30 hours: A tale from the other side

Marc Donovan wanted nothing more than to play his guitar for people and make them happy. Ever since his father bought Marc his first guitar at the age of three he'd been addicted to making music. It was what he thought about before he went to bed at night and what got him out of bed in the morning. Over his childhood years he perfected his craft and began to write his own lyrics and music when he turned eight years old. He performed at school concerts, choral competitions, at music nights in the local theatre and even did a spot of busking outside the supermarket in his home town of Camberwell to earn extra pocket money.
It was while he was busking that a talent scout spotted him when Marc was twelve. The scout instantly signed Marc up to a local record label sealing his fate as a soon to be pop megastar.
Marc had no way of knowing how meteoric his rise to fame would be, but his boyish looks and unaffected, humble charm won people over in the music business, the media and more importantly the fans. By the time he turned eighteen he had three platinum albums and millions of female fans all over the world vying for his attention. Although Marc was pursing his dream he quickly realised that that dream would come at a price; loss of privacy and loss of control.

It was 6am on Wednesday morning.
"Wake up, Marc," his manager said, rocking Marc's shoulder to wake him. "You need to get up. We've got a breakfast TV interview to get to."
Marc rubbed his eyes. "Since when?" he said sleepily.
"Since I just got a call from the BBC. They've got a slot and I reckon we should fill it. You got a lot to promote with the new single and the book."
Marc dutifully hauled himself out of bed, unaware it was going to be another thirty hours before he'd sleep again.
Straight after his television interview he was whisked away to a hotel conference room for newspaper and magazine interviews. They dragged on until noon the same questions over and over again, and mostly focussed on his love life. From there he got a twenty minute bite of lunch before being driven to the recording studio to put down new tracks for the album his record company were pressuring him to complete before the Christmas rush. Although it went well, despite a few technical hiccups with sound, and he was pleased with the result, when it turned 4pm he was told that the studio booking time had run out and he needed to get down to Docklands in London to shoot the video.
"Why now?" Marc asked his manager. "We weren't scheduled to."
"I know, Marc, but the weather today has been great and it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. Besides the video editors would really like to get to work quickly on it so we can officially release it on the weekend."
"I don't understand the rush. The single not's going to be released for another month," Marc said as he was ushered out of the studio doors, through a small crowd of screaming girls, to the silver Mercedes waiting for him.
"It's all down to marketing, Marc. If we can drum up enough interest well in advance we can increase our pre-release sales. The single will be platinum before it's even available to download," his manager said with a twinkle of avarice in his eyes.
Marc sighed. There was no point in arguing. He didn't understand the business side of music and didn't really want to; playing his guitar was all he wanted. As long as he could continue to do that he was happy.
But when the video shoot dragged on and on through the night Marc started to flag. By midnight he was struggling to keep his eyes open, so the caterers were instructed to ply him with coffee to keep him awake. Take after take was shot and each one had some problem or other, whether it was lighting, position of props, angle of the camera, misdirection of the dancers, sound, whatever. It just dragged on and on. Marc's manager stepped in at 5am and decided to postpone the rest of the shoot, much to the annoyance of the director, in favour of a live satellite interview with an American chat show host.
"It'll only take half an hour, or so," Marc's manager explained."Just think of the exposure it'll give you across the pond. Everyone knows how hard it is to crack America. They're literally handing us an opportunity on a plate. We'd be, or I should say you'd be, nuts to turn this down."
His manager made a convincing argument that Marc had no energy to refute. So in spite of his fatigue, the fact that he was feeling nauseous from dining on junk food all day and the fact that he was freezing from being in the cold September night air Marc sat through an hour of makeup and then sat under hot studio lights as a broad accented American asked Marc numerous questions about aspirations to dominate the American music charts. Marc tried to answer his questions as lucidly as he could but his brain wasn't engaging. He fumbled his way through his answers and on a couple of occasions had to have questions repeated when they lost all meaning and became just a string of random words floating in his head. When the interview was over he felt dazed and frustrated. His head was so fogged he couldn't even remember what the interviewer had asked him.
"That wasn't good, Mike," Marc said to his manager as he stormed off toward his trailer. "I must've looked like I was stoned or something. I need some sleep I can't go on."
"You can sleep later. Right now we have work to do."
"I haven't slept since 6am yesterday morning. I'm tired!"
"You have a photoshoot. You have obligations. You can't wimp out now. I've been awake just as long as you you know."
Marc stopped and turned to look at his rotund manager.
"Yeah but you're not making an arse of yourself on camera to millions of people. I'm the one that's gonna be gossiped about. I'm the one that's gonna have his picture across the papers with headlines claiming I'm on drugs because I can't string a sentence together," he said just as a paparazzi photographer sneaked out from behind Marc's trailer and took a series of snaps of Marc mid rant.
Marc tried to shield his face but he'd been caught. He dashed into his trailer and slammed the door.
When 9am ticked by Marc refused to come out.
"The photoshoot is cancelled, Mike," Marc hissed through his trailer door. He was so fizzed with pent up anger he paced up and down his trailer. He wanted to rest, to get some sleep if only for a few moments but couldn't calm himself down, and the fact that he knew he had to be at Flicks book store in Lexley for a 12noon book signing made him all the more anxious. He hated letting down his fans. He knew they were the reason he was able to make music and perform.
"Are you intending on going to Lexley, Marc?" his manager asked with barbed directness.
Marc pondered the question. He knew what he was going to say but wanted to make Mike sweat on it.
"Of course I am," he said finally.

The story continues in The Brief Encounter