Suit your Sir

Tom O'Sullivan (Jeremy) and Will O'Connell (Trevor)

It’s Saturday and the last day of our second week of shooting. 11 days in and only 5 days left. We are at last free from the mayhem of filming in town and will be spending all day in an open plan office which we have to ourselves.  It’s very spacious and as we’re filming in only one section the crew immediately bag various free areas where they start spreading out all their stuff. Film crews get very territorial very quickly so boundaries are carefully respected although our lot are very congenial so a standoff is unlikely even if Paddy Sound does invade Ron Camera’s space.

The mood is good and there is even a kitchen from which apparently, real coffee will be served. I wish I drank coffee – it’s seems to deliver such pleasure to so many and a double espresso has far more street cred than a cup of watery black tea which is my brew of choice. I’ve often wondered why I have yet to be courted by Hollywood and rather than it being something to do with talent, perhaps it is more my taste in hot drinks? Americans love their coffee and I can’t see George Lucas or any La La producery types courting me as we sip insipid tea with a nice digestive biscuit on the side.

The three actors today are Sam Corry (Tom) Tom O’Sullivan (Jeremy) and Will O’Connell (Trevor.) We also have three extras who are ‘real’ people from this office who have given up their Saturday to see how things on a film set work (or maybe it was a way of avoiding bringing children to swimming, football and then piano which is the sort of thing a lot of adults seem to have to do these Saturdays.) Whatever, their reason, I’m extremely grateful to have them at our disposal and they rally through the day picking up phones, miming animated conversations to no-one, putting down phones, standing up, sitting down, walking over here then back over there, all in a trojan effort to make their three selves appear like twenty very busy people. It kinda works.

Clodagh our costume designer has a spring in her step today. At last she has been given an actor whose dress code is not ill-fitting polyester suit with grotesque tie. Jeremy, Tom’s boss although a total jerk, has nice taste in suits as does the actor who used to be a ‘suit’ in his previous career and has brought a selection of his finery along. Some actors don’t like to wear their own clothes as they find it weird and difficult to distinguish between themselves and the character they’re playing but Tom who plays Jeremy is happy to help out which is a blessed relief as if we had to hire in his clobber well, that would have been the entire costume budget gone and there wouldn’t have been a penny left to buy our previously mentioned g-strings. Also without getting too personal, Tom is tall and very nicely built and as Clodagh says herself would look fantastic in anything you’d choose to put him including a black plastic bin bag. However, although he has a lot of costume changes today, a bin bag is not one of them.

We have ten scenes to do with the three lads. Jeremy is lazy, arrogant, opinionated and a bully (although I don’t like to openly judge a character too negatively but as this is comedy it’s okay.)  I’m sure Jeremy does have a secret nice side (collects cuddly animals or loves his mother) and valid reasons for why he’s such an asshole – it’s just we don’t get to see them and anyway the actor is revelling in being a complete tosser. Trevor, his sidekick is aspiring to be all of these things and the main focus of their wrath is Tom who does all the real work – theirs and his. The ten scenes track Tom’s journey from subordination to realising that his life needs to change to eventually getting revenge and triumphing over his oppressors.  He does slightly descend into madness along the way but it’s funny and very satisfying and the lads all put in excellent performances.

We end the day and the week on a high and even a bottle of bubbly plonk is produced so we slurp like kings from plastic cups as we wonder what joys the next two days of freedom will bring – probably lots of hangovers.