Confessions of a Showbiz Reporter

Publicists

The first people I met once I’d stepped through the doorway into the world of celebrity journalism, however, were not celebrities. They were publicists. And it wasn’t long before I realised that while the showbiz world had for many years appeared to me to run effortlessly like a well-oiled machine, it’s because of these publicists who are hidden away behind the cogs spraying on the WD40. In the entertainment world, talent and originality count for surprisingly little. Publicity, on the other hand, is everything. For every unrecognised genius without a publicist raising their profile, there’s a bimbo hogging the limelight with a team pushing them into the papers.

Heading to London that June, wellies on foot, ready for three months of festival-going, I hadn’t even considered there were backroom teams running the show. If you’d asked me then what a plugger was, I’d have said some kind of electrician. Now, of course, after many years in the industry, these people are a part of my life, many high on my list of best friends, others mortal enemies. It was only after making this discovery, that when watching episodes of Absolutely Fabulous that I totally got what the joke is. Before I laughed at the panto-like silliness of it all but now … Now, I know those characters.

Publicists are the behind-the-scenes string pullers, the reasons why you open up newspapers or log on to a website and see the same faces again and again. Just out of shot, invisible to the general public, publicists are pulling favours with the press to get their client snapped, written about or interviewed. ‘Do a feature on this new up-and-comer that I’ve just signed up,’ they might suggest, ‘and I’ll let you have an exclusive with my big name in a couple of months.’ Their lives are a maelstrom of schedules and sweet-talking, BlackBerrys permanently attached to their hands like children clinging to their comfort blankets; their days packed with meetings over skinny lattes, their nights with more meetings over popping champagne corks. If ultimately their job is little more than a very posh take on the nightclub bouncer – ‘I can’t squeeze you into the interview schedule’ their version of ‘You’re name’s not down, you’re not coming in’ – reporters quickly come to realise that it is these super-efficient sideliners that run the show. If they say ‘jump’, we say ‘how high?’ Cross them and we won’t be getting close to the big names.

This was just one aspect of show business that I had to learn fast. Plonked into the office on my first day, I was painfully aware that my new colleagues really didn’t have the time to hold my hand and teach me the ropes. I’d have to learn the hard way by simply getting stuck in. So it was, after chasing a few leads handed to me by my new boss, I worked out that there are several types of publicist in the showbiz world, each slightly different to the other although all, ultimately, doing the same thing – getting their client ‘out there’, into the public eye.

It was with a music industry publicist – a plugger – that I had my very first dealings.

We’d just spoken on the phone and arranged, at the request of my boss, an interview with a band’s guitarist who had apparently had some of his kit stolen the night before. I was to head to a studio on Holloway Road in London and speak to the unlucky performer about his recent loss. The band were nineties poster boys – complete with floppy hair and smooth-skinned good looks. ‘What a great scoop!’ I naïvely thought as I made my way to the venue, especially excited at doing a story on a band that I’d loved for several years.

‘Just a few days into my first job and I’m already sniffing out stories!’ I congratulated myself.

A lovely bloke he was too, sitting on a giant speaker in the middle of the floor of the studio, attempting to sound forlorn at the loss of his favourite Fender. We had a good chat; with me surprised to find it much easier to talk to pop stars than to real people in the street. However, while I don’t doubt the robbery, the plugger had obviously seen this whole situation less as time for the band to sit around mourning and more as a great opportunity for a bit of publicity. They did, coincidentally, have a new single coming out and upcoming gigs to promote after all. Suddenly, thanks to some greedy thieves in North London, there was a ‘hook’ on which to get the band in the limelight again and unbeknownst to me, I’d been dragged right in. The story was mentioned on the television news that night, the band’s new video getting played in the process, and boom maybe a few more thousand record sales as a result. So, there was my professional showbiz news debut: as a stooge in a small yet cunning piece of PR spin. And this was with a credible band in the days before reality TV and endless gossip magazines – corners of the industry that now exist on a diet of such carefully fed stories – had really kicked off.

Pluggers would prove to be a big part of my life during the coming months, as I wrote my way through a roll call of late nineties musicians to fill the magazine’s pages. Some were already legends – Tom Jones, Phil Collins; others went on to have long careers – the Stereophonics and Ronan Keating, whose sales figures I had so eagerly announced back in that classroom at college. Many are now, alas, just footnotes in the history pages of pop; hello to Chumbawamba and Kavana. All of them had their pluggers, more often than not cheeky-chappy public school boys in their thirties, who dressed and behaved as if they were 17 and from Hackney. They boasted a passive-aggressive swagger that was part seasoned music industry insider, part market trader. If their drawn faces gave away just how hard they partied you couldn’t dismiss their influence. It quickly became clear that the music business was being run by frustrated rock stars.

Film publicists, though ostensibly doing the same job, are a very different breed. Like music publicists, they may have their own independent companies or they may work directly for a big label or studio. But unlike pluggers, film publicists are a mainly female race of clipboard huggers, who reek of refinement rather than roll-ups. I’ve often wondered if, at exclusive girls’ boarding schools, there’s some kind of work placement scheme within the film industry, since so many of the publicists seem to be only a few pairs of jodhpurs away from being part of the monarchy (both Sophie Rhys-Jones, aka the Countess of Wessex, and Tom Parker Bowles, stepson of Prince Charles, have worked in film and events publicity). To public school girls from the home counties, segueing into PR seems to be as natural as driving a Range Rover and holidaying at your parents’ farmhouse in Provence. Their love lives might sometimes suffer (long hours are part of the job description, since so much is done ‘on LA time’ – i.e. the middle of the night), but what these girls lack in romance, they gain in desperate journalists wanting to be their friends.

Ultimately, I prefer to work with film publicists. With their tall, slender builds and glossy hair, they might have a habit of making my genes feel extremely average, but there’s a classiness there that the pluggers seem to want to avoid. It’s like comparing Jamie Oliver to Nigella Lawson. I guess sophistication just isn’t very rock ’n’ roll. However, unlike pluggers, who all seem to have a real passion for music (as I said, they’re frustrated pop stars), it’s rare that I meet a film publicist who’s a dedicated cinéaste. But they are very good at wearing black and organising press schedules.

Every corner of showbiz has its own publicists, not just music and movies. There are book PRs, television PRs, theatre PRs, fashion PRs and events PRs, arts PRs, the list goes on. Each breed of these fixers, pushers and spin doctors might have slightly different traits but ultimately they all share one very important thing in common: without them, I’d be screwed.

London

The late 1990s. Rush hour. And I was cycling down Oxford Street in London. Ask me to do this now and I’d laugh in your face, warned off by ten years of accident horror stories and, more importantly, the idea of cycling anywhere in the kind of outfits I usually wear. As a green and naïve newbie on the other hand? I was off and pedalling quicker than you can say ‘Pendleton thighs’.

This was during my first few months as a salaried journalist at the magazine. A celebrity court case was taking place at the now-closed Bow Street Magistrates Court and I had been informed by my panicking boss late one afternoon that I needed to get down there, and fast.

‘Y-y-y-you want me to report on the story?’ I stuttered, wide-eyed and in shock.

‘Don’t be silly, Holly –’ She smiled at me in that kind but patronising way bosses are so good at ‘– Sophie’s down there and the batteries have run out on her recorder. I need you to get down there bloody quickly with these.’ She opened up her palm in front of me to reveal a four pack of Duracell.

Yes, my life was sooo glamorous.

‘Dappy cow should’ve taken spares obviously but there you go. If she’s not up and running in the next half an hour, she’ll miss the post-verdict statement on the steps. With shorthand as bad as hers, I can’t rely on her getting anything down. Take my bike. It’s locked up just next to the post-room. That’ll be the quickest way.’

Her other palm then appeared, revealing a set of keys to a bicycle lock. Hungry to prove myself a willing new employee, I grabbed them along with the batteries and hurried off.

Watching that cute show Call the Midwife on TV the other night, I was treated to umpteen scenes of the female stars cycling gracefully around the back streets of fifties London. Poised and pretty, they don’t seem to have a care in the world (despite supposedly being in a rush to deliver the babies of hard-up, slum-dwelling Cockneys). This younger version of me, on the other hand, quickly found herself caught in the middle of a stream of cars, all apparently being driven by countless Jeremy Clarksons in a hurry to get home, with only the vaguest idea of how to get to the court house from our offices. Horns papped as I wobbled nervously into the middle of the road; cab drivers hollered as I dithered aimlessly at junctions and tried to remember the right way to go.

I can only imagine what my parents, already worried about my emigration to ‘The Big Smoke’, would have said if they’d known I was fumbling around W1 on the back of a two-wheeler (sorry Mum!). That said, my boss’s bike was a ridiculously chic and hi-tech affair – one of those lightweight mountain bikes that probably cost as much as I was earning in a month. Should I fall off, I was less worried about my own injuries, more about chipping the paintwork on this work of art.

I had only two resources to guide me: an A to Z that I’d scanned briefly back in the office but which I had unhelpfully placed in my bag, and memories of childhood games of Monopoly. The Strand – that was one of the ‘red’ areas, near to Trafalgar Square, right? I felt for the batteries in my pocket before hooking an uncertain left and praying for guidance. I just needed to get the double AAs to Sophie and everything would be okay. I might even be deemed efficient enough to be given a real story to work on. And I would still be able to write, even with a leg squashed by an impatient London bus driver.

Over the years, I’ve got to know the bustling streets of sprawling Central London extremely well. I’ve had to. Showbiz events aren’t confined to one place, despite Leicester Square being the most famous location for premieres. Swanky hotels from Mayfair to Embankment, Piccadilly to Covent Garden, fight with each other to host showbiz bashes, knowing that having a major record company or film studio as a regular customer would earn them thousands. I’ve been to some venues so many times, the concierge welcomes me like an old friend (although, I sometimes wonder if he realises I’m actually a journalist, not some hooker on a call-out). Now, I favour two feet over any other method of transport, what with buses being at the whim of traffic just like everyone else and the hassle of the London Underground hardly being worth it if the venues are central, and I can just as easily walk. I’ve also found that pacing the streets every week keeps you in shape almost as much as an intense session of Zumba down at the local sports centre would – and without the annoying instructor. On the days that I do have to take a cab I’m as familiar with the shortcuts and alternative routes as the drivers that take me. (My accountant may baulk at these taxi expenses every year, but has he ever tried to maintain a poker-straight blow-dry while walking in the pouring rain from Park Lane to Soho? I don’t think so.)

One thing is for sure – I certainly wouldn’t cycle any more. But, back then, on my mission, I was only just learning about the city’s traffic chaos. Thankfully, after about 20 or so hellish minutes, I finally reached the court and handed over the batteries to a ridiculously thankful Sophie. I hung around for a few minutes, and watched as the musician who’d been in the dock that day came out on to the steps of the building to read out a statement. He’d been involved in a messy court case with former band mates, all of them arguing over royalties. Now he’d won, he looked relieved that it was all over. I knew how he felt.

Sophie was standing in among the throng of microphones and television cameras, holding out her dictaphone to record every word and even throwing in a few questions to the beaming pop star. Forgetful she may have been, but she was doing what I dreamt of doing.

Still, I had hope that one day soon I’d be given a chance. I’d already learnt several important lessons, after all:

1 Always be prepared and carry a spare packet of batteries.

2 Memorise the London street map like your life depends on it.Oh, and

3 Never cycle down Oxford Street at five o’clock in the evening.I wheeled the bike all the way back to the office.

Festivals

A few weeks after joining the magazine, having made a considerable amount of coffee and run endless errands, I finally got to do what I had been hired to do in the first place: report from some of that summer’s music festivals. With a camera and notebook in hand, I set out to get a snapshot of the fashions and fads going on in remote fields that season, unaware that I was about to make a huge discovery about my career choice.

There are more festivals now than ever. Some are legendary, like Glastonbury and Reading; others are out of the way in small towns and normally feature a seventies dad rocker as a headline act. Every summer we have ample opportunities to pop on our jean shorts and cowboy hats, neck pints of warm cider and chill out in sunny fields for a weekend listening to bands we’ve never heard of. Sounds blissful, right?

Everyone knows that Glastonbury is amazing. Thousands of revellers gathered in a historic setting, all united by a shared love of music and partying. A loved-up crowd singing along to soaring anthems on a balmy midsummer night is a magical experience – at least, this is certainly what I had been told at school by my more adventurous mates, those girls whose parents weren’t quite as panicky as my own and who seemingly lived a much more exciting life than mine by being allowed to travel miles to gigs. When I first got the job at the magazine, knowing that I was heading for the festivals, I couldn’t wait to make up for lost time.

But this, it turned out, is not how it works for a showbiz reporter. It’s hard enough as a regular ticket holder to plough through the mud and crowds to get from the dance tent on one edge of the camp to the main stage at the other in time for the headline act. As a showbiz journalist, with recording equipment and a deadline, you can multiply that difficulty by ten.

When you work in an industry that is – for most people – a leisure pursuit, you learn something very quickly: what was once your hobby is now your bread and butter. What you once did to chill out is now your job. That’s not to say I don’t still enjoy listening to music, watching the TV or going to the cinema as a pastime; it is, however, difficult to switch off completely. Maybe I’ve met the actor up there on the cinema screen and, since they gave me really boring answers to my questions, I’m finding it difficult to imagine them as a charismatic action hero (I’m talking about you, Nic Cage). Or perhaps the love song that I’m listening to, all heartfelt and emotional, is hard to swallow since its singer sadly seemed little more than a hard-nosed businesswoman when I met her (and that’s you, Christina Aguilera).

It was during my outings to festivals that summer that I had my first taste of this. I was in work-mode, while seemingly everyone around me was soaking up the sun and smoking weed. I spent more time worrying about whether I’d get the interviews I needed than I did actually kicking back and enjoying the gigs.

The schedule of the festival season soon became engrained in my brain – and it still is. In recent years, the Isle of Wight festival, reborn after its legendary status in the 1970s, has been kicking things off in mid-June, but it’s still Glastonbury a week or so later that really marks the start of a long summer in wellington boots. Then there’s the riotous T in the Park in Kinross-shire, the arty Latitude in a Suffolk forest, the highly commercial V in both Chelmsford and south Staffordshire, the ear-splitting Reading and Leeds festivals, that take place over the same August Bank Holiday weekend as the rave-tastic Creamfields, and then it’s all wrapped up at the quirky, boutique Bestival, which takes place back on the Isle of Wight where things all began ten weeks earlier. Not to mention a huge number of smaller festivals around the country and a plethora of branded events in virtually every park in London.

Despite the fact that it’s never quite the same when you’re attending them ‘on the job’, some of my experiences at these events were nothing short of incredible; bands always seem to try that bit harder at festivals – with such a variety of people in the crowd, they need to.

But there’s one particular experience, a few years into my career, which will stay with me for ever. It was 2002; Rod Stewart was headlining Glastonbury on the Sunday and I’d spent most of the day on the phone trying to arrange an interview. Each time the answer from a record-company minion was the same: ‘Maybe. Ask me later and I’ll tell you where we are with things.’ I’d walked from stage to stage trying to track down Rod’s PR team, but to no avail. After a bit more searching and several more unsuccessful phone calls, the sun began to set over the Pilton hills.

With Rod presumably warming up for his set by gargling broken glass, the chances of meeting with my mum’s favourite were frankly looking slim. I’d rung up a huge mobile bill and stressed myself out for nothing. With a heavy heart – and a resolution to erase ‘Maggie May’ from my iPod – I hung up my microphone for the day and headed over to the legendary Healing Fields, which were seemingly at least a mile away from the razzmatazz of the main stage. Determined to forget about work, I sat back with a ‘special’ chocolate brownie purchased from a stall nearby run by someone who frankly looked like a witch (albeit a nice witch), and basked in the final glow of the sun. Seemingly from nowhere, a girl about my age came up to me and offered to tattoo my hand with henna (feeling spontaneous, I accepted, obviously). A few feet in front of us, a group of women, all dressed in long white flowing robes, gathered in a circle and started to sing some sort of ancient madrigal about flowers and honey. As the luscious chocolate started working its magic, this song began to sound like The Greatest Thing I’d Ever Heard. Quite suddenly – and for the first time – I felt what the real Glastonbury was all about. Far away from the feisty crowds and the fast food and Rod Stewart and – crucially – reporting, I was finally relaxing into the true, love-filled, ancient spirit of the festival.

Back in London the next day the tattoo looked awful, of course, and my boss was highly annoyed that I had no interview with Rod for her to run. But that one moment away from the madness, away from the pressure, away from the aching legs and missed deadlines of being a showbiz journalist at a festival, was definitely worth it.

Some other favourite festival moments? Coldplay’s first Glastonbury turn in 1999, when they were still just four nerdy university students who loved indie music, was a fabulous statement of intent. Jay-Z’s Glastonbury headlining nine years later was a much-needed injection of American swagger into the West Country cow fields. And while I might not have been old enough to see the legendary turn by Nirvana at Reading in 1992, every time I’ve seen former member Dave Grohl headline a festival with the Foo Fighters it’s been pure energy, passion and sweat. (Dave gives great interview.)

Of course, there are always musos who’ve been to a lot more festivals than I have, and each will relish describing to me – a mere reporter – a favourite that was supposedly ‘the greatest gig ever’ (‘What?! You didn’t see Amy Winehouse perform with a bunch of Indonesian nose flautists on the Save the Rainforest stage at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning back in 2007? And you call yourself a music fan?!’). Expert I may not be, but I still appreciate a good quality gig. I’m sure many of the bearded boys at Glastonbury were none too pleased when Beyoncé brought some pop bling to the farm in 2011 but personally, I couldn’t get enough, though. Showbiz for me has always had talent and glamour going hand-in-hand.

Maybe that’s another reason why working the festivals wasn’t exactly a career highlight: wading through a muddy field at midnight when you haven’t washed for 48 hours, you haven’t eaten anything except a dodgy burger from a food van and you’ve got a deadline looming, can never be described as glamorous. The backstage press area where reporters lurk might boast proper toilets (I certainly don’t care about the ‘festival’ experience when it comes to sanitation – I will defend my right to a toilet that actually flushes), but even home comforts can’t get you an interview with Rod Stewart any more easily.