Saturday Night Titty Talk

I woke up late his morning with a very fuzzy head. How did that happen? When did I become such a pathetic lightweight? Yes, it had been the actress’ surprise birthday party last night but over the course of the evening I had drank a flute of champagne, a small bottle of particularly refreshing raspberry-flavoured lemonade, and then a glass of water. It wasn’t what I would describe as a particularly heavy night by any standards.

Still it was a perfect evening. Of course it would have been better if First Capital Connect was running trains through London on the weekend. Heaven forbid such a convenience like that should happen. Rather than getting the overground from here straight to Blackfriars and then simply walking the rest of the way to the venue, numerous buses and tube trains had to be factored into the travel arrangements. Given how unreliable they can be at the best of times, I left early only to be pleasantly surprised by how easily I made each connection.

We had been asked not to be late after all. Walking up out of St Paul’s tube station onto the street still afforded me time to gaze at Wren’s masterpiece. With a portion of the north side surrounded by scaffold wreathed in a white plastic skin it looked uncannily like the cathedral was just in the final stages of being sculpted out of a large block of Portland stone. Walking the few blocks to the venue I fell in with relatives of the actress who had specially come over from America. Just before we turned off into the relevant side street a cab pulled up and out sprang her agent who promptly roped me into helping put up the decorations.

There are always surprise parties where the recipient has an inkling of something being afoot. In this instance the Birthday Girl didn’t have a clue. Her children had disappeared for the day, probably using the excuse they were out with friends. While we were standing outside having a brief gasper, her husband admitted he had been out all day, ostensibly at a football match that didn’t actually take place until today. Meanwhile the Birthday Girl was expecting to simply be a guest at a film technicians’ awards banquet.

If there was one downside to the event it was that to keep it a surprise the agent and everyone organising the event had to lie to her. In an industry filled with more rancid, thoroughly unpleasant people that you can shake a stick at, the Birthday Girl was one of the thoroughly decent individuals. She wasn’t one of the dreadful Norma Desmonds-in-waiting types that both Mister Mark and I have had brushes with in the past. Instead she was one of the nice guys. So even if she wasn’t particularly thrilled about spending her Saturday night the way she was expecting to, she buckled up and honoured the commitment nonetheless. Which was lucky for everyone, I guess.

Escorting her to the “event” was our good pal H. The worry, especially from his wife, who was already at the venue, was that he hated lying to anyone and hopefully wouldn’t cave under pressure and give the game away. Like the good soldier he is, H kept his nerve and didn’t blather too much to make her at all suspicious. With the layout of the venue virtually split in two by a double-sided bar, we held our breath in one half while she entered the other. The dimmed lighting gave her a moment to pause but H led the way and the manageress welcomed them in before close to one hundred people yelled, “Surprise!” Thankfully this wasn’t followed by a brief silence and a loud thud.

Guessing who would be amongst the invited, I went double-packed with cigarettes in both my overcoat and jacket pockets. Amongst various actresses invited, a few I had first met back when we produced a promotional B2B DVD. Prior to one interview we had opted for the lapel mic rather than the boom. Attempting to clip it onto her jacket the little sucker sprang from my fingers and disappeared into her rather impressive cleavage, whereupon she thrust her chest forward, inviting me to fish it out.

After that auspicious introduction, whenever our paths crossed we would scoot outside to spark up and catch up. This night was no different, except she had come without, relying on me to provide the necessary toxins. So did another actress I had one met in passing. With the cold just bearable for one smoke before everyone had to dash back inside, and joined by a designer friend I hadn’t seen in ages, on our second venture outside conversation turned to how irritated they were that their breasts had naturally enlarged over recent years. From my perspective things didn’t look that bad. Still, I dutifully listened to their concerns, glad that it saved me from talking like a tit.

To keep the theme going, the next time around we were joined by a young slip of a thing who was already building a decent screen career even if she looked like she should be home waiting on the results of her mock GCSE exams. She had recently turned down a role in an upcoming British comedy horror movie that is apparently generating some buzz and wondered if she had done the right thing. If she had played a lesbian vampire, the director had wanted to film her in such a way that the audience sees everything.

Her objection was that it was too early in her career to head down that path. I just stopped myself from giving her my email address to inform me when the time was right. Since the young lass also had a second career in wrestling she pulled out some gizmo and showed us her one of her more recent matches. Even with the butt mashed into the pavement by then and the wind chilling me to the bone it was worth staying out until the final smackdown. Interestingly the opponents wear some rather exotic lingerie in the ring.

Back indoors, after a specially created montage of the Birthday Girl’s best on-screen moments was screened to cheers and applause and everyone had eaten a slice of the kind of sumptuous chocolate birthday cake that starts hardening arteries with the first bite, the evening still had more surprises to come. One of the guests was a classically trained lyric spinto soprano. After handing the Birthday Girl a flute of champagne and raising her own in toast she launched into an extraordinary rendition of Libiamo ne’ lieti calici, otherwise known as the “drinking song” from Verdi’s La Traviata.

Conversations in the room dried up as everyone turned to listen. Standing a couple of feet away, facing this relatively slender, youthful singer and watch her entrancing, impromptu performance was simply jaw dropping. Afterwards I was talking to her about opera. Possibly Austrian from her accent, tall and with long blonde hair, it seemed quite right that the conversation turned to Wagner.

The Soprano had recently auditioned for a role in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and was delighted that I had seen it, though less so when I admitted it was at the ENO. Curious to know how it sounded translated into English, of course I had no comparison. Der Ring des Nibelungen was what she was aiming for, and frankly I could see her as a perfect Brünnhilde. When she bemoaned it was such a long production with so much to learn I came so close to directing her towards Chuck Jones’ What’s Opera Doc? But then I realized such an admission would make me look a fool so I let the thought drift away.

When it was time to go I managed to say my goodbyes to half the people I knew before being was dragged outside by the designer to spark up for one last time, which then meant having to go back inside again. With the full moon floating like an ivory balloon above the large dome of St Paul’s I set of home. The final surprise of the night came after I’d come through the door and glanced at the clock after hanging up my overcoat. How exactly had it taken two whole hours to get home?