Fenella?!

It’s Friday. I have today and tomorrow off. We have a final filming day on Sunday. If my calculations are correct, I have 89 faces in the bag, and just 11 to film. Had everything gone to plan, I would be terribly relaxed this morning. It’s my Dad’s birthday. He’s come to London and we’re going to London Zoo tonight. As it happens I’m climbing the walls with panic.

The complications started on Thursday night with the unfortunate mix up at the London Jewish Museum. To their credit, the museum took full responsibility for the problem, and moved heaven and earth to remedy the problem, so, by the time I’d got to the venue, everything had been resolved. Very grateful to them.

The beautiful museum itself proved a somewhat difficult location to film in. There are a lot of audio visual displays which can’t be turned off, and I got the strong impression from the head of coms that he wasn’t hugely happy with the idea of a film crew interacting with the general public, which is totally fair enough. We ended up filming nine people in the education room, which wasn’t a bad space at all, but after about five set-ups we were running out of inspiration for back drops!

The joy about filming in black and white is that you don’t have to worry about colours clashing. The chairs in the space were every colour of the rainbow, but, in black and white, they were mostly the same shade of grey! Much more subtle.

One of the things I was most excited to include in 100 Faces were different members of the same families. We’d already filmed a grandmother and granddaughter, a grandmother and grandson, a mother and daughter, a mother, father and son, a brother and sister, and two twins, and at the Jewish Museum we filmed a mother and son, and a father and son to add to the list.

Father and son were my old mate Ben Caplan and his seven-year-old lad, Bertie, who delivered his line in two takes! Ben is an actor, best known for playing Miranda’s policeman boyfriend in Call The Midwife, but to me, he’s the guy I used to do autocue shifts with in the late 90s at BBC Parliament. Ben is born in 1974, and therefore represents my year of birth. He’s less than a month younger than me.

I feel a bit emotional when I write about the other pair, because the mother was my dear friend, Hannah Chissick who directed both Brass and Em, and has therefore held my hand through some of my most stressful and creatively-rewarding times. She talked about her grandmother. It moved me.


When I first met Han, she was heavily pregnant with Isaac, and he was a tiny baby when she directed Brass. He’s now a strapping (almost) 3-year old, who is the first person to speak in the film. I say strapping. What broke my heart was how tiny and brave he looked standing in front of the enormous camera.

Also being filmed at the museum were Abigail, the highly charming Chief Executive of the place, Francine, a gloriously leonine relationship councillor, and the incomparable, Rabbi Jackie Tabick, who became Britain’s first female Rabbi in 1975. It was a great honour to feature all three in the film.

The final two people through these particular doors were the highly-stylish Dahlia, who runs Keshet, an LGBT Jewish organisation, and Lawrence, a wonderful chap who lives in one of Norwood’s care homes. Lawrence is almost deaf and has some sort of disability which affects him both mentally and physically, but he is utterly charming and I hope everyone will fall in love with him on screen as much as we did in the flesh.

The next part of the day was when our project started to come off the rails. We had been booked in to film the ex-Carry-On actress, Fenella Fielding in Shepherds Bush. Her PA, Simon, had sorted all the arrangements. We knew what Fenella was going to say (which was a rather good quote) and, after much to-ing and fro-ing, we’d finally agreed on a date and place for her to film.

I was a little concerned when Simon suggested I phone him before we arrived at his house and then, when I did as asked, told me I should come up, alone, to “tell Fenella all about the project.”

I did as requested and left the crew in a cafe. Fenella is quite the film star. She has a definite aura about her. A Hollywood glamour. She was wearing a fairly obvious raven black wig and had huge eyelashes like giant spiders which somehow seem to meld into her eyebrows. I felt a little in awe.

She was deeply charming. I explained the project to her and she listened as though being told about it for the first time, which I found confusing. I talked about some of the other faces and she said things like “how lovely.” I mentioned the quote I understood that she was saying and she laughed and said “very good.” I asked if she’d be okay to film now, she said yes, and I said we’d bring the camera crew up.

I rushed down the stairs, elated and charmed, and helped Keith and Andrei to bring bags of equipment into the flat, telling them both how lovely Fenella had seemed.

By the time we’d returned, there was a change in atmosphere. Fenella and Simon were huddled on the sofa, whispering and sort of clucking at each other. We set the cameras up and she was looking at print outs of two quotes she’d apparently written which she was trying to decide between. Keith asked her if she wanted to be lit from a certain side. Simon reminded us that Fenella had a perfectly symmetrical face.



It was at that point that the mood went decidedly sour and Fenella started to freak out. She oscillated between aggressive child-like mini-tantrums and sudden flashes of charm. The three of us watched the scene in absolute disbelief. It was like a terrible sit com.




“I don’t want to do it. It’s a silly, horrible idea. Do I really have to do it? It’s utterly pointless. Do I have to? This really has turned into the worst day ever. I was going home. I wanted to go home. This is the worst day of my life, it really is.”




Simon indulged her with more clucking and little air kisses. It could have been an episode of Ab Fab. She called him something like Binky Boo.




And that was that. Simon gave us a look which said “I’m sorry, this isn’t going to happen” and, in absolute silence, we packed up the kit. I say in absolute silence. Fenella felt the need to talk throughout. “Oh this is so sad. You’ve come with your lovely work bags.”




At that point Simon said to her “shall I see if I can steel one for you?”




As Keith de-rigged his light stand, it made a clicking noise. Fenella spoke again, “oh how sad. Click click.” She said the words in a curiously coquettish way which would have been funny had it not seemed so brutal and rude.




I should have shouted at them, and told them how unreasonable they were being but instead, realising Fenella was plainly not well, I sucked it all up like a Vileda Super Mop, shook Fenella’s hand and told her how lovely it had been to meet her. Actually it was deeply traumatic, highly humiliating and it’s left our project in the absolute doldrums. I’m not sure I blame Fenella. Knowing how volatile she is, and the highly-complicated nature of the project, Simon should never have agreed for us to come.




And frankly, he should also have written an email of apology to us that afternoon. He didn’t.




Fortunately my terrible mood was lifted by Vanessa Feltz, who was next up, and, like the good egg she is, had agreed to sing her line. She was warm, welcoming, conscientious and gracious and her house is one of the most beautiful and eccentric spaces I’ve ever seen. I think there’s actually a really good voice inside her. She wrote the quote she was singing and I set it to music and she took the process very seriously and genuinely seemed to enjoy herself. She made us all feel incredibly welcome and I was so so grateful to her after the debacle we’d just been through.




The last two faces of the day were the charming, yet intense, Rabbi, Mendel Cohen, whom we filmed in front of a glorious indigo stained glass window at St John’s Wood shul, and the beautiful cookery writer, Anabelle Carmel who warmly welcomed us into her stunning North London home.




The day ended well, but I worry Fenella and Simon between them have come very close to derailing this project at this very late stage. As yet, I have not found a replacement for 1927.