we seem to have only removed a quarter of today’s sketches.
As I think it’s now official I can reveal that the big dance scenes have been a trial for us all because of Jo’s back. She has been in serious pain for some months and we’ve had to exclude her from the big numbers which is a bit like playing in the world cup final with Beckham making tea in the changing rooms. The band miss Jo, Jo hates not dancing and I hate having to come up with useful solutions to explain her absence. Jo has fought through the pain like the trouper that she is and the band have rallied protectively around her like 5 extra brothers and sisters.
And so today Jo sat and watched a lot while we danced our way ever so slowly down the nave of the fine old chapel we’ve adopted as our grand dining hall. As the day hurtled onwards and the little drawings fell slowly off the board we would occasionally dash outside with Tim and Will into the darkness and record missing wild lines from the script: a missing line from Bradley in the Clone House shower, Jon and Rachel yelling “Goodnight Barcelona!” and Victor humming the intro to “Don’t Stop Movin’”
Of course we went into overtime and the pile of discarded post-its was as large as the pile of completed ones until we wound up back at the big table to shoot a small scene with Gareth Gates. It was Gareth’s second day in Spain with us and though he was nervous he delivered his lines with panache and then suddenly, finally it was all over. I felt punch-drunk and delirious and stunned that the movie had started let alone finished, the band were all smiles and hugs as I slipped away to the hotel’s dining room. I didn’t want to say goodbye because…I didn’t want to say goodbye: I remember how honest the band were with me at our first rehearsal and they’ve never failed to listen and trust me the whole way through even though sometimes I didn’t fully trust myself – I’m going to miss their smiles and giggles and the way they all yell “We’re on a mission!” whenever I ask them to but, as Clone Alistair put it the other day: “This, my little pop chums, is the end of the line!” Within an hour of wrap our wonderful team was already exploding – the band were driving back to Barcelona and thence to London, Alan was already on his way to LA, Gayla was long gone to Miami and John would soon be following her there.
I couldn’t sleep and at 2am found myself in front of the TV with a bottle of beer and a bar of chocolate finally watching the dailies which were handed to me last night in a large shopping bag! I laughed and giggled and grimaced my way through hours of scenes like my own very expensive home movie and finally fell asleep exhausted.