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drinks Monday 1 September 08 Edinburgh Reunion in London
Topping And Butch Hit Leicester Square 26-27 September 08
Cannes 05 - Anneka's Social Diary
A blonde hits Cannes to promote her Edinburgh 05 show but spends some of the time getting pissed, removing film-makers from her bed, partying, and rolling in oil. Anneka Svenska tells (more or less) all.
I couldn’t resist popping over to Cannes, it’s an addiction. Knowing all your mates are there and you’re stuck in Blighty is too much to bear. So I let EasyJet kill my card dead for £200 and hopped on a last-minute plane.
Last year, I lived on a yacht in Cannes harbour promoting Carry On London. I drank champagne, did business to the soft ebb of the tide, had a quick natter with good old Tarantino. Well, almost. We tried to gate-crash the Kill Bill 2 party in a leaky old dingy. We ended up floating down the harbour in a smelly old rubber boat with no oars and a raspberry-sound coming from underneath (the boat).
This year, no yacht. Seems surreal that I was soon chatting and laughing with million-dollar budget producers of films like Troy, Star Wars and The Avengers about a goofy-toothed, alter-ego, lesbian reporter, named Sally Swallows
– heading for a tiny black-box stage in Edinburgh, no bigger than my bathroom, on a budget that would probably only pay a top producer’s yearly bill for luxury-pile loo-rolls.
Anyhow they all warmed to this vile character and her rotting teeth. I now have a collection of business cards which I need to decipher in the next few days. Otherwise I won’t have a chance of remembering any of them in a couple of weeks – due to alcohol-tainted mist.
On arrival, instead of being sensible and going to my hotel to sleep, I dragged my wheelie-suitcase down to the Croisette to find a party. I phoned some friends and they said Century. They’d been drinking there for hours and couldn’t be bothered to move.
I breezed past the door staff avoiding eye-contact but immediately - to my pleasant surprise - a burly bouncer jumped to attention and thoughtfully hauled my case down the steps deep into the wonderful white-draped beach-front tent.
It would have been lovely, if he hadn’t broken the leather strap off the case due to his massive muscle mass. It was Louis Vuitton – bastard. I hadn’t the guts to tell him it had been hanging off since Cannes last year. He apologised. I was promised many drinks.
The Century Club looked really spectacular this year. It was clean, classy, white-washed, understated - and not too packed with people. I bumped straight into dozens of people I knew from London and for a while forgot that I was in Cannes.
Generously the party tickets came out, and I was given access to most of the top parties. And told to shh and not tell anyone, just in case they got annoyed that they’d lost out.
There were short, fat, ugly male film producers, all with arrogant attitudes and expensive champagne, dancing with some rather scantily clad babes. One girl decided to do the splits up one of the men by putting her leg on his shoulder – not hard, because he made the Wizard of Oz’s munchkins look like mountain gorillas. What on earth could these ugly guys be producing to have women like that fawning all over them?
Some women come to Cannes with no reason except to pull rich film-producers. And rich film-producers come to sell million-dollar movies and use their status to take advantage of these kids in the evenings when they’re bored and feeling jiggy.
I was sad and annoyed at the same time. These women would probably leave Cannes violated and no more famous than before. However at the same time they deserved what was coming.
The highly-renowned producers you respect don’t act in this ridiculous and embarrassing way – they’re probably out having nice sensible dinners at the Majestic with very clued-up clients. It’s only the loud-mouthed, second-rate, would-be’s - with bulging wallets and crass attitudes - that boogie around like over-sunburned chavs on speed.
We trekked through lots of glitzy parties till the wee hours. At last I thought hurray, I can hit the sack. But my sack was a stained couch presently seating four very drunk and happy film producers. I waited, waited and waited until finally all the wine was gone and therefore no one had any reason left to stay up. Which included me.
Next morning was exploration day. I wheeled my case through the crowded Croisette and impounded it in the Variety Magazine tent - compliments of a lovely (and handsome) lad called Alberto who works there and always bends over backwards for me.
Cue a spot of lunch in the St Georges tent - the main English hide-out in Cannes. Top UK movie producers sit there chatting, meeting and soaking up time between tedious film screenings. I ordered (very reasonably-priced) food, and lit up more social fags than usual.
Right away people came up who recognised me from last year. Within 10 minutes, I was with half-a-dozen producers from a top UK studio discussing my vile and unearthly comedy character, loaded down with another 10 business cards.
One highly-respected director told me I should be pitching to the producers of top Hollywood films to raise the budget. It was a wonderful idea, but I couldn’t help thinking that it was a bit unrealistic. 15 business cards later I headed for the boats.
Immediately I was invited onto a couple of yachts. Everyone wanted to know what was happening with Carry On London – they’re gagging for another Carry On. I’ve suggested Carry On Cannes, simply because of the ridiculousness – it’s perfect. Silly big-boobed bimbo-women, strutting along the Croisette - followed by daft, horny, men with their tongues hanging out, tripping over their feet and saying ‘cor’.
Several film screenings later, the evening brought some nice exclusive parties and a yacht out to sea. None of us could get home because the ferry service only ran every hour. Bored, we banged on cabin-doors looking for parties. Finally we met a Danish guy with a parrot on his shoulder. He’d come to Cannes to break the parrot into films.
We sat and drank champagne with him - watching movie after movie starring the parrot on his laptop. He lifted his shirt up to reveal a picture of his parrot wearing a Superman costume flying across his chest. He explained that ‘Mr P’ came from the planet Krypton.
We laughed. He didn’t notice. We laughed some more. He still didn’t notice. We made a hasty exit.
Next day I was dead to the world. I missed one of the top parties at The Carlton Hotel at midday and kicked myself repeatedly. A top Pinewood director friend scolded me – he thought I’d wasted a valuable opportunity to rub shoulders with the cream of Cannes’s film royalty. I apologised. He told me I should be apologising to myself – it was my loss, not his. I felt stupid. I’d let partying overtake the real objective of the trip - business.
My main objective was to eat so I could sleep forever. I stumbled - fully dressed with a hangover from hell - into a weird French restaurant in La Napoule. 2 hours sleep makes The Day of the Living Dead seem normal. I crashed groaning through the restaurant, salivating at the chance of stuffing my face to cure a pounding headache and dry throat. A rude French waiter snorted at me because I couldn’t say more than ‘le menu’ to him. Normally I would have cared. After demolishing half the restaurant’s supplies of food and 3.5 bottles of large ‘non-gas’ mineral water, I returned to the hotel and slept solidly for 5 hours
Tonight it was the Fuji Film Party with the guys from Pinewood Studios. The hotel had been closed all day in preparation. When it finally opened, it was a lovely, close social event – like Four Weddings And A Funeral crossed with Sunset Beach.
It felt like a wedding, but sprinkled with high-powered directors looking as daft as your Uncle Charlie dancing with Auntie Margo (both pissed on Brut). Simply wonderful. So much glamour and power in one room, so divinely intimate. You could talk to anyone here - even the top Troy people - and it would feel like chatting to a pal.
Of course they all got to see Sally on my business cards - and laughed their heads off when they heard that I was in fact the same sexy dame in the flesh.
Apparently they are all coming to watch the show on the London fringe and/or at Edinburgh. That’ll be interesting. Imagine the makers of Troy, Phantom of the Opera and Star Wars all sitting watching my disgusting ice-cream-vendor character doing unmentionables with a Mr Slippy. And Sid Superhero bashing a granny to death in front of them. Before they gracefully glide onto a helicopter to sip champagne en route to oysters at the Ivy.
I was going to ride back into Cannes and pop out to a party at The Castle. But everyone came back from there saying it was crap. Danny Glover passed us by swaying all over the street. My film lawyer friend had apparently just been having a beer with him in a café up the street and made out that Danny was a mate. Hahaha. Met him once and he’s a mate. Everyone is so delusional.
Time for bed. Peeled more film-maker pals off my bed. Dumped them off in their rooms. Managed to crash out.
My last morning in Cannes - what a weird day! I started at the St George’s tent drinking 2 bottles of rosé before 11am with a girlfriend. Drunk, we decided to hit the beach for a last-minute sun-tan.
We fell onto the beach at the Century Club. We fell over several times onto a stupid white rubber-ring chair - supposedly a beach lounger. We’d attracted the attention of several paparazzi - oh dear. It must have been when we fell in the sand covered in sticky oil and rolled down the beach into the waves. Hopefully the photos weren’t interesting enough to print.
A disgusting, pervy guy tried to seduce us with VIP party tickets and a complimentary plane fare so I could stay for the rest of the festival. I very politely – in my poshest accent - told him to bugger orf.
My friend and I decided to take up the Daily Mail’s offer of a nice photo-shoot for their feature highlighting the Cannes Film Festival and the party scene. But the journalist snorted at me. She said I was unsuitable because I had a reason to be in Cannes, as I was promoting my show. Whereas my friend was there for the sake of it, and the parties.
I tried to lie. I said I was really a socialite, who lived each day from one party to the next, guzzling champagne, driving Ferraris, walking stupid fluffy dogs and doing fuck all.
But nothing. I couldn’t convince her I was the real deal. Afterwards I was glad I had been labelled an honest working comedian and not a posh-tottie bum. I’m not in the running for Tara Palmer Tomkinson or Paris Hilton’s job as Royal Cannes Layabout Supreme.
My one regret this year was not getting there on Friday. Apparently I had been given a Star Wars premiere ticket. Bugger, bugger, fart. Never mind, I’ll be back next year – and for the full Festival. Incidentally Cannes is twinned with Chelsea and Fulham - did you know that? And there’s me thinking it was Clapham.
END
(c) Anneka Svenska 2005
Friday 20 May 05 / Cannes
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2005
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
