Daisy Faith Evans

Prologue

It was time. 

The most important moment in my career was finally underway. In just fifteen minutes, the finale for the most popular reality TV show in Britain would begin – with me in the centre of the action, undertaking the most important role of my life. 

My name is Anna Birvan, and I’m the show’s floor manager; basically responsible for everyone knowing what they have to do and when to do it. I must be mad, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s my dream job – and talking of dream jobs, I was preparing for the moment we’d all been waiting for - the live final for Game Of Life: Your Future Edition. After twelve intense weeks of competition, our winner would at last receive the coveted Golden Handshake and secure their dream job! 

The road leading up to the final was far from easy – but none of us have given up, least of all me. Challenging as my job is, I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

After all, this is my dream. 

 

I first became interested in the film and television industry as an introverted British schoolgirl living in an ordinary suburb in Reading. Neither of my parents were particularly ambitious; they were quite content with their ordinary, nine-to-five jobs, spending all day at the office. At times, I wondered if they cared more about their jobs than their only child. They loved me; of course they did, but they seemed to struggle showing it at times, and even when they were at home, they were too busy with their work and their own lives to pay much attention to me.

“Don’t bother me now, Anna, I’ve got a meeting,” Mum would snap, pushing me away.

“I can’t take you home from school, I’m afraid, I’ve got work,” Dad would sigh.

“I don’t care if you’ve been sick, I can’t pick you up, I’m busy,” Mum said sternly over the phone.

“I haven’t got the time, Anna.”

“Anna, just do it yourself for once!”

Any time I tried to defend myself or argue back, I was just met with an angry telling-off that lasted ages – or at least long enough to make me hang my head in shame, holding back tears. The scoldings only got sharper as I got older and became more independent, and by the time I was fourteen, I’d just stopped talking to my parents altogether. We could spend a whole day together in the house without saying a word to each other, with Mum and Dad downstairs on their laptops, and me holed up in my room finishing schoolwork. I didn’t go out much; I had few friends at school, being rather shy, and preferred to keep to myself. Anyway, it saved me a lecture on going out and curfew times and other things that Mum would surely drill me on had I been the partying type.

The one thing we ever did as a family was watch TV. Almost every Saturday night for nearly nineteen years, my parents and I would sit down on the sofa in the living room and enjoy the evening’s live entertainment. Mum and Dad were into TV in a big way; they were sitting me down to watch shows with them when I was still a toddler. They spent the first ten or so years stomaching treacly children’s shows such as Teletubbies and Octonauts on the CBeebies channel, sending me to bed at seven before their own post-watershed programs came on later in the evening. By the time I was nine or ten, however, I was taking a keen interest in the shows my parents enjoyed, and we were soon spending every Saturday night in front of the TV together, only heading to bed after the News At Ten had been broadcast.

Those Saturday evenings were precious for me; it was the one time in the week that I actually got to spend time with my parents; where we could laugh and enjoy ourselves without the barriers of real life getting in the way. We consumed hours of television together; soaps, dramas, documentaries, sitcoms, the news, sketch comedies, thrillers – we even saw the occasional film sometimes – but the real star of the evening was reality TV. Game shows, talent shows, cooking shows, talk shows – my parents watched them all, cheering and yelling alternately at the telly. Reality TV was their guilty pleasure after a week of hard work at the office; their time to sit down and unwind. It became their escape, away from the struggles of their own reality, where they could enter a completely different world.

Over time, it became my world as well – but in a completely different way.

I’ve always been interested in the film and television industry. I’m not sure what it was, or how it started, but something about those live studio broadcasts spoke to me. Something about the sheer impossibility of it all – broadcasting an actual live show to not just a studio audience, but to millions of people all over the country, and beyond – jumped out at me. It fascinated me, the way those live shows worked, and I wanted to understand exactly how they were brought to life. Mum and Dad weren’t bothered about what went on behind the scenes; they just wanted to be entertained, like millions of others across the nation, but I wasn’t satisfied to settle with that, and the behind-the-scene clips I sneaked off YouTube weren’t enough to sate my curiosity.

I started researching exactly what happened in a reality show, filling up many “borrowed” sheets of paper from the printer with my findings, and it astonished me just how much work and effort it took to pull off a successful broadcast. Everyone had to pull their weight and work together in the studio, whether they were just the runners or the scriptwriters or the producers or the hardworking floor manager, who, I soon discovered, had one of the most important jobs during the live shows. They were the director’s eyes and ears on set, making sure that everyone knew what they were doing and keeping the whole show running.

Somehow, I knew that I could do that. Quiet as I was, I had a fair sense of leadership and a strong spirit, one that equalled my parents’, and I felt sure that I had what it took to take command and lead everyone in the studio. I was sure that I could set a good example and keep the live show running, no matter what. I could be a good floor manager; I was certain of it.

I think it was around that time, towards the end of primary school, that I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. The film and television industry was the world for me.

Of course, reaching that world wouldn’t come without effort, and over the next seven years, from my first day in secondary school to my very last day in sixth form, I worked very hard to earn good reports and high grades, which would give me the best possible chance of making my dreams come true. Mum and Dad had reservations about my career choice; they told me again and again that a career in television “isn’t realistic” and I would be much better off using my good grades and work ethic to get into university and earn a degree and a career in finance, like both my elders before me – but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to do what everyone else wanted. I had to stay true to myself, and if it meant doing everything alone, then so be it.

My hard work paid off when I finished sixth form with a set of straight A’s, just as I had hoped, and even Mum and Dad were proud of what I had accomplished. Straight after leaving school, I started searching for job opportunities – and, to my great fortune, I discovered an apprenticeship on a TV set just a few miles away from home. I sent my application in that summer, trembling with nerves and excitement – and was accepted for the apprenticeship just weeks later, all of my hard graft finally paying off.

The next few years presented many opportunities – and many challenges alongside it. No day was the same; my time on set was fast-paced, action-packed, full of drama – and for me, it was the ultimate rush, and still is now. On any given day, I could walk past medieval knights on horseback, encounter Queen Victoria whizzing past in a golf buggy, and hold the door open for Doctor Who (on his way to the loo) – all of which are things that have happened to me over the past few years since starting my career. There’s something other worldly about film and TV sets; I felt it from the first moment I stepped onto one, the moment my dreams finally started become reality. Ever since then, I’ve yearned ever harder to make it my world, and even after earning my apprenticeship, I did everything I could to make that happen. 

After all, I wasn’t the floor manager yet – to reach the top of the ladder, I had to start at the bottom, like everyone else, and earn my place with good, honest, hard graft. I worked on that first TV set as the runner, a simple job involving a lot of running back-and-forth (hence the name) to fetch and carry for the cast and crew, making myself helpful at every opportunity. At first, “helpful” basically meant making tea and/or coffee, but I wouldn’t just make any old tea or coffee; I’d try to make the best cup of tea – or coffee – anyone had ever tasted. If anything needed holding, I’d willingly stand in the corridor all day, trying my best to balance a fruit bowl, a dressing gown and a packet of Maltesers all at once – one time, I was trusted with the difficult burden of a very grumpy Chihuahua, who did not appreciate being stuck in the corridor with me for an hour and a half.  

Honestly, I’ve never looked Chihuahuas in the eye again.

Some days, it was tough; being constantly told to fetch this thing or do that thing or run and get a half-semi-full-diet-oat-coconut-soy-Mocha-latte-no-froth-but-extra-cream for one particularly demanding agent – which was a very memorable experience, to say the least (and not in a good way).  

“On it!” I’d said tightly, doing my best to keep a smile on my face despite the overwhelming pressure on my shoulders; I had at least fifty other things to do as well, and an overly picky coffee order was the last thing I needed. “Just give me one second -” 

At which point the demanding agent and her colleagues shouted at me: “That’s the thing; we don’t have one second!” 

Not everyone in the industry stuck it out; they got sick of being treated like the general dogsbody – so their dreams faded because the light at the end of the tunnel was just too dim to guide them to it. Many runners who worked alongside me were quick to quit when it got too difficult - but I wasn’t prepared to give up without a fight. Yes, my goal seemed unreachable so many times, but surely not forever. My theory is that no-one ever said hard work was easy (it’s called hard for a reason, right?).

So, what if you keep trying, even when it gets really tough and you want to give up and you’re tired and resentful and feeling undervalued and overlooked – and just over it in general. Surely, everything you put in will one day pay off, and at the very least, the lessons you’ll learn along the way – tough as some of them may be – will mean that when you get there, you won’t take anything for granted and you’ll keep grafting like your life depends on it. 

After all, just because not all dreams come true doesn’t mean that none of them do.  With the right attitude and work ethic, anyone can get to where they want to be – as long as they have the willpower and the courage to keep going, no matter what.

Over the five years since my first apprenticeship, I’ve worked at many different TV sets within the BBC, having been moved around a lot. Some of those changes were due to the 2020 - 2021 COVID pandemic a few years ago – the restrictions placed on us were tough, and I even risked losing my job due to downsizing over lockdown – and some changes were from opportunities that I was offered. Before long, my apprenticeship had transitioned into full-time professional work, and I soon became one of the team at whichever TV set I was working on. I was getting paid to do what I loved every day, and I was proud of it. I hoped that Mum and Dad would be proud of me too if they could see where I was – I had left home about a year after taking on my first apprenticeship and became fully independent from my family. I hadn’t seen my parents since before lockdown several years ago, and we had all generally been too busy to call or text – but I was certain that Mum and Dad would be pleased with how far I’d come when I had the chance to tell them.

And yet, I was still dreaming - dreaming of the moment when I would be given the job I had longed after since primary school. I was happy with my lot in life, but I couldn’t settle – not yet. There was still something I yearned for, something I was still working unbelievably hard for, something I would not rest for until I had earned it,

And that was my dream job.

And where better to find my dream job than the reality show about giving people such?