17: American TV Casting

Every now and then I'll go and audition for some TV work. I'm by no means an actor (many days I'm barely a comedian) but I always pop along, well prepared and all, and try my best to get the job and the sweet, sweet money that goes along with it. Because I want to buy a campervan.

As you may have noticed, dear reader, I've not been on TV yet. Which gives you an inkling of how these auditions have been going. In my head it's not just down to me narrowly missing out after putting in my best effort (if I'm having a positive day) or being beaten into last place by a plethora of infinitely more talented people (all other days). Oh no. It's also down to my advanced age.

I'm 31 years old and started doing stand-up when I was 27. I like to think that I have the comedy age urse, in that most comedians tend to look younger than their actual age. Problem is, I feel daft lying about my age. I guess that I could tell a slight fib-ette and claim to be 27 or 28, but I'm a rubbish liar at the best of times. I glow bright red and emit pheremones that may as well be a siren above my head screaming "AWOOOOOOOOOOOOGAH! THIS MAN IS A LIAR!".

But even if I could get away with telling a slight lie here and there, if you inspect me closer I'm clearly knocking on a bit. My hair is falling out, steadily. At the back, which is irritating in the extreme as I don't know how well I'm hiding my thinning pate on a daily basis. I can't grow a beard thanks to the skin medication I was on when I was a teenager (I can't sweat through my face either, which is bizarre) so that helps the youthful feel - if I grow a moustache I look like the token 14 year old you knew at school who had been wanked off by the sweaty fat girl who worked at the chippy, played truant and had an off-road motorbike. Every school had one of those chaps, I've checked. With their faint little grey top lip hair that would every now and then get scorched by a rogue spark from the cigarettes he'd nicked from his gran's welsh dresser.

The facial hair issue is however one mere peak in the variety of pitfalls that affect my face. If you look at my tired, sunken eyes then you'll see that I am a man that has not slept for around 17 years. And my forehead is as grooved and furrowed as a freshly ploughed field. All of this gives the impression that my face is some kind of cut-and-shut, with everything below the nose a healthy 19 years old, everything above the nose is around 62.

Of course, none of this would matter if I was American. Because lets be honest, I could get cast as a nine year old in pretty much any show in the states if I tried. The whole cast of Dawsons Creek? In their late twenties when playing teenagers. Beverley Hills 90210? Some of them were in their thirties. You know that kid in Two and a Half Men? He's actually a woman in her forties.

Actually, that could be Bart Simpson. I forget.

Then add in the fact that apparently no-one in the USA is fat or ugly, according to their TV shows. The cast of Friends, for example - all of them good looking thirtysomethings, somehow living in amazing digs in one of the most expensive places on earth despite the fact that none of them seem to have particularly decent jobs. Well, except Rachel who became a merchandiser by wandering into an office one day. Because that's how that shit goes down.

If Friends was an accurate reflection on American life then where is the ethnic diversity? More to the point, the size diversity? It should have been cast like this:

RACHEL - Raised in a trailer in Alabammy. Working as a waitress with occasional lapdancing duties as she wants to create a better life for her kids, especially since her babydaddy went away. The "Rachel Cut" would not be a greasy ponytail, slicked back as harshly as possible during the day, and a crude wig at night so people don't recognise her. Has eyes that could tell a thousand sordid stories if only she could actually motivate herself to do so.

PHOEBE - Has to live in a hostel because her holistic therapy business / handmade jewellery stall actually makes so little money that she's resorted to selling crystal meth to kids at new-age music festivals. A confirmed Wiccan, she only meets men through the Internet. Several have scammed her out of her savings, despite her protestations that they're the one. Current beau is a farmer from North Dakota who has made his own human skin costume from the carcasses of the women he's killed.

MONICA - Massive. So fat that she needs a mobility scooter to get around, and the merest glimpse of her thighs is enough to make you push your meal away, should you be eating anywhere near her at the time. Hasn't worked in years, shares a 15 by 15 foot room in Staten Island with Rachel and an infestation of cockroaches. And Rachel's kids when they're not in care. And bedsores.

ROSS - Monica's brother. Religious nut, he joined a cult a couple of years ago and is close to getting Monica to join. Rail thin, thanks to his parents ignoring him and spoiling his fatter sibling. Works at a Wal-Mart in New Jersey where he hopes to be assistant manager one day. 48 years old.

CHANDLER - Only friends with the others because he feels he has to be, he has a middle management office job where he sits and wonders where it all went wrong. Secretly gay, he has joined the Ku Klux Klan to try and purge his own confusion through violence towards others. Doesn't use sarcasm, because he's American and therefore doesn't really understand it. Has been married 6 times, the most recent of which was to a stripper he met. She left after two days, taking all of his posessions.

JOEY - Wanted to be an actor but is cripplingly untalented. So instead of blundering into jobs he's reduced to working as an escort and as he gets older and more desperate, into prostitution for anyone who comes along - all so he can afford to stay in NYC.

So yeah, that would be how I would have written friends. And I know it wouldn't have made it that funny, I'll admit that. But just a touch of realism is all I ask for. I love the USA and have spent a lot of time there, but the lack of humility and honesty that the Americans have bothers me. I'm proud to be British, but I'm also aware that I live in a country with a vast amount of problems and that nobody is perfect - least of all myself.

But the American TV people would love nothing more than to kid us that everyone lives in a vast house, has an amazing job, brilliant and interesting friends, a dynamic social life, they all weigh below the national average and everyone has a ton of free cash to throw around.

Probably for the best that I'm only too old for TV jobs in this country then. In the USA I'd fail on a zillion levels...