2006-05-24 - 3:14 p.m.
You know, people often ask me, �Why do you have a huge onion costume in your lounge?�
It�s a tragic tale, filled with hopes, dreams, and one man who just wanted to make the world that little bit better. Through a sketch that no-one else thought was the slightest bit funny.
I�d written the onion breath sketch into the film against all advice, and when it came to the shoot, it had long been tossed into the rotting vegetable disposal unit of history, something that I had long accepted. It was not so much a sketch ahead of its time as a sketch behind its time, a parody of a ten year commercial that few people remembered and fewer still thought about immortalising through the most contrived pay-off in history.
We came to the set on that fateful second day with a sudden dilemma, though. It was hard enough to fit in all our cameras and crew, let alone the cast and the growing queue of people demanding money from me.
One of the scenes had to be cut�but how to replace it? I think we all knew, but no-one wanted to say it. Actually, I wanted to say it. In fact, I did say it repeatedly and very loudly to anyone who would listen � the onion breath sketch would be PERFECT. Short, easy to film, hardly any lines and it couldn�t really go wrong, with the exception of one missing prop, and finally it was agreed that if I could source the prop within 24 hours, we would put the thing down on celluloid. Real celluloid, too, since we had ill-advisedly shot the entire thing on real film, therefore increasing the budget by about a hundred times. Ah, heady days!
It was very exciting.
Except.
Now, I don�t know if you�ve ever tried to get hold of an onion costume at short notice. It�s not the kind of thing that fancy dress shops carry, there not being much demand for people to go to parties dressed as onions. So�well, we had to have one made from scratch overnight.
That was even more of a brou-ha-ha.
It wasn�t so much that it couldn�t be done. Hell, you think if Spielberg needs an onion costume whipped up, it doesn�t happen in two shakes of a lamb�s tail? Thing is, he probably has vegetable costume budgets running to MILLIONS, where as I had about 40 quid left and that was promised to the vegan caterer (bloody actors).
You wouldn�t BELIEVE the quotes. Two grand for a convincing, natural fibre 3-D rendering, 800 quid for a furry facsimile. In the end, I had to settle for 300 quid for a 2-D plywood model that vaguely looked like a vegetable if you squinted and had the image of an onion tattooed into the insides of your eyelids.
But it was our only chance. So we went with it. Was it worth it, you might ask? �Of course not, you blubbering imbecile� might be my answer, but in the end, it cost me too much to set fire to and ritually burn, so I bought it home, and one day it will earn its keep.
Anyway. The sketch makes ME laugh, if nothing else:
