Today I went insane in a fancy dress shop.

I was looking for a few bits and pieces we need for the film, but I got carried away and bought more than I meant to. My purchases were: two wigs, red hairspray, clip on earrings, false eyelashes, a garter, fishnet stockings, and a rubber chicken. I realised after I’d left that nothing in the film script calls for a rubber chicken. I’m not sure why I bought that really. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

I then came home and played with my new toys. The plot requires three wigs - a sensible one, a clown one, and one that’s exactly halfway between the two. To get the intermediate wig just right a spot of trimming and dying was necessary, so I sat down with a pair of sharp scissors and gave my new wig a haircut. Despite what some people prophesied this went just fine, and I soon had a wig structurally equidistant from the sensible one and the clown one. Now all I had to do was get the colour right.

I’d had the foresight to pop into Boots for some dye, so I sat with the wig in my lap and massaged it in vigorously. Unfortunately it seemed that hair dye doesn’t work too well on wigs. Not to worry, I thought to myself - I have this hairspray I purchased in the fancy dress shop. I’ll use that instead.

First I had to wash off the dye which had refused to take, after which the wig looked like a drowned cat. Obviously I couldn’t spray it while it was wet, and so, eager to complete the job quickly, I decided to dry the wig by the cunning expedient of putting it in the oven.

Of course, the reason the dye didn’t work is that wigs are made from plastic. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when it melted.

All in all I think it went quite well.