Lindsay Anderson had seventy miles of film. This had to be edited into a ninety minute movie. He took forever to produce the first rough-cut, then summoned us to a small preview theatre in Wardour Street. Andrew came on time; George didn't.
"Where is he?" Lindsay asked inquisitorially
"He's probably late," said Andrew shrewdly.
"I know that for God's sake," Lindsay snapped, "but where the fuck is he?"
Andrew yawned and sat down. Lindsay stamped and fumed around the small theatre. "It's only booked for two hours and the film takes at least that long."
"You'd better extend the booking," Jazz suggested.
"How can I do that if I don't know when he'll be here? What do we need - an extra fifteen minutes, an extra half-hour?"
"Make it an hour," I suggested, which was a mistake for it sent Lindsay's face purple with anger. But he went and did it anyway.
George turned up twenty-five minutes late; breezed in with a quick "sorry" then sat down and started giggling with Andrew.
Lindsay beckoned me and Jazz outside, blazing with fury. "Aren't you going to say anything to him? How can you let him come late like that without even an explanation?"
He was angrier than it was possible to explain. He appeared to think that a manager's job was to crush the artist into a little box and keep him there, to be taken out only when required to do something suitable for an artist to do - sing, perhaps, or smile for the camera.
"Let's just get on with it," I told him.
Lindsay scowled ferociously and strode back inside. "Get on with it then," he shouted at the projectionist down the intercom. "Run the bloody thing."
George coming late would have been forgotten if, at the end of the showing, we could have told Lindsay how good it was. But we simply couldn't. He'd made the film so achingly boring we could scarcely sit through it. He was trying to make political commentary, which wouldn't have mattered if he'd manage to capture Wham!'s spirit and personality. But because their happy-go-lucky attitude was everything that Lindsay hated most in life, he'd got nowhere near them.
"What do you think?" he snapped in the harsh silence that followed the end of the last reel.
"Some of it's good," George told him, "but some of it's boring."
"Bloody boring," Andrew agreed. And they wandered off to have lunch.
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