These Pages are Dedicated to the Memory of Deacon Bradshaw and ‘The Lads’. My only real friends.

Where do I begin? My name is Dino Laine. I'm a London-based wannabe crooner and suddenly I'm also a bit-part singer in a feature film.

The film is called Blue Iguana. The stars are: Sam Rockwell, Ben Schwartz, Phoebe Fox, Peter Ferdinando, Amanda Donohoe and Simon Callow. And there I am, 20th in the cast list and up on the screen, singing a song I wrote myself, in the pub in London that was used as one of the movie's principle locations.

I'm Dino Laine. But where did I come from? And what will I do now the film is over, all of my screen friends are gone and I still have to carry on with what's left of my life and career?

There's a fine line between fiction and fact. I'm a minor fictional character of my own invention and suddenly I've been made real, up there on screen. Yes, that is me, folks. I have a name so I must have a back story, not all of it true, of course. Probably none of it. And, hopefully, I also have a future--as Dino Laine.

Look at my call sheet for the movie--that’s it, there on the right of this page--and I don't even exist! What kind of insult is that, Director Hajaig? 'Karaoke Singer TBC'! But it's me! Dino Laine!

I used to sing in Deacon's pub. And there's the sign to prove it, too, look, there at the bottom of this column. Deacon and his crew's enthusiastic response to me was improvised on the day--as you can see from the script extract on the next page--those lines aren't there! But it was a sincere and heartfelt tribute from 'the lads' for all of that. I see it on the screen and I believe it.

'Bravo Dino!’

But that gets me to thinking. I must have been close friends with these fellows? They liked me. And I'm singing for them. I must have been one of them, too. Somehow involved. I've tried to ask the film's writer-director Hadi Hajaig, but he's no longer speaking to me. He says I owe him money. That I promised him £50,000 for my part in the film. That I made him an offer he couldn't refuse--and left a rotting dead hamster in his bed. All lies!

So how could I have got there? Here's how I see it, now that the dust settled and the bodies are in the ground.

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Blue Iguana: The Singer not the Song