Page 342 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

something different to the panel – but the fact that he was so
popular inevitably meant there was some hostility towards me at
first.
The first challenge of making the series was finding the time. All
five Dragons are incredibly busy, and coordinating our diaries to
find days when we were all available was a nightmare for our PAs
and the production team, but eventually the dates were agreed and
off I went to the studios where they were making the fifth series.
There’s something about being in a film studio – it felt incredibly
glamorous. Much more glamorous, I’m told, than the first few
series which they filmed in a real warehouse.
I had met the other two Dragons – Peter Jones and Theo
Paphitis – at a dinner the production team had arranged for us all.
Apart from the fact that I got neck ache talking to Peter – he’sso
tall we call him Pylon Pete – I found both of them easygoing and
a good laugh. It was clear that the two of them were genuinely
good friends, and the conversation never stopped.
One morning I drove to the studios in my convertible Aston
Martin. It’s the most beautiful sky-blue car with a cream interior
and, when I parked up, Peter and Theo – who were having a chat
in the car park – started teasing me about it: they thought it was
a bit flamboyant. When we broke for lunch, I realised that Peter
had tipped a bag of rubbish into it. I couldn’t believe he’d done
something like that: he is such a kid! What really amazed me was
that a couple of days later the story appeared in the papers! Could
the press really be that interested in what went on the Den?
The next day I took my Rolls-Royce Phantom, and Theo and
Peter both arrived in their Maybachs. It was a real case of boys
and their toys, as then Theo drove up in something that looked like
the Batmobile with tinted windows and fluffy dice – it was like a
disco on wheels. Peter obviously couldn’t be left out, so he turned
up in a Ferrari while I gave my new Maybach an outing. We were
often outside between pitches, and on one of those breaks I noticed

332