The Night I Was Turned Away From The Ivy!
 |
| Joan at The Ivy in 2015 |
How the mighty can fall. I was overwhelmed by the approbation I had received for my one-woman show, Behind the Shoulder Pads at the Adelphi Theatre. Standing ovations would erupt several times during our performance. The roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd were heady as my co-star (my hubby Percy) and I took our bows to wild applause and cheering. At the after-party at Rules, the oldest and most revered restaurant in London, we were inundated with admiration and support from everybody there. Two nights later, still glowing from all the attention, Percy, my daughter Katy and I went to the Curzon Cinema in Victoria, our first visit to a big screen for six months. Percy had booked the Ivy Victoria for between 7.45 and 8 p.m., informing them that it would be ‘after the movie ended’. We showed up a few minutes before eight to be greeted firstly by a look of ‘Who the hell are you?’ followed by a reproving: ‘You’re very late so we don’t have a table for you now.’ While Percy cajoled and entreated with various hostesses, managers and waiters, Katy and I slunk to the bar trying to ignore the amused expressions of the seated diners. After a highly embarrassing and frustrating ten minutes we left, caught a cab to the ever-welcoming Frantoio where we enjoyed a first-rate repast, great service and appreciation for our patronage. As I’ve been going to the original Ivy in West Street since I was 16, that brought me down a peg or two.
The movie we saw was The Apprentice. It was a fascinating look at Donald Trump’s rise from a 27-year-old innocent-looking builder to a 42-year-old titan of industry. He was portrayed magnificently by Sebastian Stan but not as a caricature. The man who was his mentor and taught him all he knew about winning was one Roy Cohn, a creepy tiny creature brilliantly played by Jeremy Strong. It was an enjoyable film, with a fascinating narrative, a beginning, a middle, and an end, unlike too many of the recent offerings. I like to be entertained when I go to the cinema, not lectured at or ‘disturbed’ and come out feeling that I’ve wasted a couple of hours on some woke nonsense. But I had to laugh at the trailers offering a promotion for ‘dog day afternoons’, where your canine friend can sit on your lap and enjoy the movie with you, saliva running like the Orinoco and celebrating that this world has finally ‘gone to the dogs’.
It’s distressing that the morbid language from this new government about our economic future has caused so many wealthy individuals to up sticks and jet off to greener pastures, leaving charities with their own ‘black holes’. I am a patron of Shooting Star Hospices for children with end-of-life conditions, and we have lost so many wealthy supporters we are struggling to sell enough tables for our 20th anniversary gala and auction, so crucial to our funding, on 23 November. There’s still time for a donation, Lord Alli… you’re the only one left!
 |
| Joan at Shooting Star Ball in 2022 |
Thinking about government payouts, and pensions, I started working at age 16 for £3.10 a week as a trainee in the Maidstone Repertory Company. I was an assistant-assistant stage manager, an assistant-assistant prop master and prompter, and I understudied the role of the ‘maid’ in just about every play written by western dramatists. It was regularly a 15-hour day, six days a week, but I learned so much from watching those brilliant rep actors hone their craft and it’s sad to realise repertory companies no longer exist. And as a bonus for my efforts, my father made me sign up for national insurance. I proudly paid my dues working on stage and in films and TV (Yes, Keir, acting is ‘work’). But when the time came to receive my pension, the DWP had no record of me! Yes, Joan Collins does not exist in their books, nor does Joan Reed or Joan Newley or Joan Kass, so I’ve never received a penny from the government, much less the winter fuel allowance. I hear you say: ‘Oh, but look what you receive from Dynasty reruns!’ The answer is nada, zilch, rien. The cast of Dynasty are not lucky recipients of major residuals like the actors from Friends, so the alumni are still jobbing actors.
I'm scared of AI. I know we must move with the times but there are so many aspects I find truly horrifying. Videos of tiny toddlers wearing the most bizarre costumes while carrying weird animals strutting down a fashion runway with smug expressions on their baby faces keep popping up on my Instagram feed. I know that AI can perfectly replicate voices, evinced by the rebirth of Michael Parkinson’s interviews, and developers can also create facial likenesses, although apparently AI is prevented from creating an exact replica of anybody’s face – thank goodness for small mercies. Percy experimented recently, asking the AI bot to generate a picture of me. The result was a hybrid version of Anita Dobson and Shirley Ballas.
