THURSDAY

There was probably a very brief period during filming, watching Kelly
MacDonald and David Tennant pretend to fall in love on a misty cliff top, in
which I imagined Sheree, Matt, Neil and myself Edna Everageing about on a red
carpet, being besieged by gangs of Peter Bradshaws clamouring for movie birth
stories. After all, the whole script writing, green lighting, shooting on a budget
process had been so very painful that in any decent story we would triumph in
the end, the Decoy Bride would astonish at the box office while all memories
of stress and trauma were washed away by lashings of Awards Ceremony
champagne. I am an optimistic fool. But the release is still exciting – in it’s own,
under-doggish, low key way. Previews have been good, most reviewers like it
and the David Tennant fans love it.

Our film was premiere-ing as part of the ‘Great Scots’ strand in the Glasgow film
Festival. David Tennant, Kelly MacDonald, Alice Eve and yes, even Matt Delargy
and Neil Jaworski were busy. There was no red carpet, we were untroubled by
the paparazzi and the name of the film was simply written up on a white board
outside the cinema and then crossed out when all the tickets were gone. I flew
up to Glasgow with my husband and three month old baby who was attending
his second premiere of the month. He’s a genius accessory because he takes
attention away from both I’m wearing and the extra stone of baby weight that’s
settled in unphotogenic rolls from waist to cankle.

Decoy Bride has a female star in Kelly, director (rare) in Sheree Folkson and
cinematographer (rarer still) in Nanu Segal, so the film is given a great launch
by Women in Film and Television and thankfully goes down well with the
audience. Tom objects to the first twenty minutes and starts squawking so I take
him out and feed him in a popcorn cupboard. He won’t go to sleep and I don’t
want to miss all of it and the HUGE boxes of popcorn are slightly oppressive so I
eventually risk it and take him back in and he seems to get on with it a bit better–
doesn’t cry or fall asleep, just goggles at giant Kelly and Alice. At the Q & A my
microphone screams whenever I try and talk into it, probably a good thing as I
am so sleep deprived I keep losing my way in the middle of sentences. I meet
Neil (writing partner’s) lovely parents for the first time and am amused to realize
that when Neil has been acting out the older female characters in the script, he
has been doing an impression of his Dad.

FRIDAY

Still no sign of Peter Bradshaw – as it becomes clear that literally every expense
has been spared on our press push. All three of the film’s stars have now moved
to LA so I have done a wrong amount. I thought the advantage of being the
screenwriter was that you could disappear into the background. Seems that I am
being asked ‘what’s your guilty pleasure?’ on a daily basis. I still haven’t come
up with a funny enough answer – am of course tempted to say ‘coprophagia’
but have a feeling that would bounce back and bite me , so I say ‘ice-cream’

or ‘America’s Next Top Model’ as a tiny part of what’s left of my soul commits
hari-kiri. They tell me it all helps, though that is hard to believe when you open
up yet another tabloid questionnaire with ‘What’s the most shocking/outrageous
thing you’ve ever done that you’ve never told anyone before?’ as the third or
fourth question. I mean, I’m a bit lazy too but come on… I forward today’s
questionnaire to Matt Delargy, the film’s producer (and my fellow blogger) for
suggestions. He helpfully fills it in for me, suggesting that my first crush was
Brian Conley and that the most outrageous lie I’ve ever told was that I was going
to deliver a draft of the script on time. I forward Matt’s answers back to the PR
pretty much untouched. Perhaps I can use the Shooters community to answer
the more mindless of these questions in future…If they send me any more I’ll
post them up.