The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride Read Free Page B

tell when they just looked like ordinary people going to work.
    Everyone seemed to be so busy and it was almost as if wewere invisible. Well, that’s not strictly true – it was just me, really. It was almost as if I had vanished, or at least wasn’t someone they could talk to directly. Women with clipboards and earphones kept talking to Dora as if I wasn’t there.
    ‘Is this Steffi McBride?’
    ‘Does she have an appointment?’
    ‘Does she have an agent?’
    Hello? I do have a brain, you know, was what I wanted to say, but I didn’t – mainly because I was so thrilled to be there at all, but also because Dora seemed to take it all for granted. It was like she was a farmer bringing her prize young heifer to market, to have her prodded around by potential buyers before they started haggling over a price.
    ‘Should I have an agent?’ I whispered, in a moment when they had all gone away again.
    ‘Probably. Certainly if they offer you the job.’
    ‘How do I find one?’
    ‘That won’t be hard. I know plenty.’
    ‘Couldn’t you do it? You know how all this stuff works.’ The idea grew on me. ‘Tell them you’re my agent. They only seem to want to talk to you anyway.’
    ‘OK.’
    She was acting all cool about it, but I could tell she was made up that I’d asked. I was quite happy with the idea because I trusted her, and anyway it was only because of her that I was there at all. I was starting to get even more excited as this woman with an earpiece led us off through loads of corridors. She explained as we walked that they’d already held mass auditions for this part.
    ‘They’ve seen about eighty people,’ she burbled, ‘done recalls and everything, but they just can’t make up their minds. Apparently, they want to build this family up to be a big part of the series, so they’re taking the casting really seriously.’
    That piece of information certainly didn’t do anything to calm my growing nerves.
    After that, it all became a bit of a blur. The woman took us through to the studios and there I was, in my own personal Narnia. It was like walking into a gigantic warehouse full of room sets, a bit like Ikea, only the room sets were actually recognisable from the series. There was the Goddards’ kitchen, and someone else’s sitting room and the local pub. They all looked strangely vulnerable with their missing walls and ceilings. Some of the ones that weren’t used so often had been packed up and stored on giant trolleys, labelled with their fictional owners’ names. It was like walking across one of those Hollywood back lots you see in the old Fred Astaire movies.
    There was a central sitting area where the actors were all lurking around while the technicians and directors and everyone got ready. Everywhere I looked I saw familiar faces from
The Towers.
One or two of the men were quite friendly, a bit lechy if I’m being honest, but most of them seemed to look right through me as though I was invisible again, especially the women. Audrey with the roots was there and she’d scooped up a few actors to do a scene with me; we headed off to a room on the other side of the studio where there was a giant table, like a company boardroom, and we all sat down.
    She gave me a script and said I could just read it, I didn’t have to learn it – but I read it once and then I was able to chuck it away. For some reason, I’ve always been able to learn scripts; it’s a knack. It’s not that I’m bright – quite the opposite, the only GCSEs I got were art and drama – but I just seem to absorb scripts after one read-through. I can do it after one hearing too. I can recite virtually every episode of
Friends
or
Sex and the City,
which drives my sisters mad at home because I say the lines a split second before the characters do when we’re watching the DVDs. I just can’t help myself. I could even learn the Shakespeare pieces that Dave used to give us. It would drive me insane when the others were still