Chavtastic!

I received a text asking me to be part of a TVC (TV Commercial) for a well known betting company. The brief stated that one smart costume should be worn plus one other that was more tarty. Thankfully the Cancer Research shop came to my rescue over the tarty one!

The venue was Sandringham Race Course on a very cold, snowy and frosty morning. I had just arrived when one car started to slide backwards with no driver inside and was headed straight for a brand new van! Fortunately the owner of the car managed to fling open the drivers door and pull up the handbrake and steer the  car round. Phew!

I headed  in for breakfast (you know me) and met lots of people I knew - it was a bit like a reunion - fantastic! The day had a staggered start and I was in the early section - 6.30am start. I like early starts and am definitely a morning person which helps in this business when early starts are the usual. After a cooked breakfast we headed out into the stands to watch an invisible race... I was summoned over to stand on a box with a hat from the costume department complete with feathers. To be honest, it looked like a pigeon had crashed into my head at speed! Fortunately, it was decided that I was a bit on the small side and they needed someone much taller so I managed to escape the hat. 

We weren't quite sure what was going on as nobody had explained the advert to us. However, the words 'Chav' and 'Transvestite" seemed to be banded about....In the next shot, one woman had to stand on a Chav!  We were moved around the stands and around the racing area when the Chavs started to walk up. Now I feel I must mention one lady here - Lula. Her costume was amazing complete with corset and bowler hat - fabulous!

After a very quick and hurried lunch we were back to filming again, this time at the racing enclosure. There were a couple of blonde ladies, dressed to the nines, as chavs, shouting,

"Go on gel" 

"Put some welly init!"

From behind them, a man looking every inch the country gentleman fired a tranquilizer gun hitting one in the neck and one in her rear end. Of course this was all staged but it was really funny to see it all happening. Looking around we began to notice that there were some new arrivals - women who certainly weren't 'all woman'. A lot of time was spent trying to discover - man, woman or ? 

There was an awful lot of hanging about for this job and just when we thought we'd be let go, they decided that we should all go to the bar and continue filming up there. Eventually at exactly 6.30 we (the early shift) were let go. Here's the link to the ads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XZ5MOB3nww