I was going for a big finish.
Well, this was going to be the tenth film out of ten, so why not go out in a blaze of glory with the biggest name in the whole monologue market.
God.
Only problem was that this would actually be the twelfth film out of ten. That’s because two extra films had crept into the mix. One had been enlisted to step into the breach out of necessity, one had been made out of anger. But we were deep into the pandemic, and the lockdown, and there were no maps where we found ourselves. Even well thought-through plans were liable to pivot. So half-arsed ideas like the one I’d had at the start of it all were bound to change.
‘Unprecedented’ was the word you heard used a lot. In fact, over 2020 we heard that word so much that I think we can safely retire it from the lexicon. Been there, done that, got the face masks.
So anyway, back to God.
‘In Which God Starts A Self Help Group’ was a script I already had. I’d written it a while back when I was trying to figure out if I could write things that weren’t in my own voice. My logic at the time was that if I was going to try a different voice, why not take it to extremes. Why not try and be God?
In a strange way it didn’t seem that big a leap of the imagination for me because, over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that writers are Trainee Gods. Writers create people, and situations, and worlds, and moralities, and whole new realities.
Except we don’t get it right. Because we are Trainee Gods, maybe even Work Experience Gods. So what we create is flawed. Incomplete. Inconsistent. And sometimes we just can’t figure out how to make the whole thing work.
Then we’ve got no choice but to leave our characters on their own. And we send them out into the world hoping that they’ve got enough about them to survive. Or possibly even thrive. But what happens next is up to them. And to the audiences they meet.
But stare too long at this analysis and the thought soon surfaces that maybe God, you know the actual God, was a writer too.
That kind of explains ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’
Damn. Getting a bit too metaphysical now.
Time for a dose of pressing reality. I had a script in which God spoke, but how on earth would I find someone to play God?
Casting is a mysterious craft. I don’t know how you’re supposed to do it. My only real experience of it was I was back in adland. But in adland the casting choices you consider are very specific.
If you’re making a 30 second commercial which features a mum, you cast an actress who looks like an idealized version of what a mum should look like. You cast someone who communicates that constructed reality almost from the first instant that they are seen. Mainly because you’ve only got 30 seconds and you need to establish who your character is, with as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.
But I was looking for God.
And I wasn’t in Kansas any more, Toto. I’d left adland far behind. So I could decide what God looked like. For a start, I wanted God to be played by a very good actor. But a very good actor who didn’t look like an idealized, white-bearded, version of what God should look like.
All of which brings me to Michael Eaves. I’d seen him over 20 years before in a very funny play called ‘Murder At the Mill’ which Jan had been in. What I remembered, apart from his skill as an actor, was that he had a subtlety, a lightness of touch, about his performance. He didn’t need to do a lot, to achieve a lot.
Also, he didn’t look like God.
But, to my mind, he might just look like a God who was filled with doubt and had decided to start a self-help group. So I rang him up and asked him if he wanted to play God. He said yes. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?
I sent him the script.
He read it. He liked it. And that qualified ‘yes’ all actors give before they’ve read the actual script being offered solidified into something much more engaged.
And then he said ‘the funny thing is, I’ve just grown a white beard’.
I took it as a sign.
Coming next Friday: A pause to reflect.
But first here’s ‘In Which God Starts A Self-Help Group’ featuring the divine Michael Eaves.