COOL RUNNINGS: THE MUSICAL

It was the musical they said couldn’t be made.

Which for an incredibly non-competitive writer/producer like myself, seemed like the perfect opportunity to turn down such an offer and stay at home and watch daytime television. But according to my agent, I had to do it, as she needed the commission due to unpaid parking fines and a borderline hypoglycaemic episode in the Trocadero Centre where she caused £78 worth of damage to a pool table. At first it seemed like one of her many crazy and wacky ideas, like when she went speed dating in a mosque, or when she assassinated Malcolm X. But the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became about her Malcolm X claim. She’s only 17!


So, Cool Runnings: The Musical? On one hand it seemed like the ultimate challenge, and on the other two hands (a) I had nothing else on except for my house of cards project, and (b) it would give me the ideal opportunity to appear live on stage as the film character I’d always admired and modelled myself on... ED-209 from Robocop. But after some early drafts of the script, I realised that old ED-209, despite his frailties and interesting character developments, just simply wouldn’t work in the surroundings of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Downhearted, but not beaten, I went back to the drawing board, as I had left my cigarettes there.

The auditioning process was, initially, quite troublesome. We came under fire a fair bit for using white actors with brown face paint, which albeit unfortunate, in hindsight, was an ill-advised move. Nick Pickard (Tony from Hollyoaks) absolutely nailed the part of Junior Bevil in his audition, but due to protests from Childline and a group calling themselves The White Panthers, we chose to use only West Indian actors for the actual bobsleigh team. Tony, being the consummate professional, happily accepted the role of ‘Irving “Irv” Blitzer’, the role made famous by the late John Candy.


Of course, with this actual production being a musical, the one addition we had to make was of course, songs. So after two long and arduous weeks in the studio with my musical director, Jeff Goldblum (not thee Jeff Goldblum), we immediately fired out such soon-to-be-classics like ‘This Ice Ting Be Slippy’, ‘Yo White Girl, You Be Sexin’ Ma Mind’ and ‘Kanye Feel Da Love Tonight?’


So after four days of rehearsals, we felt we were ready to put on the big show. The stage crew and props guys did an incredible job recreating the ambience of Calgary (although I’m still sure the backdrop was actually Seattle).The lighting was... bright, and the sound was... heard. All 23 audience members, mainly friends and family, were packed into the Soho Theatre and we did a storming show. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. Sure, we hadn’t actually officially booked the theatre, and were made to stop the performance 18 minutes in due to security escorting us off the premises. But as Gaius Julius Caesar stated when he defeated the Mormons, ‘We Came, They Saw, We Conquered.’


Was there a lesson learned you ask? You're goddam right there was! When people tell you that there is something you can’t do, or there’s something that can’t be done, well, a lot of the time they’re actually right. So just leave it!