I stepped off the train and started to walk across Charing Cross station. The station was familiar; everything was in the right place: the escalator, the signs to Trafalgar Square, the supermarket and the location of the chocolate company that I had bought Grace’s heart from. London was becoming my home.
London to Hollywood was a networking group for actors, screenwriters and anyone else who might be interested in the film industry. The group was new, and had attracted over four hundred members, and ninety people had signed up to come along for the group’s inaugural meeting in the bar area of a Soho cinema. I wasn’t worried that I wasn’t an actor or screenwriter; I was just up for having a good night out. Something in me had changed: I had lost my sense of fear, but I still held onto a feeling of gentle excitement.
I walked down Charing Cross Road and turned left onto Shaftesbury Avenue, passing the bright lights of the Palace Theatre. A few days earlier, whilst on the way to the Psychology Book Club, a tourist had asked me how to get to Shaftesbury Avenue. At the time, I had to reach for my phone and prod at a digital map for a couple of minutes to find an answer. After this event, I would instinctively know where it was.
Moments later, I recognised my destination: the Curzon cinema. I pushed the double doors and walked down the stairs and immediately found myself amidst a group of people who were wearing hand-made name stickers. I was at the right place.
‘Hello! Are you Dee?’ I asked a woman who was standing by a table that was covered in papers, leaflets and tellingly, pens and stickers.
‘You can either write your real name on the sticker, or you can write the name of an actor or movie star that you would like to be’. To keep things simple, I decided to write my own name.
Seconds later, I was chatting to a chap called Steve, who turned out to be a creative director at a company that produced TV game shows. We were joined by another chap who turned out to be a part time actor, and we chatted about ‘TV show syndication’.
I needed a beer, so I politely exited the conversation and made my way to the bar, where I was duly ignored by a grumpy barmaid, only to be further saddened to discover that they only sold expensive continental lager. After purchasing an outrageously expensive pint of Peroni, I made my way back to the group, where I started chatting to ‘Ed’.
Ed was an aspiring script writer and director, and he was looking to try to break into the industry. I really liked Ed. He wasn’t loud and brash; he was thoughtful. It was his first ever Meetup. He was being brave; he was trying to reach out and connect with others. He hadn’t done any theatre directing (but this is something that he would think about), and he hadn’t heard about the short film Meetup either (but he would check it out). After a few minutes, he pitched his film to me. It sounded great. It was about a family in Sri Lanka; it featured the mania of an urban cityscape and had the backdrop of rural tranquillity, but a tranquillity that was touched by mystery and the recent civil war. I told Ed that he might be able to find people who could help him, nudging him across the room towards a group of people we hadn’t spoken to before.
‘I hate networking; I’m not nice to people, I just insult them’, said someone called Alex. Alex was in his late twenties, unshaven, wearing a cheap looking shirt, and claimed to be an actor. I didn’t know what to say, or how to respond. He was clearly bitter and angry about something.
‘Have you managed to get any work using that approach?’I asked.
Before becoming an actor, Alex had tried his hand at stand-up comedy and confessed to earning only ten pounds over a period of twelve months. Towards the end of our conversation, he called me a dick.
After sharing some banter with an Estonian actress, I chatted to a professional movie producer called Andy. Like Alex, Andy was in his late twenties. Andy didn’t like actors. Andy liked finance. He liked the challenge of setting up a business, getting a deal done, and seeing it through. He said that he had worked on a film that cost ten million pounds.
‘Do you go to these networking events a lot?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I do. The high level ones can be really stressful, where you’ve got a room of professionals and you’ve got to pitch what you do and your project to many different people quickly. This event is really quite a low level one. What’s your role in the film industry?’ I told him that I didn’t really have a connection.
‘Which do you prefer? The high level networking or the low level networking?’
‘I prefer the mid-level networking’. I sensed he was becoming tired of my questions and wanted to be left alone.
‘Well, since I’m not in the film industry, I shouldn’t waste any of your time; there’s all these people here to chat to’. I wished him well with his projects, and we shook hands.
It was time for another beer; only a small one this time, since I had to be up early the following morning. I found myself standing next to a tall man (who was also in his twenties), who spoke with a slight American accent. Joe was studying for a masters degree in public health but had a vague interest in script writing. He had come along to the event to see what it was all about.
‘I recognise you…’ Joe said. ‘I’m not sure where from, though. Have I seen you at another event?’
‘Yeah, I, er, go to quite a few.’ Joe certainly wasn’t at the Psychology book group, and had he been at the vegan event, I certainly would have recognised him.
‘Did you go to the Furtherfield Commons event? Tech empowerment…’
‘I recently went to an event in Finsbury Park… about digital stuff; data security. Were you there too?’
‘Yes! That’s it! That’s where I’ve seen you: I never forget a face, man!’
I vaguely remembered that he had bailed out at lunchtime, just before the second workshop, which explained how come I didn’t recognise him straight away. We chatted about the event before chatting about London and the challenge of finding your way around. Moments later we were joined by two other people: a short film director (who was incidentally very tall), and a budding sound engineer. Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice. I turned around.
‘Sophie! What on earth are you doing here?!’ I exclaimed.
‘Chris!’ Sophie yelled, as surprised to see me as I was to see her. We gave each other a generous hug. People turned to look at us both. Sophie was a colleague from work. She was a part time history tutor. Sophie explained that she had once had a role in a film and was interested in documentary film making. I said that I was there on false pretences and was just enjoying an expensive continental beer.
‘Do you know where Gerrard Street is?’ asked Sophie, peering into her phone.
I said that I wasn’t sure, but I knew that it was close by. Moments later, Sophie was gone. She had left to check out another Meetup.
There were eight people remaining. I had chatted to Estonian, Polish, Greek, Spanish, Indian-American and English people. The organiser had left about an hour earlier; it was nearly ten o’clock. It was time to go home.
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