I come from a unusually conspicuous family. My Grandad was a famous music-hall star, impressario, lothario, and helped set shit up like the actor’s union equity, the entertainment wing of the army that became ENSA. He was also one of the first people to speak on the BBC’s World Service. My mum was an insanely (in the UK) famous TV actress and dancer who was often dubbed a national treasure. My Dad was a successful theatre actor, specifically renowned as a physical comedian or farcer. He was famous for an memorable role in Fawlty Towers as a womanising medallion man. Which was type casting because my father was a notorious shagger (according to the red-tops). My step mum danced with Nuriyev back in the day and even my cousin who is a fucking farmer became a famous TV presenter on the most watched TV show in the UK Countryfile. No matter what we do as a family we manage to court widespread attention often by making complete tits of ourselves (my mother’s fame during my teen years was largely attributable to a relationship she was having with a Scarecrow which the nation watched attentively on Sunday evenings every week). Oh and my great great grandfather invented suburbia. But that has fuck all to do with this.
So getting attention doesn’t just come easily to me, it is wired into my genes. It in turn led me to decide the best way to kick start the YouTube channel, which, due to my gardening leave from the big company had gone dark. I decided I needed to comment on this and blow up a lawnmower.
With the UK being a cheap labour force for Hollywood there were a few places we could go to to hire an all-in-one package to blow something up by people who people who organise explosions for anything or anyone that is shooting stuff on our shores. Including (as the experts we decided to hire proudly claimed) James Bond.
Turns out they don’t explode things at all though. Explosions in real life are actually pretty boring visually and sonically. They’re all about pressure waves and rarely do bangs, flames and things flying into the air go together. So the experts had this complex array of synchronised effects. Something that made a bang (that was no where near the lawnmower), some pneumatic pipes that blew some already loosened bits off the lawnmower. A gas pipe of propellant and some form of ignition that made a fireball, and various clumps of dust and dirt that gave the impression of smoke and debris. Again fired into the air by nothing but harmless pressurised air.
I would be towed onto the field right to left of frame sitting on a small tractor style lawnmower. Pretend an alarm went off on my phone. Punch the air joyously on reading the reminder notification I had just received. Slowly trudge towards the camera, break the fourth wall and say the lines “for the last 6 months I’ve been on gardening leave” [pause] “thing is” [pause look back at lawnmower] “I fucking hate gardening”. At which point I’d walk out of frame. Then the experts attached the pistons and tubes, and pipes, the dirt and soot. They issued hard hats and a brief safety briefing and promptly “blew” the thing up. We would cut my bit together with the interesting bit into one seamless shot. We did it in three takes. The first I didn’t hit my mark right, the second I fluffed my lines, the third was OK and I was ready for a pint so called it a day (after we blew up the same lawnmower for the third and final time).
Through total vanity I decided to cut this continuous shot and huge effort making such a complex thing possible because the long walk towards the camera revealed to my reviewers a newly acquired piece of torso furniture hat paid testament to the couple of stone I’d put on since drinking my way through the previous two horrific years. I could just hear the subscribers saying “fuck me Henson has piled the pounds on” and they would be right. But I was still feeling tender and nervous in my preparations to de-cancel myself from internet bullies who I’m sure would take great pleasure in pointing out my change in form factor.