In Good Company: TV Stars?
Enid Blackburn recalls a weekend many years ago when she and her family set out to be TV stars.
Like me you have probably guffawed and grimaced at the stupidity shown by some television quiz contestants. And like me, you must have wallowed in exasperation as the glaze-eyed and gormless fail to answer questions a five-year-old could. Last weekend I played the part of a gormless bird-brain myself!
To appease my spouse’s manic ‘see how it works’ curiosity, the family and I were persuaded, some time ago, to audition for ATV’s ‘Family Fortunes.’
First of all let me explain that I have trouble putting the correct name to faces of our own children, but this did not deter my husband. ‘No one can be so dumb,’ he’s fond of saying when others fail. So I went along uneasily to the auditions held in Leeds. My first nervous collapse occurred when researcher Miss Claudia Hovarth rang about two weeks later to announce we had been chosen. We were about to be televised! The thrill was overwhelming, and didn’t fade until I put down the phone.
By the time the rest of the family came home my health and well-being had deteriorated so much I could hardly get the news out. My husband said later that he thought there had been a death in the family.
For one hour after the news of our success, egos soared. Then one by one all except father backed out. But his lengthy address on £1,000 divided by six soon had us chomping at the bit once more.
A letter followed informing us that weekend accommodation for six had been booked and paid for at a posh hotel near Elstree Studios.
Looking back I can see small, but ominous indications of what the weekend was about to unfold for me: Holding my hand under the wrong orifice when using a soap dispenser in a motorway toilet, thereby filling my jumper sleeve with pink slime. Being given the wrong room key, fetching hotel manager to open a door, dropping cases, plugging in kettle and switching on TV and then running next door to daughter’s room only to realise too late I had locked myself out. What does maitre d’hotel think when he opens our door for second time in five minutes to find kettle boiling mad, television playing full blast and cases not even unpacked?
At noon the following day a mini-bus drives us to the studio where we meet five more families and after placing our gear in the dressing rooms we then troop into canteen for lunch.
To calm my nerves I nonchalantly order a medicinal brandy and squirt soda siphon so severely that it transfers everything from my glass on to the bar top. Sympathetic barmaid who has already watched me miss the ashtray and flick ash in son’s beer several times refills glass and shows me how to use siphon without drowning her customers.
Canteen food good and cheap, but my appetite fled the minute we were introduced to our intelligent looking opponents. From now until 5.30pm con-testants are confined to the ‘Fortunes’ studio for rehearsals.
Camera technicians, engineers, researchers, various earphoned youths, a producer, director and of course, our host, Bob Monkhouse all concentrate on moulding six dithering white-cheeked families into vital contestants.
Whatever preordained image we may have had, Bob Monkhouse in the flesh is a kind, hardworking, 100 per cent professional, and that goes for the rest of his team, including the canteen staff who all do their best to keep us on our feet.
If you want to know the rest of the saga, don’t miss next week’s thrilling episode entitled ‘Montgomery and his part in my downfall!’
