AFTERTHOUGHT

JOHN WELLS

Montreal—`This is normally quite a, how do you say, intellectual programme with the inter-

views in the studio, you know, but our actual producer at the moment interests himself for the spectacles.' We are standing in dazzling

white light on the terrace of the Trinidad and Tobago Pavilion in the middle of Expo 67, and the crowd behind the barrier inside the pavilion are growing restless. Like us, they have been waiting for two hours for something to happen, and over in the darkness beyond the shallow black canal and the floodlamps on the other bank a larger, invisible crowd has begun a slow hand-clap. `To recapitulate, if you please, you yourself will be sitting at this table over there next to the Egyptian girl in the pink costume, and the two animators will ask you in French what you are doing. Then the gondola is arriving in the basin with your ten athletes for the British National Day and the director. They debark on the little round platform in the middle, perform a gymnastic, and then we return to you for the final questions.'

At that moment there is a roaring whine from under a bridge in the darkness, and a flat- bottomed red-and-white motor boat comes skimming in on the surface of the water, stands on its tail in a shower of white spray, and goes bucking and skidding round the circular plat- form. Inside there is a clown. After the first few skids and sideslips it is obvious that his costume, except for the little pointed hat with the red bobbles on it, is wet through. Bringing the boat to a stop he stands up, acknowledges the bedraggled applause of the unseen crowd with a comic wave and a little bow, and then very deliberately falls in the water. The fat girl with the short skirt and the wrinkled stockings who has come to sit at our table says, `Gee, it must be cold in there,' but otherwise the reac- tion of the audience appears unsympathetic.

The clown climbs back into the boat—the black water appears to be about three feet deep —and gives a perfunctory wave before accelerat- ing sharply and roaring away into the darkness under the bridge. Meanwhile, there is a great cheer from the bar inside the pavilion, followed by the sound of a bar-stool falling over and glasses breaking. The Canadian in the neat blue suit who has been leading his friends in slow, incoherent singing from a rather insecure position above the heads of the crowd is no longer to be seen.

The Trinidad and Tobago Pavilion is, on the face of it, an ideal spot for a colour tele- vision broadcast. Outside, apart from the ter- race facing the water, there is a bunch of colourful abstract sculpture made of painted metal standing in a little pool of its own, a colourful exterior in painted wood, and a hint of colourful activity within. Inside, however, the ground floor of the building, supporting the theatre upstairs, turns out to be a spacious lavatory block discreetly concealed behind a gay display of West Indian handicrafts, and the most popular bar at the Expo, serving various kinds of rum punch. The bar is now severely overcrowded with local and visiting drunks, unsteadily attempting to embrace the patient West Indian waitresses, and constantly impeding the progress of the television pro-' ducer, a small, sad Rumanian with a grey beard and a bald head.

It is by now past ten o'clock and very cold on the terrace in spite of the television lights. We get up to go inside, but it is not easy. Tice fat girl in the wrinkled stockings says we are

not going anywhere, we're staying right here, and clutches at our clothes. Any dim glow of masculine satisfaction is, however, immediately destroyed by an employee of the television company shouting at us in Canadian French, asking us where the hell we think we're going,

can't we see they're trying to make a film, and why don't we get our hair cut. On the other side of the barrier we are seized by two police- men, still flushed from separating and expelling two fighting drunks, who want to throw us out too and ask to see our papers. In the end we get through to the office at the back. A man in a blue safety helmet has just replaced the receiver and is informing an official of the pavilion that Expo Security will not permit the use of the little round platform either for dancing or for athletics. The West Indian takes up the receiver and begins, in the most per- fectly controlled and suave diplomatic manner, to crush Expo Security flat.

On the way up to the theatre where the gym- nasts are waiting there is once again the whine of the flat-bottomed motor boat, the clown flashes into sight before a now entirely silent audience on the other side and unheeding pandemonium below, performs his tricks, bows, and falls in the water. Apparently the lights were not working properly the first time. In the theatre the gymnasts, five girls and five boys from Bedford and Loughborough, have found a guitar and are singing, and the West Indians are dancing in their festival costumes with full theatrical make-up, rouge, lipstick and blue eye-shadow. They have also been waiting two and a half hours to go on, and the mood of resignation in the face of adver- sity has developed into the natural euphoria generated by entertainers entertaining enter- tainers.

Time goes on.

Having been arrested again and asked for our papers at the foot of the stairs, we finally find our way through to the colour television lorries parked on the other side of the water. The Rumanian producer seems sadder than before. I explain that we have a very tight rehearsal schedule and that people have to get up and leap about early the next morning.

`Fifteen minutes at the most—but what can you do with a bar full of drunks?' I point out that it's his idea. He shrugs his shoulders, appears to agree and promises that we shall be gone in half an hour, gives a sad, en- encouraging smile, and goes back into the lorry.

Across the water there comes the sound of a flat-bottomed motor boat. Looking into the

monitor screens inside the lorry, I can just see a red-and-white boat skidding on a flurry of spray, smacking into the black water, and

turning a full circle to reveal a rather unen- thusiastic clown. It appears to be some sort of title sequence. 'Accostez! II! Le long-shot!'

The sequence seems to leap rather erratically from the long shot of the clown retreating rapidly into the darkness to sudden indistinot

close-ups of the clown waving for a moment before spinning away in the spray. There seems to be no satisfactory picture of him falling in the water.

Half an hour later to the second we left by a back entrance to the fading whine and splutter of the motor boat under the lights on the other side of the building. There really is no business like Show Business.