A few months before I made the move from England to New Zealand, I had the opportunity to be an extra on the first episode in a television series. Naturally my friends and I jumped at the chance, because it was bound to put us on the path to stardom.
We were an unlikely lot to be in a series with veteran UK actors George Cole and Pat Heyward, but we relished the chance to show just how talented we were.
Pat Heyward and George Cole acting out a scene on Dover docks
The effort we put into being background passengers on the ferry to France should have got us a prestigious award for over-acting a scene that required no acting at all. We had to do so many takes of one scene where all that was required was to walk onto the car deck and go to our car, that I actually started wondering if the director just couldn’t get enough of my sexy walk and that was why he kept asking us to do it again.
Posing with George Cole. That's me on the far left next to my awesome friend with the pink hair. We're still really good mates despite being on opposite sides of the World.
Our return ferry trip to France took over twelve hours due to the port workers at Calais being on strike, but this meant that lots of people got to see us wandering around the ferry with a camera crew. Of course their natural assumption was that we were a famous rock band, and we found ourselves being hounded for autographs. What? Okay hounded might be stretching the truth, but there are three people out there with autographs from a non-existent band. I hope they’ve still got them, because they’re probably worth a lot of money by now. Furthering the assumption of our rock Goddess status was the diva-like behaviour of one of our numbers who threw a huge wobbly because the ferry delay meant that she wasn’t going to get back to Dover in time for a concert she had tickets to. Her very public meltdown and bad behaviour was probably the reason that when the series went to air on TV the next year, most of our scenes had been cut. Probably…
Since my acting career had fizzled before it even began, there was nothing stopping me from making my big move across the World. In a bid to gain some popularity when meeting new people I would casually mention my acting career in the UK and the name of the series I had “starred” in. I was confused why this would make girls turn frosty towards me, but blokes would be super friendly. For a little while I had the New Zealand female species pegged as complete bitches, and the males as disgusting perverts.
Just as I was thinking I’d made the worst decision in my life by moving down under, a kindly person decided to introduce me to some New Zealand colloquialisms, and in particular that the word ‘root’ in New Zealand meant having sex.
The recognition I had sought for my role in the show had finally come, just not in the way I wanted.
For a little while I was famous in a small New Zealand town for being “that porn star from England”.
Root Into Europe is an ITV comedy-drama based on the character from William Donaldson's book The Henry Root Letters. Five episodes Written by Donaldson and Mark Chapman and produced by Aspect Film & TV for Central Independent Television, were first broadcast in May and June 1992. The series starred George Cole as Henry Root, and Pat Heywood as his wife, Muriel.
Character assassination by odd colloquialisms. Brilliant!
Brilliant it may be, but Character assassination by odd colloquialisms is even brillianter (that’s a word, right?)
Love it, and I think you should start a ‘virtual’ rock band, what could go wrong?
What indeed? Just got to think of a name for it. Are there any names left for bands these days?
Of course the perfect name was staring me right there in the face.
Character assassination by odd colloquialisms or CABOC for short. Bet there isn’t a band out there with that name.