So the casting process continues for "You Can Choose Your Friends". One of the people we'd be holding out for for one of the major parts informed us this afternoon that he didn't want to do it. It's disappointing to be rejected in this way, but we're aiming for the best people we can get and you don't know whether they've just been offered something they'd rather do or because they hate your script and wouldn't appear in it if they were threatened with being set on fire if they didn't.
A friend had given me an idea for one of the characters, someone she'd worked with before, Tom Bell. She said he was a lovely man and thought he would be great at comedy. I suggested him to my producer.
"It's a good idea," he said, "but he died two months ago!"
"Oh did he?" I replied, "That would probably put him out of the frame." Though I wondered if I was being a but unfair and un PC there. Isn't it prejudiced against the dead to just immediately discount them for their lack of mobility?
"Probably best to break that to your friend a little gently," he advised.
I decided I wouldn't say anything to her directly, but write about it in Warming Up, which she might read, thus breaking the bad news without having to cope with the tears and recriminations. But, you know, if she loved him so much, you'd think she would have known about this.
That's the ultimate rejection though isn't it, where an actor has chosen to pass on rather than even read your script?
So the search goes on. And please pray to God to protect the health of the few actors of around 70 years of age who might be capable of playing this part. Even the ones who have turned it down. I am not a vindictive man.
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Question 24
I did a show called "Someone Likes Yoghurt" even though I don't like yoghurt any more than an average person. But what was the name of the Spanish entrepreneur who first industrialised the production of yoghurt in 1919 and what was the name of the son that he named the business after?
