Lights, Camera, Inaction
by Richard E Grant5 February 2010 - this article originally appeared in Finch’s Quarterly Review Issue 6
Richard E Grant on the trials of filming his autobiographical movie Wah-Wah in Swaziland
At the tail end of the last century, I scribbled an autobiographical screenplay about my adolescence in Africa entitled Wah-Wah (the toodle-pip and hubbly-jubbly colonial slang of the last gasp of Empire). After a couple of years trying to chicken-and-egg it, aka get it cast and financed, my producer politely withdrew to become a drugs counsellor in Barbados. Into the breach stepped a comely French female producer (whom I shall diplomatically refer to by her initials, MC) who promised calm financial passage and clear sailing conditions ahead.com. Despite the invention of phones, faxes, texts and e-mails, the small matter of answering any of these communications between her office in Paris and mine in London became increasingly infrequent.
There’s nothing like the hilarity of hindsight when revisiting the near-nervous-breakdown-inducing details provoked by working with the aforementioned foe…
Having ploughed through four years of rewrites, pre-production collywobbles and yoyo-ing financials, we finally find ourselves in Swaziland, only to discover five days before shooting, that MC had neglected, to secure work permits for the 100-plus crew and cast. She is still in Paris when I am red-carpeted by an incandescent Swaziland government minister at 8.30am on 2 June 2004.
He detonates a full-frontal attack: “WHERE ARE YOUR APPLICATIONS? WHY WAS THERE NO FOLLOW-UP? WHY WAS THERE NO CONTACT? WHERE WERE YOU, GRANT? WHY WERE YOU NOT HERE, GRANT? WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED, GRANT?” He is unstoppable and implacable.
My feeble attempt to explain that the finances have collapsed and been resurrected, and the permits were the producer’s responsibility, goes for a Burton. His voice is now two decibels below full shout. “HIS MAJESTY IS ANGRY WITH YOU, THE MINISTRY IS ANGRY WITH YOU, THE CHIEF OF POLICE IS ANGRY WITH YOU. YOU CANNOT START FILMING IN FIVE DAYS’ TIME.”
I plead, beg, explain and grovel – all to no avail.
“NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!”
In the poisonous silence that follows, all I can think about is what the response would be were 100 foreigners to land at Heathrow or JFK without visas, permits or permissions of any description, intending to mosey down to Piccadilly Circus or Times Square for a two-month shoot.
“We are completely at fault, Sir, and I understand your position entirely. Thank you for meeting us so early in the morning and I deeply regret that we will not be able to make the film here or spend a large part of our budget in the country.”
I know this is brinkmanship. There is no alternative. The likely reality is that it’s all over before it’s even properly begun. The minister says he will convene an emergency meeting and I should be on standby for his response.
I call Paris and, for once, manage to get straight through to MC, whose blood I am ready to boil.
“So you believe this minister? You believe him and not me?”
“That’s not the fucking point! It doesn’t matter who I believe. The point is we cannot start shooting in five days because we do not have any work permits!”
“Go ask the King.”
How many times in the 21st century are you going to be asked to do that in real life? Her edict rattles around my cranium like a superannuated boiled sweet in tandem with “You believe him and not me?” I cannot credit this insanity and start laughing. The idea that you could cajole a government minister in London, Washington, let alone Paris, to make an exception to these procedures at such short notice is plainly ludicrous.
The minister calls at 4.45pm and we are summonsed for a rundown of the demands: permits to be submitted first thing next day (minimum of a week to process); letters for location permissions to be delivered immediately; a substantial fine to be paid for the inconvenience. On and on it went and all I could register was: “This is a reprieve.”
He is at pains to point out that the film company has caused this delay, not the Government, which is now expected to bend laws and make exceptions.
The production manager calls MC to report the results. Stunned silence.
Meanwhile, in London, the actors are in a panic as they all have to show up at a police station to get fingerprinted and pay for certificates to prove they’re not ex-cons, which are then faxed to the Swazi government.
All we can hope for is to be granted an audience with the King to beg permission to start shooting on schedule whilst the applications are being processed.
9pm: get the call to be at the palace at 2pm the next day.
3 June 2004: at least the minister has not vetoed our chances of filming outright. Or so we think, until we receive the licence contract from the committee at 11am demanding an extra E10m (£10,000) on top of the E100,000 licence fee to cover administration, filming rights, policing, “use of scenery” etc, plus a proviso that the film be vetted by the government before it is commercially released. Oh fuckity fuckity fuckity fuck fuck.
Four-and-a-half sphincter-winking hours drag by and then: “Get to Lozitha Palace immediately.” We pile into the rental car and drive hell for leather. On the radio, Bob Marley is chanting, “Everything’s gonna be alright” and we all hope that the man is right!
Royal protocol demands everyone is kept waiting for anything between one hour and eight to meet the King. The minister has been here since noon. Does this mean the King has not yet heard his demands?
No sooner have we arrived than we are shown into the throne room, which ups our status instantly. The King, whom I’ve met once before, greets me with real warmth and insists that I sit beside him on a matching throne. As is the custom, the minister sits shoeless before the Monarch on the floor. Surreal.
“Your Majesty, we are asking for your blessing to let filming go ahead and to negotiate fees for the permissions that we can reasonably pay, as we simply do not have the one million extra as stipulated by the minister this morning.” The King’s wide-eyed reaction confirms that this is the first he has heard about this and turns to the minister to explain.
We are granted a Royal reprieve and the power of an absolute monarch never seemed so sweet. “Only in Africa…” – words my late father was wont to say – where chicanery and corruption were mostly superseded by acts of boundless generosity, hospitality and kindness.
Wah-Wah was released in 2006, the minister has since lost his job and MC’s company went into liquidation last month.
- Richard E Grant is an English actor, screenwriter and director
Tags: Africa, film, Richard E Grant, wah wah
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February 6th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Pure Ionesco. Please believe me that there is a part of Europe where they still work like this.(I saw the film and I love it.)