Home Counties
Monday 3rd March 2025
This game is nothing but variety.
I've been billeted in pubs, conference centres, university halls, lots of marquees, a tent in a field, even minibuses, but never before have I enjoyed the luxury of a squash court.
8:27 am. -3°C outside. Cold.
We chosen few - about 30 SAs - are the "Smart Crowd". Typecast by central casting, the usual suspects are dressed to the nines in "high-end costumes", to grace the background of some allegedly swanky do.
As we are led around the exterior of a countryside mansion, we hope that this National Trust pile possessed of about a million rooms, will yield a comfy, warm, portrait-lined salon for our lounging.
The Crowd AD - a daily, first day on this shoot - turns the final corner, opens the door, and stares slack-jawed at... a squash court.
It's beyond bleak. It's actually colder in this concrete mausoleum than it is outside. It is even colder than the Derbyshire mines of November last year. [See "Stairway to Heaven" and "500 feet underground"].
There's no heating, no tea or coffee, no tables and not enough seats. There is a pop-up tent, and someone is having a kip in it.
Unit Facilities are summoned to install heating. Ahhh, problem. There's no electricity supply. The extension lead from the main house can only supply half the juice needed to run the single 3 bar heater otherwise "we'll trip the whole house and production won't be able to film anything". It's like trying to heat the Albert Hall with a box of IKEA tea lights.
Several near-hypothermic SAs congregate in the adjacent garden to catch the first warming rays of the sun. It's bliss for all of 5 minutes. A wandering old woman, clad in conflicting patterns of lycra, shouts across "You there. Are you with the film people?" We affirm, all smiley and polite. 10 minutes later, an AD informs us that standing in the sun is very Vorboten as we are trespassing in her ladyship's private space. To reinforce the admonishment, 2 hours later, an irate production person of unknown rank, berates us for upsetting the resident aristocracy. So, not a wholly wasted day.