Mayday

London Daily Mail
Monday, September 20, 1993

WHY THE MASTERMIND OF "YES MINISTER" MOVED TO HOLLYWOOD: California Dreaming
By Anne de Courcy

Is Los Angeles a place or a state of mind? Jonathan Lynn pours us each a glass of iced mineral water - the California drink - and ponders the question. It starts by being the first, he concludes, and winds up as the second.

It is nearly four years since Lynn moved from Hampstead to Hollywood to direct films. Greedy, in which he directs Kirk Douglas, comes out next spring.

He is an unlikely Angelino. Co-author (with Antony Jay) of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, two of the most successful and intrinsically British series ever to appear on TV, their sophisticated, witty, ironic reflections on the machinations of the wheels of political power, dry as Sir Humphrey's favoured sherry, drew an audience of eight million and scored more than 90 per cent of the BBC's Appreciation Index - figures hitherto only reached by the Queen Mother and David Attenborough.

This week he is here to publicise his second novel, Mayday, the story of a skinny, somewhat naïve British writer, who writes a couple of airport blockbusters, moves to Hollywood, finds his inspiration, dries up and answers a girl's small ad saying she will do anything for $10,000 in the hope that some kind of inspiration will emerge from her actions.

So how does someone who can come up with lines like 'Government is like photography - the complete picture must be developed in the dark before being shown, or one is simply left with negatives' find the West coast life, with its cult religions, psychobabble, mega deals, smog and sex?

'What struck me most is the difference in the social rules. Total strangers here will tell you what they earn, that they're in therapy or suffering from PMS. The Freedom of Information Act applies in all kinds of ways. People believe in a general right to know so there is great apparent openness.

'On the other hand, although the price of your house is public, you have to know someone very well before you get invited into their home. Whereas in England people who might tell you much less about themselves would say "Come round and have a drink", in California you meet in a restaurant. Your house really is your castle. So it still takes the same amount of time to get to know someone well.'

In one of the most salient moments, we see Mayday adjust to LA life. 'Gradually, on becoming an Angeleno, he learned to focus his anxiety on eating salt and red meat.'

Quite true, says Lynn, you'd never serve red meat at a dinner party. 'A significant number don't eat it and quite a few won't touch chicken either, Fish is safest. There's also very little drinking. One bottle of wine will do easily for six - they'll only drink one glass each. Drinking is joining smoking as the anti-social thing to do.

'You don't drink and drive in California and there's a move to ban smoking every LA restaurant. People never assume they can smoke in someone's house - they go into the garden.'

After this, it comes as no surprise to learn they go home early, too - 11pm is late.

More interesting still are the behavioural mores. Any kind of complaining or gloom is regarded as socially unacceptable. 'People get very brought down by other people's negativity and don't want to hear it. Everyone who knows that a positive view is sometimes a fantasy but, given a choice, people will try to feel positively.'

The good old British ding-dong argument, let alone the scrimmages in the House of Commons are also unknown. 'they still cling to this image of the British as being like David Niven and are stunned when they watch the House of Commons on Sunday evenings on cable Tv.

On the other hand, Angelenos are elaborately courteous with each other. It's very important that, however treacherous your behaviour, your manners are perfect.

'Angelenos are immensely polite to strangers, partly because Americans are polite, and partly as a matter of safety. You never shout abuse at someone who cuts in front of you on the road, because they may shoot you. It happens quite frequently."

'At the same time there is this seething underclass, which erupted in the so-called riots - really a rebellion - last year. It's a very segregated city so you have tremendous security around your house.'

He lives in Beverly Hills where police are thick on the ground. 'Yet we have a friend who was held up at gunpoint going to a party at 8pm.

'I disapprove of guns deeply, both ethically and practically. In California people have guns in the houses and thieves break in and steal the guns.'

He thinks there's a kind of East Coast snobbery about California, to do with everyone there being a surfer or an airhead, but there is a marvelous orchestra, a wonderful opera company directed by Placido Domingo and great museums, as well as the slimmest and fattest people he has ever seen. 'America is divided between the health-conscious and the monumentally obese - those who eat junk food around the clock.'

Friends, family and the countryside are what he misses about England.

He has just bought one of the original Beverly Hills houses, a Spanish-style dwelling made of wood like all the houses there because of earthquakes. What did he pay for it? 'City Hall will tell you but I won't', he says. 'I'm rather British like that.'