The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride

Chapter Twenty Four

The whole ‘Meet the Real’ concept was about as fake as it was possible to get. The producers went after every possible celebrity they could think of, anyone who was currently hot, plus some evergreens from the past. (I have to admit there were a few old ones I hadn’t got a clue about, but I dare say they were famous to someone).

     There were singers and actors, footballers and footballers’ wives, models and weather girls, comedians and politicians, presenters of every kind of television program from newsreaders to DIY experts. Anyone who had a face that would be recognisable to any part of the viewing public was herded in. The weird thing was it was actually starting to seem normal to me, being surrounded by strangers with familiar faces. Perhaps it was my brain’s way of coping with the fact that all these famous people were gathering there for me. I mean there was a strong danger that I would completely freeze on stage if I really thought about it. Best just to go through the whole thing in a sort of haze, like I was just leafing through the latest edition of Ok!

     ‘Celebrity World’ might be fake, but it’s a wonderfully comfortable place to be. It’s clean, safe and friendly, somewhere where we all know our places, a sort of Disney World where the characters are actually real people. Celebrities generally are kind and polite to each other when they meet. They bitch a bit, and stage the odd fight for the benefit of the press, but it’s not like the real world, at least not like the real world that I came from. In the world I started out in people beat each other up and shouted abuse at one another – in Celebrity World that generally only happens when the dialogue has been written for us by scriptwriters, or publicists like Quentin.

    The grind of our daily existence is eased by make-up women and hairdressers and drivers and gofers. If we want to we can eat out for every meal and we don’t have to worry about how to heat the house next winter or whether our kids are going to be murdered by their schoolmates. None of us can live in Celebrity World all the time of course, and we still have to step back through the looking glass to deal with things like divorce and cancer, road accidents and broken hearts, but as long as we’re in the studios and at the clubs and parties we can pretend the real world doesn’t exist, that everything in our false world is shiny and happy, at least for the short time that we inhabit it. We are living amongst the gods – Oh my Lord, I’ve gone all Greek Myth now.

     A select few of this sparkly audience were given written questions to ask me, questions that would trigger off pre-prepared anecdotes and jokes that the director had rehearsed me in. To start with I was a bit uncomfortable and then it all started to seem rather camp and fun, like a Liza Minnelli or Judy Garland concert, pure showbiz glitz and smarm for all to see through. Every person in that room knew the score, knew what was expected of them, knew that the exposure would benefit them too, even if it was only a few seconds on screen as the cameras panned around the audience looking for them.

      Towards the end of the show someone was briefed to ask a question about Maggie and I was going to say something glib, she would then come on to tumultuous applause and we would sing together. Someone else would ask about Pete and I would make a joke about being shot in the street, (always a good laugh to be had from that sort of material – not!), and then Pete would come on and look hard while performing his newly released single.

     When they told me Mum and Dad and the rest of the family were going to be in the audience as well I didn’t believe them at first. Well, I believed that they had been asked, but I didn’t believe Dad would actually show up. Still, even after all this time, I was underestimating the persuasive powers of Quentin James, (Dad now had a product to promote just like the rest of us of course). Not only were they all there, they were all newly attired in designer clothes, (had that been part of the bribe?), and all smiling, apart from Dad who looked as embarrassed as he should have been for agreeing to betray his own principles to blatantly. The scriptwriters had even written a short piece of banter to go between me on the stage and him in the audience, something that would show we had been through hard times but still loved each other underneath, to show forgiveness on my part and contrition on his.