Employees working to the sound of the usual phones ringing. One of them has his shirt backwards, but it still seems as dull as always. The shirt backwards thing is kinda lame anyway - "imagine if we all wore the same clothes, but backwards!" Wouldn't be much of a parallel universe.
Tim tells Gareth he's doing the same as Dawn, selling kisses for a pound. Gareth says he wouldn't pay if he did. "I'll put a pound in for you," says Tim generously and gets up. Gareth doesn't seem to know what's going on. "I wouldn't kiss you if you paid me," he says. "I am paying, Gareth," says Tim ."It's quite simple. So..." He goes to Gareth, still talking about how it's all charity, and manages to sneak up on him and almost kiss him. Gareth starts evading as Tim is hugging him. "Why are you such a bender?" asks Gareth whose masculinity is threatened in this terrible way. And on Red Nose Day of all days! Dawn laughs to herself as the boys struggle. "I'm not kissing you, I didn't put a pound in," says Gareth as if Tim's kisses-for-a-pound scheme is somehow eral. "You are such a pervert! Dirty little pervert!" Tim doesn't mind pretending to be gay, if it's done in the spirit of humiliating Gareth. "That feels good though," he says. "I hope you're getting all this," Gareth tells the camera. Tim echoes him. In the tradition of all schoolyard bullies, Tim turns everything Gareth says into a joke at him. "I hope your girlfriend knows you're gay, cos otherwise there's gonna be a big surprise," says Gareth. "Oh, is this your big surprise? I found out his big surprise!" says Tim. Then he finally lets go of Gareth, who seems to relax a bit, but is still indignant. Oh, Gareth, with all your talk about the army and your killer instincts, don't you feel it when someone's stalking you from behind? Tim comes right back and kisses Gareth straight on the lips. Gareth looks very serious and humiliated. "That was one way, I didn't kiss him back," he tells the camera. Duh! Tim pretends to be gagging and looks like he sucked on a lemon, but of course he's jubilant that this worked. Dawn laughs and wipes her eye a bit, tho she doesn't look like she laughed herself to tears. I'm left wondering why I find the Tim/Gareth scenes so funny even if I hate bullying. Maybe it's because Tim isn't truly malicious - he's just fed up with Gareth in the same way siblings get tired of each other and start bickering. Tim and Gareth really act like brothers sometimes. Maybe that also means there's some affection between them?
Some employees are still working, while others are playing a game of.. not sure what it's called, but it's the one where you put your hands behind your back and a tangerine under your chin and try to juggle the fruit under someone else's chin. Emma passes it on to Jamie, who passes it on to Trudy. David's excited, waiting for Trudy to pass it on to him; maybe he's waiting to feel Trudy's big boobs against his own chest. But just as it's his turn, Jennifer walks in and asks people to gather around, "We've got a little surprise for you." David is clearly pissed off. "On my turn - remember where we were!" he says to the others, but they're not paying attention anymore. He kicks the tangerine to the wall. David, don't waste food! That's a perfectly good tangerine, only the peel is a bit sweatty. Everyone gathers round and Jennifer compliments Sheila on her costume, "you look fantastic." Sheila seems pleased. I like her. But as usual, Sheila is just a side character, and the show of the day is performed by "the fantastic Neil Godwyn and the lovely Rachel!" I'm not gonna go too deep into feminist issues, but I think it's annoying that the male performer always has a last name and the female sidekick is just the sidekick with just the first name. But it's not really the issue here and Jennifer, who's aware of gender issues, is probably just echoing the way presenters usually talk about shows like this. I'm not really sure why that bugged me.
Back on topic, Rachel comes in wearing a pretty if dated red dress and a big red fluffy thing in her hair, while Neil's got a whole John Travolta thing going with his white vest, jacket and pants and black shirt. David doesn't look happy at all that Neil is getting all the attention once again. Neil says they both suffer for their art and asks the audience to suffer with them. I like his humor, it's subtle and natural, and he never expects huge laughs like David. Neil asks Jennifer to play the music, and she presses a button at the corner of a boombox. Is that the play button for the CD? I guess it is. I always find it confusing on TV when they just switch one button on without having to, you know, press "power", then pick the right track and right part of the track and so forth.
Neil and Rachel dance to More Than a Woman. They dance really well. It's 70's style, and I know so little about dancing that I don't know how to describe it. They both seem to be having fun and it looks like they've rehearsed this quite a bit. Everyone looks happy - except of course for David, who looks annoyed. If he weren't so self-centered, he could just relax and enjoy the show, but it's something good for Neil, and that means something bad for him. The male employees seem to find Rachel quite charming and they look at her with tenderness. Brenda laughs and looks happy, which is a nice touch - not the bitter wheelchair-bound girl who will never dance again, but one of the employees enjoying the show put on by two others. I wonder if there's a little hint here that Brenda can forget herself and let others shine while David can't? Even Gareth is bobbing his head to the music and smiling. Dawn, on the other hand, looks concerned as she sees Tim's adoring and proud look at Rachel. People clap and woo as Neil picks Rachel up and spins her around a bit. David looks annoyed, but seems to remember the cameras and makes some kind of belittling gesture with his head and lips. It's hard to tell what he's saying.
Neil now leaves his jacket with Rachel as the song turns into You Should Be Dancing and he takes the stage alone, doing his best John Travolta impression. Everyone's clapping their hands to the beat and laughing, and Neil looks like his in his own element, dancing with humor and quite sexily. Of course, David has to say, "That looks gay!" Everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves and they woo more and more. Rachel shakes his dress to the beat and laughs. It's a kind of encouraging laughter, they're not laughing at him. It's a great show. Neil's a born entertainer, which is probably what bugs David so much. Neil and Rachel hug and Rachel goes up to Tim as Neil goes around with a bucket. Lots of coins drop into the bucket as Dawn rubs her neck and tries not to watch Tim and Rachel make out. David forces on a smile that turns into a grimace.
Neil offers the bucket to David and says he can add it to his own money. David, of course, has to make this a competition: "I've already raised more than that in a way, but cheers. 300 quid I did last time." Neil looks like he's mustering all his patience to listen to this. "And if you wanted dancing you should have come to me," David continues stupidly. "You dance?" says Neil, surprised. Yeah, I wouldn't really expect that from David, he doesn't look very limber. "Big time," says David quickly. "More modern stuff than that as well. I've sort of fused Flashdance with MC Hammer shit." He looks smug at this, as if 80's stuff is both tougher and more creative than 70's stuff. And yeah, very modern. 20 years old when this came out. He didn't really have to start talking about himself either - would it have been so hard to just admit Neil did well and leave it at that? But no, he always has to shine, thus always embarrassing himself. The chapter ends here, rather abruptly in my opinion. So - David's dance in the next post!
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