Day 79: Rehearsal
Day 65: Preparations
A month later, the publicist emails me the five finished scripts of Block 1259. Each has a different writer, but Andrews is credited as story editor, and they’ve all passed through the expert hands of Fleming’s right-hand man, script producer Nick Malmholt.
Mr Gooch’s story has changed. He still dies at Deb’s hands, but her motivation has totally changed. In March, she was a deranged killer who murdered him in cold blood. Now, though, the death is near-accidental – a reckless overdose given by Deb as a sort of apology for earlier denying him morphine.
Mr Gooch has also lost his naughty name. He is now ‘‘Neville Gordon’’.
Another week passes. Actors are shooting earlier episodes and learning the script. Location scouts are finding the best place for Pele to get the scratch that will blossom into a flesheating superbug infection.
Director Caroline Bell-Booth, the 250-episode veteran assigned to Block 1259, is pondering camera angles and thinking about how to make the most of the script.
‘‘The storylining table just has to chuck the ball forward every week, and they know it’s not a perfect thing. Sometimes they pull out a banger; sometimes I know there are a few holes in the plan.’’
Deb is new to viewers, so Bell-Booth has been asking a lot of questions about her backstory and motivation. She’s searching beneath the printed words to find Deb’s heart.
‘‘To me, Deb is a lurcher, so in the rehearsal process I’ll be talking to Gabrielle and encouraging her to find that energy. Deb is a woman who, when backed into a corner, lurches for the the quickest fix, then feels s... about it, then tries to make it up to people.’’ It’s the last day of May, and somewhere in the false-wall maze of the Shortland Street studio, there’s an oncology ward that looks pretty authentic on-camera, but in reality is a strange little space with no ceiling and a missing fourth wall.
Neville Goodwin, as he is now, lounges cheerfully on his deathbed and Nurse Deb is at his side. Assistant director Donna Stout is watching the clock and cracking the whip. Trevithick and Henderson are running lines, but Bell-Booth, coaching from the end of the bed, is focussed on subtext.
‘‘This line sets up not just that Neville is a bit of an a..hole, but that Deb won’t be pushed over…
‘‘We have a shadow of inner conflict through this scene...
‘‘You can’t have Mo, so you’ll have Mo-phine…’’
She and Henderson are baffled by a line where Deb accuses Neville of being a drug addict.
‘‘Shall I play it as jokey banter?’’ asks Henderson.
‘‘OK,’’ says Bell-Booth. ‘‘Let’s try that.’’
With the help of on-set adviser Sally Geary, Bell-Booth irons out some medical queries: how much fentanyl would Deb inject? How severe would Neville’s pain be? How do you pronounce ‘‘asystole’’?
The scenes are out of order, to better fit the schedules of the handful of other actors who suddenly appear to rehearse a resuscitation scene, then melt back into the maze.