Amy�s latest film will be her biggest role yet. She was the ideal choice for the part because the film will be set in her hometown. It�s the true story of one of Mizzenwood�s best loved residents. Cyril Smith-Igloo lives in an old house just outside the town, and he still works as a civil engineer in Mizzenwood. For the past fifteen years he�s been involved with a local charity for disabled people. Every Christmas, the Amateur Dramatics Society put on a show and the proceeds go to this charity. One of the classes in the primary school do their version of the Nativity play at the start of the show. When they first started doing the Nativity play, the teacher added in a few new characters to get everyone in the class involved, and one year she added in a character called Hal � he played the saxophone. On the following year, everyone wanted to play Hal. At first she agreed to cut a lot of the minor characters and have twenty Hals, but then she noticed a note in the script specifying that Hal should be over six foot tall. There was only one pupil in the class who was over six foot � he had been there for a few years � so he got to be the only Hal. The other kids decided to make cardboard Hals, but they lost interest and started hitting a tree with sticks instead, and they stuck things to plastic flowers with glue. The teacher found a way of getting the flowers into the play.

The most famous politician in Mizzenwood at the time was a man called Bobby Floor-Borard. He was the Minister for Tourism at the time. A few years before this, his wife was baking a cake one day, and as she read the recipe in the cookbook, she came across an instruction she hadn�t noticed before. It was a line written between steps three and four: Look like Michelle Pfeiffer.

She tried to follow the recipe as closely as possible, so she did her best to look like Michelle Pfeiffer. There was an election coming up at the time and Bobby came up with the idea of publishing a recipe book that was fronted by his wife (she looked a bit like Michelle Pfeiffer, so she was an obvious choice to front it). In a few of the recipes, Bobby added in the instruction: Vote for Bobby Floor-Borard.

It was very successful, but when the next election came around every other candidate released a recipe book too. Ever since then, political debate in this constituency has been played out in recipe books.

Every Saturday, Bobby used to play snooker with a friend of his, Tommy. But one Saturday they had an argument over whether or not the cue ball hit the black before hitting a red. Tommy thought that it clearly hit the black first, and that Bobby was trying to cheat by denying it. They didn�t talk for a few weeks after that, and Tommy saw a way of getting revenge in the Nativity play. Hal was clearly the most popular character. He played the saxophone, and people would listen to what he had to say. Tommy�s son was in the class that was putting on the play, and Tommy got him to add a new line into the script. After Hal finished a sax solo, he�d say, �Bobby Floor-Borard has the intelligence of a teapot.�

Bobby�s daughter was in that class too, so he heard about this new line. He decided to respond by undermining Hal. He got his daughter to add a whole new song into the script � it was about how Hal was an idiot and sax solos had gone out of fashion in the eighties. He would have got away with it too, but he couldn�t resist adding a line onto the end of it: Vote for Bobby Floor-Borard in the next election.

The Amateur Dramatics Society were furious that Bobby would try to use a charity show for political purposes. They decided to rewrite their part of the show so that it backed up Hal.

The star of the show was Becky, who was twenty at the time. She had a beautiful voice, but she had a slight problem with twins. Every time she saw twins, she assumed that it had something to do with the fact that she has two eyes. When she saw one of the twins on their own, she�d think that she must have one of her eyes closed. There was a set of twins in the show, and they had to keep the two of them together on the stage at all times, otherwise Becky would think that one of her eyes was closed, and this upset her. She was very nervous about performing with one eye closed because she thought it would look stupid.

But then one of the twins got into a fight during a rugby match. He broke his arm, so he pulled out of the play. Becky got very upset when she saw just one of the twins on the stage, and she was even more upset when they tried taking him out of the play, because then she thought both of her eyes must be closed. They tried to find something that would constantly remind her that both of her eyes were open, so they got two identical vases and put them on a mantelpiece on the set. She looked at them as often as possible to remind herself that her eyes were open, and they were very reassuring for her.

That year a TV company decided to film the show and broadcast it on Christmas Eve. When Bobby heard about this and about the pro-Hal theme to the show, he knew he had to stop it. The show was due to be performed three times, and the final performance would be filmed. On the day of the first performance, Bobby �borrowed� one of the vases in the set. Becky was very upset when she saw the single vase on the mantelpiece. The director suggested making her character a pirate with an eye patch, but she just started crying at that idea. They tried bringing the other twin back into the show, but he had a black eye. This confused and upset her even more. She couldn�t perform in that condition.

Cyril helped out with the show every year because he was involved with the charity, and he tried to find a vase just like the one that went missing. He went to every antique shop he could find on that day, and just as he was about to give up hope, he found a vase that was exactly like the one he was looking for. The only problem was that it cost 1,500 pounds. He bought the vase anyway because he felt it was worth the money if it would reassure Becky. The charity would make a lot more than that from the proceeds of the show. But Cyril was too modest to admit his good deed, so he turned up at the theatre that night dressed as Santa. This was about twenty minutes before the start of the show, and everyone had given up hope before Santa arrived. He took the vase out of his sack and put it on the mantelpiece in the set. He walked away without saying a word.

It was a perfect performance from Becky, and the audience loved Hal. Santa returned at the end of the night and put the vase in his sack again. He said he�d hold onto it for safe keeping, but he�d return with it again tomorrow night. And so he did. He came back again at the end of the second night and said he�d return with the vase for the final performance on the following evening. The press found out about this story, and they made a big deal out of it. The final performance was going to be on TV, and they were expecting a huge audience because of all this publicity, which was a disaster for Bobby.

There was a woman called Annie who did the makeup on the show. During the previous summer she saw a fly go into her soup and then it flew away again. She got the impression that the fly had changed its clothes in the soup, and she wondered how it could change clothes so quickly. She thought that it must have been like Superman changing its clothes in a telephone kiosk. She left a bowl of soup on her kitchen table when a few flies were in the kitchen. One of them flew in and she thought it was wearing a Halloween costume when it flew out, so he must have been like Superman�s nemesis. She started to think of the bowl of soup as a telephone kiosk where superheroes change their clothes.

The press were portraying this �Santa� as a superhero. One paper called him Super Claus, and another called him Santa Man. Annie decided to leave a bowl of soup out for him � she thought she might be able to see him change his clothes. She left it on a table in a room at the back of the theatre, and she put a note next to it that said �Santa Man, this soup is for you�. She hid behind some costumes that were hanging on a rail.

Cyril was passing through the room on his way out after delivering the vase. He saw the soup and the note, and he was tempted by it because it was cold outside. He decided to taste it anyway, so he pulled down his beard, and that�s when Annie saw him. News of Santa Man�s identity spread very quickly. Cyril got a lot of attention from the media. He became very well known in the country, but he always used his profile to promote the interests of the charity.

He published his autobiography last year, and a Hollywood production company paid a lot of money for the film rights to the book, but the only problem was, there wasn�t anything interesting about Cyril�s life, apart from his brief stint as Santa Man. This wouldn�t have been a problem at all but for the controversy surrounding a recent film from this particular production company. It was a film about the life of Joan of Arc, and it was heavily criticised for its historical inaccuracies � a custody battle and a car chase had been added in. When it came to making the film about Cyril, they wanted to stay as close as possible to the true story, but there wasn�t much of a story.

It was the director, Alfred �Table� Tennyson, who came up with the idea of adding to the story rather than adding to the film. If there really was a car chase in Cyril�s life, they couldn�t be accused of straying from the facts. And there would have to be a love interest. Cyril had been living alone for years � he says he�s married to his work, but his work isn�t going to give them a shower scene. He definitely needs a woman in his life. Amy had already been brought on board, so it was just a matter of writing her character into his life.

The production team spent days discussing how they�d bring this woman into his life, and who they�d choose to play the part. They came up with a storm scene in which a good-looking young woman is driving by Cyril�s house late at night. Her car breaks down and she sees a light on in Cyril�s front room, so she goes to the house. They weren�t sure how Cyril would react, but the scene would be set up perfectly � a young woman in wet clothes alone with him in his house, and she has to spend the night because her car has broken down. And the actress playing Amy�s character would do everything possible to make sure he reacts in the right way.

It would be a very unconventional role, and it was difficult to find the right actress for it, but Alfred came up with an ingenious idea � why not let Amy be the actress playing Amy�s character. She�d have firsthand experience of the scene � that would surely help her during the filming.

Amy was against the idea at first. She thought it made her into a prostitute, but Alfred told her that she didn�t have to take it that far. She really only needed to kiss him once � they just need some material to work with. And maybe if they could meet up again for coffee or dinner, that would be even better. They could easily expand that into a shower scene.

So she agreed to do it, and three weeks later, she stood at Cyril�s front door at eleven o� clock on a wet and windy March night. She was wearing a wig, so he didn�t recognise her. She said, �Hi, my name is Beatrice, and my car just broke down on the road outside your house. I was wondering if I could, ah� come in?�

�Yes, of course, come in.�

Ten minutes later she was sitting in front of the fire in a dressing gown. Everything was going perfectly, or so it seemed from the inside. The scene outside the window was much more dramatic. A famous actor called Goddy Bard had been cast in the role of Cyril, and he was upset that Amy had the advantage of experiencing her role firsthand, so he insisted on observing the scene himself. He wanted to see how Cyril reacted. Goddy was standing outside the window in the rain, trying to remember every gesture and facial expression of Cyril, but there wasn�t much to remember really. Cyril was clearly captivated by Amy, or Beatrice. He just sat in his armchair and stared at her as she sat on the rug in front of the fire and told him about her job protecting endangered species.

As Goddy stood at the window, a police car passed by on the road outside the house. One of the policemen noticed Goddy at the window, and they stopped the car just up the road from the house. Cyril thought he heard something when they arrested Goddy, but he was too interested in Beatrice to take much notice. Amy heard a noise too, and she guessed it had something to do with Goddy, so she kept talking and hoped Cyril wouldn�t go to the window.

He didn�t go to the window, but he had to go to the door when the doorbell rang. Cyril opened his front door and saw a policeman, with Goddy next to him in handcuffs, but Cyril didn�t recognise Goddy because he had pulled the hood of his raincoat down over his face. The policeman told Cyril about how they caught this man outside his window � a peeping Tom.

Cyril found it difficult to believe at first, but then he remembered Beatrice � there really was something to look at this evening. The policeman himself had spent a few minutes looking in while he arrested Goddy.

Cyril only found out who the peeping Tom was a few days later when he picked up the morning paper and saw the mug shot of Goddy Bard. This was more than Alfred could possibly have hoped for � not only did they have a love story, but now they have a famous Hollywood actor peeping Tom story as well. And it worked out well for Goddy too. He got a huge amount of publicity from it. He became hugely popular when he admitted he had a problem, and he made jokes about it. The rights to his story were bought, and filming is due to begin next year. Of course, he could no longer play the role of Cyril in the film, but he was promised a cameo role as himself.

�Beatrice� met up with Cyril a few times during the two weeks after that first meeting. He took her to dinner, and they went bowling together. It was a love just beginning to bloom when Beatrice had to leave to be with her dying mother in Australia, and she didn�t know how long she�d be in Australia, because the last time her mother was dying was seven years ago and she�s still alive. There was never a shower scene during those two weeks, but that�s something that artistic licence would definitely allow them to add in.

Three people were hired to write the script. The first was Ronny Colour, who�s famous for writing a book about landscape gardening called �Don�t mock the Greeks or they�ll bite you in the neck�. Some people claimed that the title was racist, and the publishers were worried about it, so Ronny agreed to change the title to �Don�t wash the Greeks or they�ll bite you in the neck�.

Some people believed that this was racist too, but Ronny often discussed it on radio and TV interviews. He explained that he didn�t know any Greeks, so if he were to wash a Greek he�d be washing a stranger, and it was perfectly reasonable for a stranger to bite you in the neck if you tried to wash them. People generally accepted this. The only disagreement surrounded the nature of the reaction. During the course of those discussions, it was suggested that Germans would be more likely to break a bottle over your head than bite you in the neck, and English people would head-butt you. Americans would shoot you in the shoulder.

Most people found these discussions illuminating, but controversy arose again when it came to a discussion on how Danish people would react. Ronny insisted that a Dane would hit you over the head with a rolling pin, but most people believed that they�d just slap you across the face with a newspaper. On a live TV show, Ronny got into an argument about this with a man from Denmark, who slapped Ronny across the face with a newspaper just to prove his point. The public tended to side with the man from Denmark. They believed Ronny was guilty of racial stereotyping.

The second writer for the film about Cyril is Dara Perox. When Dara got engaged six years ago, he was discussing possible destinations for their honeymoon with his fiancée. She said she�d like to go to Germany, and Dara thought he should probably have a bath before the honeymoon. Then he realised that he should probably have a bath before the wedding anyway, but he wondered why he thought of it when he considered the prospect of going to Germany. He was worried that he thought of it because of some racial stereotype about the Germans being very clean.

He tried to be as friendly as possible to the Germans he met on their honeymoon. He kept telling them what a great country it was and how the people were so friendly. And clean � everyone was so clean, but you�d never get the impression that they were obsessed by cleanliness.

When they got home, he told all his friends and family about how great the German people were, but he often got the impression that they didn�t believe him. He noticed how they�d just stare blankly back at him as he spoke. He wanted to do something to show how great the Germans were, and to show people that he didn�t have a negative conception of Germans, so he wrote a musical called �Ich bin Fantastik!�. It showed everyday German people doing everyday things, like having baths or walking their Rothweilers, and it became a huge success.

Dara and Ronny were put together to write a film before. The producers felt that Dara�s over-sensitivity to racial issues would counterbalance Ronny�s under-sensitivity, and it worked. There was a woman having a shower for a lot of the film, and she wasn�t German. She had an American accent, but her nationality wasn�t mentioned at all. When someone washed her in the shower, she didn�t shoot him in the shoulder � race just wasn�t an issue at all.

The film was called �Make Me Something See-through for Dinner�, and it became a huge success. No one objected to it on racial grounds, but many people claimed that sexist tendencies were clearly discernable throughout the film. The controversy grew after an interview when Ronny said that he�d been an ardent sexist for years, and he agreed that most of the film was sexist. It was explained to him later what sexism actually was, but he never fully grasped the concept, and Dara didn�t have the same concern with gender stereotyping as he had with racial issues.

So when Dara and Ronny were hired to write the film about Cyril, a third member was added to the team � Minty Funnel. Minty is a feminist, and the producers hoped that she�d counteract any sexist tendencies that might emerge during the writing process.

The script they produced was clearly free from any negative racial or gender connotations, but controversial tendencies emerged in a different area � an irrational hatred of a man called Gregory Shootout.

Minty, Ronny and Dara have a meeting with Alfred, who points out this negativity towards Mr. Shootout. They�ve never really noticed it before � they don�t even know who Gregory Shootout is. Minty says, �I�ve never even heard the name before.�

�Cyril has never heard of him before either,� Alfred says. �He has nothing whatsoever to do with the life of Cyril, so what�s he doing in the script?�

�I don�t know,� Ronny says. �It�s one of those things that you don�t really notice until it�s pointed out to you.�

�Well it�s been pointed out to ye now. Rewrite the script and get rid of all references to Gregory Shootout.�

A week later they have another script meeting. Minty, Ronny and Dara have worked fourteen hours a day on the script, but they still can�t get rid of Gregory Shootout. �He�s just too important to the script,� Minty says to Alfred. �It loses its power when you remove Gregory.�

�Important to the script! Ye don�t even know who he is. He has nothing whatsoever to do with the story. The script is supposed to tell the story. How can he be important to the script?�

�We tried taking him out,� Dara says, �but the script seems so lifeless without him. There�s no point sticking rigidly to the story if it�s not much of a story, and when you add the hatred of Gregory into it, it seems to take on a whole new character. It�s so full of life with Gregory.�

�And what if Mr. Shootout objects, which he almost certainly will?�

�How do you know he even exists?� Minty says.

�Because ye give his address and phone number in the script. I called the phone number � there really is a Gregory Shootout living at that address.�

�I can see your point,� Ronny says. �If that was me, I�d be fairly upset about it. But we�ve tried everything to get him out of the script and it just won�t work without him. Is there any way you could, y� know� get him into the film.�

Alfred thinks about this for a while. �You mean if he were to do something to Cyril that justified this hatred?�

�Exactly.�

�But what could he do to justify that level of hatred?�

�I could be here all night answering that question,� Ronny says. �Off the top of my head � assault, stalking, setting his house on fire, killing any pets he might have, beating him at chess, laughing at his hair.�

�Why would Gregory assault Cyril?�

�Why would anyone do anything? Money.�

Alfred thinks about this again. �I suppose he might agree to do something to Cyril if we paid him enough.�

Alfred and the producer, Marcy Deasy, go to see Gregory on the following day, and he�s completely against the idea at first, but they offer him a huge amount of money, and they tell him that they�ll try to get Christopher Walken to play him in the film, so he agrees.

He�s delighted to meet Alfred because he saw one of his films just last week. It was a version of �Snow White� in which they used bees to play the dwarves � they thought it would be cheaper than actual dwarves. But all of the bees were really annoying and most of their scenes were cut. Alfred told Gregory all about the filming of that. The bees seemed like normal bees when they were being filmed, but off-camera they were a nightmare. They demanded their own catering tent.

They don�t expect Greg to assault Cyril, but they do want him to say some very insulting things to his face, and if that leads to physical violence, all the better. But Greg is having trouble with some of his lines. He�s supposed to go up to Cyril and say, �Hey you, you�ve got a face like a dead pig.� That�s the first on a long list of insults, and Greg is having trouble remembering them. His delivery is terrible, but remembering them is the main thing.

One evening, as Cyril is walking through the streets of Mizzenwood, Greg goes up to him and says, �Hey you� Ah��

There�s a bee flying around Cyril�s head and Greg is distracted by him. He remembers a story Alfred told him about how one of the bees (he thinks it was Dopey, but he had trouble telling them apart) demanded his own hair stylist, who shaved off all of his hair, so he had to wear a wig in the film, but he was already wearing a fake beard anyway. What else would you expect of Dopey?

�Yes?� Cyril says.

�I�m supposed to say something about your face.�

�Oh� Does my face look familiar?�

�Now that you mention it, it does. Were you once on that TV show where the audience ask questions on current affairs?�

�I was, yeah.�

�You were brilliant on that. You really brought the Minister down to size.�

�That�s very kind of you to say.�

�Let me buy you a pint.�

They spend the rest of the evening in the pub, and Cyril invites Greg around to his house.