By Aashiq
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCGCH9RBCqA
Available until: the cows come home probably
I don’t know what annoys me the most about call centres. The
fact that the people who work in them are so annoying and patronising or the
fact that everyone expects me to have worked in one because that’s what out of work
actors do. I mean, how dare they assume I’ve ever been out of work? Even if
they know I have, it’s really not polite to mention it. Do I keep harping back to
the time you were made redundant? No, I do not. Why would I want to remind you
of something so stressful and traumatic and… boring? So don’t ask me, okay?
This is a film, recorded in lockdown, about people working in call centres. I wouldn’t want to work in a call centre for real, but I wouldn’t mind being in a play about it. Anyone who says it’s more fun to do something for real than to pretend to do it has obviously never played a murderer. I’ve shot someone onstage (well, it was offstage, actually, but that’s just DETAILS), but I’m telling you now, you’ll never catch me doing that offstage. And I expect you to be glad about it too.
My husband (yes, I’m an actual grown-up reviewer, though I
flatter myself I still look young and handsome) says I need to stop writing
about myself and write about the film, but he’s so unreasonable. I’m not
psychic, you know. I haven’t even watched the film yet so how am I supposed to
start reviewing it already? But I suppose I could always start watching it now.
While I’m here. I mean, it might be really good.
Maybe I am psychic. It was really good. I didn’t
listen with headphones as they told me. I believe that, if a film only works if
you’re not too lazy to find out where your husband tidied your headphones away this
time, it has limitations. As it happened, it worked just fine without
headphones and I don’t believe I suffered for choosing not to mess up my hair.
The play opens with a single call, taken by call centre
worker Beth. She’s lovely, but… I understand what she’s saying. I’ve
never known a call centre worker to make sense before. It seems a bit
unrealistic, but maybe all call centre workers are lovely when you haven’t been
on hold for half an hour and it’s driving you so mad, you’ve started to think
about how you could be doing something more fun like cleaning the cooker. Seriously,
these telephone queues mess with your brain. Housework is okay when you’re in
the shops buying all their pink stuff, but it’s just not the same when you get it
all home and actually have to use it. Once your brain has been messed with in
this horrific way, it’s very difficult for any kind of instructions to make
sense.
There are five call centre workers: Beth, Sammy, Jessie,
Leanne and Rebecca/Becky/Beck (she introduces herself as all of them; anything
to relieve the monotony). It doesn’t say who plays who, but the actors are Amy
Ann Haigh, Carys Jones, Bernadette Russell, Lexia Tomlinson and Luanda Yasmin. (No
men, you see? So why would I be working there? Not unless there’s a rule that
everyone has to wear dresses and heels. I’d be totally down with that. I’m
just not so sure the women would be.) Beth is dealing with internet connection
issues. I think Becca (because she’ll probably try that one next) works in a
bank. Sammy works at a GP surgery. Not sure about the others. We don’t hear the
callers, but it’s easy to work out what they’re saying. Even when we’re
listening to several calls at once (though the actors take it in turns and don’t
talk over each other), we can follow each individual story.
They call centre workers all have personalities, even when they’re
flinging around their annoying stock phrases. (You know, the ones that make you
want to throw your phone at the wall.) Beth is sweet and helpful; she’s
probably not been working there long. These places steal your soul. Leanne is
sarcastic and very unprofessional. I’d probably slam the phone down if I had to
talk like someone like her. Unless, of course, she’d slammed the phone down on
me first. Becks seems a bit bored and detached but determined to stick to
professionalism. Sammy is polite but firm and genuinely concerned.
Jessie has obviously been on the How to Patronise Callers
course. Do these people not realise it’s scary phoning up to speak to a call
centre? What if we end up talking to Leanne? Then we’re on hold forever so our
brain switches off and then suddenly a person speaks and they just expect us to
remember why we called. How are we meant to do that? You can’t play
brain-numbing music at us and expect our brains not to be numbed. So we have to
go through this stressful experience and then you patronise us and tell
us they can’t do what we’re asking which can actually come as a bit of a shock.
We have to think and process and regroup. I’m a very creative person, you know,
but even I can’t do that in three seconds. And we’re not even allowed to um and
er because it’s not coherent enough and they ask you to repeat that and how are
you supposed to repeat a spontaneous sound of frustration? (I mean, I could.
I’m an actor, after all. But why should I?)
Later, the five discuss their days over cups of coffee. It
could be they’ve changed characters and they’re now all working in the same
place, but I’m not as stupid as some idiots think I look. I think they’re actually in five different call
centres, but they’re all having the same conversations. Every day they have very
similar callers making very similar calls about very similar problems and when
they have their coffee break, they can’t talk about anything confidential so
they have the same conversations about nothing.
After the coffee break, we hear people phoning for mental
health support. Becko is the call centre worker; the rest are callers. But I
don’t think they’ve changed characters. I think this scene is saying that call
centre workers can have mental health problems too. It just gets too much. The
calls are relentless (and some callers, like me, can be… challenging). They’ve
reached a place where they need to call for help, themselves. I’m not telling
you what happens at the end, but if you’ve been listening properly, it’s significant.
The actors are STARS. When you go into rehearsal for the
first time, you should have some idea of how you’re going to say your lines. But
for the most part, actors aren’t just standing there talking to themselves.
There are other actors in the scene and you create and craft the scene together;
inspiring and energising each other. We continue to do this not just in rehearsal
but in every performance. The input and support from the other actor and the energy
they give you is absolutely crucial. Usually.
The actors in this film, for the most part, don’t
communicate with each other. They have to imagine what is being said to them –
even if the silent lines are written in the script so they know which words they’re
responding to, they have to imagine how they’re said; imagine emotions and
personalities; create their own energy. Everything has to come from them. If I
can say so without sounding like a patronising twit, the actors should be proud
of this because if I’d produced work of this quality, I’d be even more up
myself than usual.
These actors have made me feel actual sympathy for
people who work in call centres. Which means that either this film has subliminal
messages or it’s good. I don’t know about you, but I’m going for the latter.
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