Catchphrase: Behind the Curtain
Picture me with my arm around Mr Chips. Now say what you see…
Answer: a Catchphrase reject.
I recently tried out to be a contestant on the popular TV show, hosted, these days, by magician-cum-presenter, Stephen Mulhern.
It’s unlike me to take part in something like this. I was the kid at the back of the disco rolling his eyes and judging everyone in the ‘Oops Upside Your Head’ snake. I have inherited my dad’s aversion to prescribed fun. The kind you find at team building events and caravan clubs. My skin crawls at name badges, group participation and sing-a-longs. Let me tell you: auditions for gameshows are two hours of exactly that.
First of all, I didn’t seek out the audition. Something popped up on my Facebook requesting contestants and I clicked through only to be confronted with a massive selection of gameshows, each promising extraordinary amounts of money. Catchphrase offers up to £70,000 if you nail it and it’s fairly easy… I mean ‘rolling stones gather no moss’, ‘people in
glass houses’ etc. So I signed up and forgot all about it.
Last Friday, a chirpy producer rang my mobile and invited me for an audition.
My mum said “Do it. Win me a holiday.” My sister laughed, and hasn’t really stopped since. My dad simply said: “Don’t.”
The strongest voice of all, though, was my internal muse reminding me ‘you’ll be dead one day’ and ‘it’ll be a laugh’. He’s always getting me into trouble.
Suddenly, I was spending Saturday morning in a hotel lobby in Baker Street.
So what happens at a gameshow audition?
You are met by a show runner who treats you as a children’s entertainer treats a toddler, speaking in annoying sing-song vowels. You get name badges (always the name badges!) then you meet the other hopefuls. There is a 20 year old property development student from Nottingham with trendy glasses and bouffant hair, a 43 year old mahogany skinned roofer from Romford called Big Al, a tattooed Chinese girl with half of her head shaved and customised DM boots, a willowy American graphic designer girl who has the student’s attention and several others.
We sit around making inane chatter: “Where are you from? …No, I’ve never done this sort of thing before either… I guess I’ve just always been a big Catchphrase fan…”
I realise there is a sense of shame mixed in with the nervousness we are sharing. Maybe it’s because other hotel guests have spied our name tags or maybe it’s because we all know, deep down, we are there for the money.
The runner ‘warms us up’ with the kind of parlour games that make me regret having all five of my senses. There are word puzzles, pun-offs and the like. I take part, laughing along but secretly considering escaping.
Then we are ushered downstairs for the worst part.
We are sat in a line, like the front row of a bad school assembly. In front is a camera on a tripod pointing at a gaffer tape X on the carpet.
A delightfully camp producer in a floral shirt explains we will be playing a dummy game of Catchphrase each, but first we must stand in front of the camera and say a bit about ourselves.
They have auditioned 26,000 people, he tells us, and only 500 are required. “This,” he assures us, “is your chance to shine.”
Then something peculiar happens, his friendly smile falls away and his face looks tired and sober. “You’ve seen the show. You know the drill.” he says, his camp lisp substituted for a tight lipped warning, “If you’re boring and don’t play along, you’re not Catchphrase material.” We get the message. There’s cash up for grabs…you want it… dance for us.
Then his big smile returns as if he suddenly caught his mask slipping.
One-by-one we are called to the camera where each gives a toe curling account of their ‘journey’.
Big Al tells us all about his mother’s tumour and how he’d use his winnings to set up a novelty chauffeuring business.
He’s in, we all silently agree.
The tattooed Chinese girl is a music journalist who wants to to travel. The willowy designer girl has just got married (the property student looks sad) and she wants to save for a mortgage…
I notice these people, perfectly nice upstairs sipping coffee, start performing as soon as they are called. They go from nervously swinging their feet on their chair to bouncing on the spot, all wide arm movements and chuckling at their own anecdotes.
Suddenly it’s me being called and I’m walking to the gaffer tape X and everyone is clapping.
The camp producer is nodding to the camera and giving me a silent count down with his fingers. I’m on.
“I’m James, I’m thirty…no…no I’m 31 I think…” I stop to do the mental arithmetic. I’m losing the crowd.
“And if I win the money I’d… fly to Graceland and see Elvis’s house.”
Woah…where did that come from? The producer asks me lots of questions about Elvis. I’m still internally wondering why I told that lie. I like Elvis. I wouldn’t spend my Catchpharse winnings on him.
“We all love Elvis, don’t we gang?” I say to the panel of contestants, lifting my palms to the ceiling in a call for more energy. They look blankly, either at me or each other.
“Tough crowd” I say, prompting my only laugh of the night. Then I’m looking at the screen desperately completing a dummy run of Catchphrases.
Mr Chips is running around collecting small cartoon men and separating them from bigger cartoon men.
“Organising men? Sorting people… sorting men…sorting the men from the boys?” RIGHT.
I eventually get four of them right. Cheeks flushing, I return to my seat to luke warm applause and watch the final six people dance the same merry dance.
An hour later it’s over. The producer is air kissing our cheeks and wishing us luck and we stumble back onto Baker Street.
“Well, THAT just happened,” the student says to me, acknowledging the oddness of it all.
Big Al gives me a tender cuddle and for one horrible moment I think he’s going to ask to swap numbers. I escape with a stuttered excuse about dinner plans and I’m on the tube wishing I could erase today, Catchphrase and Mr ‘smug-face’ Chips from my memory.
I recount the story to my dad who looks mortified. My sister is laughing even harder now.
Last night I got the following email:
“Thank you for taking the time to audition for Catchphrase. Unfortunately on this occasion you were unsuccessful. We would love you to come and watch the show being recorded. To apply…”
I press delete on the whole sorry chapter. But secretly I am glad I’ve seen behind the curtain, and I hope Al gets his chauffeuring business off the ground. He’s Catchphrase material and I most certainly am not.
Original story published in Basilson/Southend Echo, October 28th, 2014. BY JAMES COX.
