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Old Spice

Charmed to learn that the Netflix blockbuster Beckham series features an array of sequences taken from Tour Story, the Channel 4 Spice Girls 1998 American tour documentary directed by oneself. David first joined us in the Spice Bubble hours after we’d filmed Victoria and Mel C in a Brooklyn pub, watching the famous foul. Victoria had booked tickets on Concorde after every England match in case the Lions crashed out. Suddenly, in the dressing room at Madison Square Gardens, as we expected Madonna, he was upon us. I didn’t even see him through the candlelight. Or, frankly, know anything about him. DoP Kevin Pearsey filled me in.

Over the next few weeks of the eight-week US tour, we got to know the shy youth. Sweet, funny, humble. Over various flights in the suede-lined Spice jet – rented from John Travolta – I suggested to Victoria he might one day make an interesting subject for a film. Back at home, over the next year, she pushed for a decision, at one party, literally, against a bannister. The result was The David Beckham story for ITV, produced by Serena Bird, funded, controversially, by Victoria. 12.5m viewers.