Final day

It was our last day of filming for 100 Faces yesterday and, from the early afternoon on Saturday, I’d started to believe, once again, that our ludicrous mission was possible. I ended up with not one, but two replacements for Fenella Fielding. One was a charming lady called Hedi, whom I’d met at the Holocaust Survivors Centre. Unusually, she’d been very keen to give me her number, and I was very grateful to have written it down. Because Fenella had signed up to the project about four months ago, I hadn’t placed a great deal of emphasis in finding anyone else for her year, and, in fact, when people said they were born in 1927, I’d often wrap the chat up as quickly as I could to avoid the disappointment of falling in love with a person I couldn’t feature. Hedi slipped through the net with her youthful lust for life and brilliantly coiffured barnet, which looked like a huge blob of candy floss.

When I phoned her to ask if she’d like to be in the film, she didn’t seem to be the perky, somewhat over-the-top character I’d met, and explained that she’d been rather ill. If I’ve learned nothing else on this project, it’s that 2 months is a long time for a person in their nineties.

Nevertheless, and perhaps even to prove my theory, by Saturday, she was feeling chipper again and agreed to do the filming. In the meantime, one of our other faces got in touch to say that her mother was also born in 1927, so, in a fit of pique, and in the interests of not being left in the lurch by a re-run of Thursday, I decided to film her as well.

Yesterday started with an email from Hedi to say she’d had another turn for for worse, so my belt and braces attitude looked like it was beginning to pay off.

I’d arranged to film Annabel’s Mum, Evelyn, at her house in Swiss Cottage at 10.30am. I was at the tube by 10 and had a rather lovely period of decompression sitting in a cafe outside the station. I was served by a handsome gentleman with a tattoo with something which looked like Hebrew on his arm. “What does the tattoo say?” I asked. “Benjamin... in Hebrew,” he said, before flushing red. “It’s upside down and back to front.” It turned out that he was technically Jewish but had never been brought into the fold, as it were. I told him my name was also Benjamin and his response was to shake my hand.
Evelyn, it turns out, is a remarkable woman. At 91, she’s still a practising architect and to say she didn’t look, or seem, a day over 70 is probably an understatement. Her hearing is remarkable. She is glamorous. Sharp as a tack. And she polished off her sequence in a few takes, her daughter’s dog, Bono, sitting at her feet.

I’d received another email from Hedi by the time we’d left Evelyn’s saying she really wasn’t feeling well at all. She didn’t want to let me down but it looked like the doctor might need to be called. I instantly replied to tell her she needed to focus on getting better, not on filming, and she seemed very relieved.

Without Hedi, there was a gap in the day which meant we could do a bit of lazing about in cafes. We headed for Holland Park in readiness for the next location and were joined for lunch by Michael.

It was at this point that I got a text from young Mitch telling me that one of our younger faces had just called to say she was pulling out because she needed to go to the “hospital for personal reasons.” There was, of course, no way that I was going to let that pass without some hard facts, so I immediately called her Mum whose number I’d asked for because the girl in question is 18. This decision to call the mum proved to be a good one and the situation was sorted in the blink of an eye. The Fenella situation has made me realise that I shouldn’t stand for ludicrous or self-centred behaviour on a shoot like this. I genuinely wish I’d told Fenella exactly what I thought of her behaviour and how out of our way we’d gone to film her, but then I wouldn’t have ended up with the wonderful Evelyn.

The post-lunch filming took place at the beautiful Notting Hill home of my mate Felicity, who is one of the stalwarts at New West End synagogue. Her teenaged son, Alex, is one of the 100 faces and she’s the sort of good egg you can rely on for a favour. I therefore asked if she’d mind a couple of other people being filmed at her house, and she graciously agreed. When we arrived, everyone was sitting around the dining room table and I wondered if I’d actually told Felicity how many people she was expecting and what their names were! Then I felt terrible...

The two other faces were a young A-level student called Maya, and Abi, who’s in the Royal Navy. I realise now that I don’t know which rank, and probably should have asked. Maya was singing - beautifully, Abi polished off her line in a matter of minutes and we filmed Alex in his bedroom surrounded by toy frogs and spring onions.

Unfortunately my crew is all-male, and we were filming two young women, so Felicity was dragged into every space, just so that no one felt uncomfortable, or, as Felicity put it: “I’m here, well, because of boobs!”

From Felicity’s house, we headed to Finchley, in a drive which seemed to take forever. Driving on a Sunday in London is usually okay and I don’t remember getting stuck in any traffic, so I think it may just have been a long way away.

We went to film a wonderful lass called Lily, who’s a mixed-race university student at Leeds with a strong sense of her dual heritage. She wants to be a performer, and she certainly has an aura of something very special about her. She has a very beautiful singing voice and I think she has every chance of making a splash.

The penultimate location was a quirky, somewhat bohemian cafe in Golders Green, called Headroom, which is run by a Jewish mental heath charity called Jami. Yesterday was a day of fasting in the Jewish calendar so the cafe was meant to be closed, but they opened it especially for us, which was incredibly generous. It made for a really interesting space, and yielded some fabulous shots. We’ve looked for as many non-religious Jewish locations as we could find because there are so many people who identify as Jewish without actually feeling religious in any way, shape or form.

At Headroom, we filmed the dream-boat opera singer, Anthony Flaum, who is currently playing Pinkerton in a production of Madam Butterfly, ambulance staff member, Nicole, a young lass called Darcy who’s mother is the first Scottish Jewish person I think I’ve met on this shoot, Phoebe, a student from North London and a young chap who is learning to lein for his bar mitzvah next year. Leining is essentially the somewhat mystical process of singing the Torah. It’s something all bar mitzvah boys must do (and people wonder why so many Jewish people are musical!)

The last location on our entire shoot was in Walthamstow at Gabriel’s house. Gabes sings with me in the shul choir and used to date Hilary back in the day, so I’ve known him for years. It felt rather appropriate therefore that we would film him last. It was ever likely to be momentous. As the day flashed past, I ticked off the names, one by one. 

And then, we were done. That was that. All faces were in the can... 100 brilliant, beautiful Jewish faces.

We did it! I don’t know how we did it, but it happened. The adventure is not over yet, of course. I continue to move forward with editors and sound engineers. But it was very sad to say goodbye to Andrei and Keith and continue along the path without them. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun on a shoot.