26th January 2007.

Still epically busy, but I couldn’t resist sharing this piece of info with you. Despite what my IMDB entry says (Alan Jones V no less), I never appeared in Churchill: The Early Years or on TV in ‘Don Carlo’, ‘Alas Smith and Jones’, ‘Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime’ or ‘Fish’. Everything else I did although and I wish they’d amend this as I have repeatedly requested. The one credit they’ve left off is my extended cameo appearance in Norman J. Warren’s Terror with Cleo Rocos now of ‘Celebrity Big Bother’ fame. Anyway, two years after that Suspiria knock-off veteran genre writer David McGillivray, our very own FrightFest stand-up comedian, cajoled me into appearing in another of his dubious enterprises. It was a short film directed by his TV documentary friend Nigel Finch titled The Errand.

How vividly I still remember arriving at David’s basement flat in Kilburn very early in the morning.  It was a hot summer’s day in 1980 and I was on my roller skates. I was a huge Roller Disco maniac as outlined in my book ‘Saturday Night Forever’. There we were bundled into a van and driven to Milton Keynes, the futuristic location for the story (!) about a wounded soldier refused help by everyone he meets. I played The Patrolman. I had one line ‘Blue 16 to base”, did about three takes, and was very upset when it got dubbed. Shown in cinemas at the time (those were the days when shorts had a valid supporting feature life) The Errand was thought lost forever. All prints had been destroyed and the negative lost.

So imagine my surprise when David called to interview me for a feature on London nightclubs he was writing and suddenly dropped the news a copy had been found. Last year an archivist discovered he had one pristine 35mm print stolen from the British Council. It had turned pink, but David took it to a facilities house and had it digitally re-mastered. Afterwards he offered all the materials to the National Film Archive and his contact there got quite excited.

The result? The Errand is being shown 6.10pm April 15 at the NFT on London’s South Bank supporting Jose Larraz’ 1974 lesbian undead schlock classic Vampyres. He’ll be introducing this screening and has requested all cast and crew to attend. Sadly there aren’t many of us left. I’ll be there as long as the date doesn’t clash with any potential Third Mother screening in Rome. (It’s around the time of the Alejandro Jodorowsky NFT season too that I’ve played a part in).  I’ll finally learn what proper actors must feel when they see their old movies. I do hope I look good. I honestly can’t remember. There’s a second showing on April 18. It will be worth going just to see what anecdotes David will see fit to regale the audience in his typically deadpan way. I just hope I don’t figure too much in them.

Until the next time.

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