AlBarclay

What a lovely day in rehearsal land. We ended up running the whole damn thing and even though the wheels came off occasionally we solved this flipping show in a satisfying manner. We’ve been working very hard together to get to this stage. We’ve built this thing together, with Willie Shakes. Now we can start to breathe into it.

I love this discipline, building a show without director. I love working with directors too, but the more we can remember to be generative the more an outside eye has to work with. And anyway, we are all directors. When I put these shows on my spotlight I never know what to put in the “director” window. I usually put the name of one of the producers. But for this one I might put “The Company” because actually there’s space for that. If any director gets their back put up by the idea of a company without them, that’s their fragility. This work highlights how useful they are. The shows are always lovely and human and live but there are five directors so it is always a little unusual. I love them for that though. We are directed by each other, and the processed understanding of fifty years worth of theatre practitioners, going back to Murph Swander asking Patrick Stewart to bring some actors over to his university with a suitcase show and teach some workshops, around the year I was born.

One of our songs, Hymen, begins “Then is there mirth in heaven,” and I always hear “Then is there Murph in heaven”. The founder of the feast. We all get sent his notes, his version of Hamlet’s advice to the players. He still looks down on us as we solve these problems again and again.

The last few times they’ve sent As You Like It, shit went down. Lockdowns and so forth. We will be the first for a while. We want to do it justice. And we think we will.

Worrying though, going to a place as a visitor where there’s an active militia that seems to have no repercussions for murdering their own citizens. There are parts of Africa I would definitely avoid for that reason. I’m nervous about it in a way I’ve never been before. If there’s nothing to address the latest incident, I can honestly see the same guy shooting people in frog suits with live rounds. If this isn’t addressed quickly we are redefining the rule of law to suit our personal agendas. Which is generally not gonna be good for civilisation. This has to be addressed, or nobody is safe.

I guess the algorithm knows I’m off to America. I got sent a video of a woman being murdered this morning. A guy is deliberately near the front of her car that she is driving slowly away from him. He knows that he can take a pop at her and be protected if he pleads self defence. He takes the shots when he is already out of danger. He’s a man in a uniform. The thing she did wrong from his perspective was to not respect his fragile authority. She was never driving at him. She was ignoring him and knowing if she drove slowly enough away from him he would stop walking into her car to try and stop her.

How can we be expected to respect the authority of someone who does that sort of thing in a uniform? What world are we building? There are humans capable of writing in complete sentences who I have met in person who are already putting out posts to openly state that she was in the wrong and deserved it. I am very close to blocking them but we have to be able to see the “sane” face of madness. So I don’t block them. But because she was queer and clearly disapproved of the immigration militia in her area, there are people who can’t see past their opinion of that sort of thing.

If that is your tendency, watch the videos and take your personal politics out of it. If you can’t, do a pretend and pretend that the man in uniform with a gun is the silly baddie who is stupid and believes in all the baddie things, and the woman is the goodie protecting and enforcing the nice good things. Anything you can do to trick yourself into just… being able to watch objectively. If you’re still capable of such things. Surely you are? If not we are truly lost.

Because objectively it is a spontaneous opportunistic act of murder. And yes, ideology is wrapped up in it. Because the shooter surely is in the militia for personal ideological reasons. I could almost hear him think “I’m in contact with her car. I’ll show this liberal bitch what’s what. Pam Pam Pam” If a beast takes human prey, that beast is stopped. This guy has to be has to be has to be has to be taken off the job for good, banned from guns and ideally put in prison until he knows what the fuck he did.

The fact he took the shot is awful. The fact that ANYONE is now trying to say it wasn’t awful is almost impossible to comprehend. The fact that people in positions of great power and responsibility… I can’t, I just can’t. I’ve got to go there. La la la la la

We have a thing in the AYLI company now where if things get too hard to contemplate we find a nice photo of a tree or a sunset and we all go “ooh look it’s a lovely tree/sunset/tree in the sunset.” Isn’t it nice? This was taken in Edwardes Square in autumn by Lou. Ahh those happy summer days. Make England Spring Again. Happy tree. Happy tree. Happy tree.

When will this fever break?

A moment of distraction. A chance to see other people working.

Sam is staying in Clapham. I walked with him to his girlfriend’s place. It’s about two minutes from where we rehearsed Othello. From one big wooden floored hall to another. This town is full of them, but if you can’t be in one without complication you can’t make art. Then I walked on to Clapham Omnibus.

I was thinking today, as the five of us threw detail about, that we are unbelievably lucky to have the room we have. If you’ve got the space you can make the things. ’twas ever thus, but you can’t get space without money. If there is a large hall empty, anywhere, right now, and you have control over it, and you don’t mind people coming every working day in the week to build something, TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME. I’m SURE there are unused halls scattered over this country. I’ve been in them, belonging to friends of mine. When this is done all I want is to have a shot at making something bright with the people I already know who have their creativity stunted. It can’t happen easily without a room for it to happen in. God, the lack of space in this world… I wish I wish I wish I still had Eyreton… But maybe not in the Isle of Man.

We are making something we are proud of here, sure, and we are free to do it – because every moment doesn’t eat into our life. Yes we have a limited amount of time, but it’s always creative. We have a big space, an urn, and awesome people. I’m always excited to get into that room. I know I’m gonna be held but challenged.

I’m tired though. My back is playing up. My brain is foggy. Socially tonight I was anxious. I went to see a piece written by a friend from Scene and Heard, involving Minnie, read at Clapham Omnibus for development. It’s always a lovely thing to support. And there were people from my past and present who happened to be all there afterwards. Ellie and Min both hope to come to our only London show. Ellie and I met at 14. Really strong to connect with her again. And I met some nice people who care about theatre. This fucking world. It’s weird. It’s wonderful. It’s obtuse. It’s cruel.

I love it even if it is often an abusive relationship. I’m stuck in it. Onwards.

So, Machado has apparently said that she wants to share her Nobel Peace Prize with Donald Trump.

In 2009 Barrack Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize. I doubt he was looking for it or expecting it.

Earlier this year on my Halloween tours, I would knowingly talk about Sir Henry Dale. Nobody knows who the hell he is but he was awarded a Nobel. “He won the Nobel competition in physiology,” I would say and then leave a momentary pause. I would hear the cognitive dissonance. “It’s not a competition. Ohhhhhh. Ha ha ha.” Cos suddenly there was someone very obviously trying to WIN the peace prize.

I am not happy with my sources on Machado saying this FYI. It might be just the usual internet noise. Even if it isn’t true, it helps me with some transitional thinking.

Growing up I consumed the idea that our leaders want the best for us. In early adulthood I started to learn, from the likes of our Willie Shakespeare, that perhaps the king is deeply human and deeply flawed. I never really examined it further even though I saw international racketeers rise and fall and rise and fall again.

I think I finally, in my middle age, can see the truth. That the lot of them are racketeers, the whole fucking thing is a massive racket, every single one of them is bent. Sure Putin. Some people make it obvious. But every single fucking one of them. If someone is building to leadership for optimistic human reasons they are attacked until they cannot stand anymore, and if they win somehow they are reputationally firebombed into extinction. The media is an arm of this, but we too are contributors because we get swept up in narratives designed to sweep us up. I’m even thinking back to people who defied the hierarchy from the top over here. One of them died for it, her son lives in exile, his wife is officially hated by all the organs of idiocy, with extra emphasis on her not being Aryan.

Right now there is no truth left. If you’re bent power you can say what you like and then just say it was AI. And hate is being normalised. So much self protection, ignorance and fear.

My tax bill leaves me broke again and having to work hard to stay here. My own fault for choosing a career outside the norm. But fuck I’ve worked hard this year, and so have we all, and here we are standing still while these people who haven’t a shred of human decency spend our money on their lifestyle.

I might have believed that the opposition to Maduro had integrity. The Nobel committee clearly did think so. They fucked up, if this news is true. Just another fucking noisemaker. Disappointing.

Ahhh yes phew. We all danced in a circle for a moment when the message came in that our US Visas were approved at last. We are going to America. Can start to frame it now, to think about packing etc.

Not that there’s much time to do all that. Messages on the WhatsApp group are all about luggage allowances at the moment. It’s gonna be cold in some states, warm in others. But this is not a standard tour. We have only got five weeks. Things are curtailed. There’s just no funding for stuff like this over there right now. Or anywhere. Last few times it was a ten week tour.

Still, off we go. Hooray.

I’m still loving the room and still knackered when I get out of it. I got home and had a hot bath. Early bed for sure. The cats aren’t on their usual food so they wake me up to have a moan about it. Misty was licking my beard at 5am today.

Brian and I hurled out Christmas. The tree was mostly desiccated. We hauled it down three flights and it is gone now. A coating of pine needles down the stairwell, but a mild allaying of the guilt of it since we were evidently not the first flat to do it. Twelfth Night innit. Our poor caretaker only just got out of hospital… We tried to pick up the worst of it.

I’ve been building up to this for a while so it is weird to think of the reality of things now. This will go so quickly this job and then I’ll be back in London and back on the train looking for work. Hopefully will be able to get into something quickly. The myth of momentum in this industry… But it is true that work breeds work.

I’m bodily tired though. My back is talking to me.. Longevity is important in this mad game and that comes with self care and prevention. I’m gonna go beddie byes until either Boo hunts my foot or Misty gives me stinky kisses.

Nope. Sorry.

My head is full. But I’m flooded.

Went to see Charlie and Jo and her kids. Never met Jo before. I’ve been aware of Charlie making things with Jo, but she’s the other side of the world.

We had a moment in an Airbnb flat in kings cross. A chance to think about what it means to fuck with energy in this world. A moment to touch base with all the energies coalescing around our current AYLI.

Two hard weeks coming up. These guys are good guys. I’m very very happy to be throwing things around. This week will be about listening.

I forgot this blog though, again, until I was almost flat down. This is one of my stopgaps. Sorry. How am I gonna drive engagement if I always leave it until I’m so tired I can’t think?

Oof

Lovely coffee with Roo between shows. She’s doing so well. I love my friends.

Night. Sorry. I’ll try to remember tomorrow and not suddenly remember as I’m about to sleep.

Ok so wow. Team America World Police are still in operation…

Maduro was a baddie for sure, and he was using the tenets of communism to hide deep corruption and greed. Corrupt greedy self serving world leaders are a blight.

My VISA is still outstanding for the US.

In the light of that it is interesting to see this happen right now. The recipient of the esteemed FIFA Peace Prize, in an unexpected move, has moved in a big way on a neighbour in order, of course, to ensure peace.

I don’t know much about Venezuela, I’ll be honest. I understand the capital is Caracas, they are very coastal, they have the largest remaining oil reserves, lots of corn food like Tequēnos. They speak Spanish as their official language. They have excellent beaches and come to think of it, Angel Falls! Perhaps this is why – the falls! Perhaps bungee jumping is important to the current fun filled US administration. That would make sense. The people around him look terrifically serious and clever but also fun and bright based on the Vanity Fair photo shoot I saw recently.

The White House staff evidently want to make sure they have control over the highest bungee jump in the world. Of course. That makes sense. For funzies.

We should institute another peace prize really. The bungee jumping peace prize. That sounds legit! Just as legit as FIFA! Great!

We could award it to the excellent man who has made all this happen. I’m sure no global leader who has been waiting for an excuse will use this as justification for a land grab in… I dunno remote places like Eastern Europe or… the Pacific Ocean. This is just a logical move to shore up the recreational needs of this planet (and primarily America which IS this planet, ya?

I’m loving rehearsal still. We were in all day even though it’s a weekend. We are working hard even though our visas haven’t been officially approved yet. They’ve been very very slow. People are worrying a little but I can see that common sense is going to win out.

Apparently our social media gets checked. It’ll be fine for all of us though, bunch of nerdy artists the five of us, getting more excited about wordplay than about geopolitics.

I think it’s great that a balanced and sensible fellow like the President now has annexed the biggest bungee jump in the world. That’s what this must have been about.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the good people of Venezuela will still be able to go and leap from the falls if they fill in the correct paperwork, but Americans will be able to take advantage of the privilege too and safely – without fear of leftists making them feel guilty about their opinions. Wonderful. Brave New World.

Somehow we have finished our first pass of As You Like It. We have now looked at all of it. The whole pile of content.

It’s a lot.

I’m impressed with the five of us. It seems like we genuinely still like each other. There’s no tension, no weirdness. We are a brilliant bunch of nerds.

I’m happy to be a massive Shakespeare and word geek. I’m not the guy who says “well actually I think you’ll find” because my attachment to Willy is mixed up in my assessment that he was coining words, fucking with form, breaking conventions and generally being disobedient. To honour his work is to have mischief and bright life sewn into it. Treat it with excessive reverence and you ossify it. Don’t fuck with the text, sure. Listen to the notes he has given you on rhythm and tone and action. You don’t need to “make it relevant” by putting concept onto it – it is relevant purely by being human and relatable. Find that. Speak the speech trippingly on the tongue. He gave us, through Hamlet, three years of drama school in a speech:

“Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.”

Trust the text and yourself within it, and each other. The words will do the work so long as they can be heard. You don’t need to chuck them at us larded with false meaning. And honestly the more random shit you do with your hands the harder it is to hear the text. We are vessels. It is on us to embody this stuff, the more we “do” the more we get in the way. Sure yes ego makes us want to be impressive and sometimes that’s good cos it’s fun to watch people in their blood. But… it mustn’t be the only setting or it loses its sting. Be Herod when you’re Herod – it’s gonna be written big and it’s what the people want. But there are many many tools in the toolbox.

This is a very special group. I’m happy to be part of it. But I’m feeling old at the moment. My back is all gippy – still the JC lifting injury. We are in tomorrow and I’m delicate…

Very happy to have stayed at home all day.

An old and very dear friend is in town. She lives mostly in San Francisco these days. We had arranged to meet today, but ages ago, before I knew how knackered I would be. At about noon I switched on my electric blanket and fell into sweet crazy dreamstate restish.

No rehearsal today thank the good lord. I was up at early because two little girls don’t wait and I’m not interested in being ‘mummy why can’t we go into the living room?” I had tried to get out late last night. I had a £67 uber cued up and ready. I’m glad I didn’t take it. Would have had to come back this morning anyway for my car.

Z gave me a Christmas tree decoration. B gave me wisdom. I hadn’t realised that Uncle W was no more. Sorry sorry sorry to go all Jane Austin with names. I have to reassure people they usually aren’t gonna get put here unless I am totally sure it’s okay or they are a total cunt.

I’m sad about the death, I loved that particular uncle in theory. He was my best mate’s uncle, and he was the person in her life that gave her space to actually see chaospeople like me. I have a lot to thank him for, he brought mischief to her ordered upbringing. “It’s because he smoked, but not just as an old man he smoked as a young man too,” I was told with great wisdom by an eight year old. “Then he was on a beach and he had a stroke and that was bad.” From a (six?) year old? The two girls are coming together and interpreting the world together. I’m sad about uncle W. But I’m happy the way he has rippled down to the kids even if right now it is just a cautionary tale.

I drove home, crashed hard for an hour, then plastered myself together in time to see my San Fran friend. She hasn’t changed. Barely at all. Carries the years well too – she’s olive like I am. We had a big tasty meal with Brian. Now I’m in bed. It isn’t nine yet. I’m making a habit of this, going to bed early. I like to be at work early, I just love the room I’m in. Happy creative times with happy creative people.

I thought it might be a good plan for me to go home. But it is 2am. And Minnie has just bust a gut to get her inflatable mattress from the loft. I was about to spend £60 on an Uber home. But honestly nah. What’s the point in spending New Year with an old dear friend if you sod off before the morning? It’s because they have kids. Maybe it’s worth putting up with the early morning.

Kids. I like the two that Min has done. Some of my friends do good kids. Others I can take or leave, but yeah surely that’s the parents and a delayed reaction. I like the kids because I like both the parents and I’m not inclined to do that shit to myself so I’m mildly in awe of people who do. I’ve been running headlong into a wall for decades. Other people have somehow found headspace to breed. I envy them. I’d love to have continued my wonderful mad parents. But no way with the way it has gone for me lifewise.

New year in Twickenham. We went to the garden and burnt stuff. Rhys made a little incinerator out of bricks. All my shit for a year, and this year was big big big big big big big big big big big big big (sorry needed to express that) shit. This year. No longer. Dead.

A hope. A moment.

Something honestly something something that would finally shift things. Concrete. Completed. Holding my own and holding it well. And then it went to shit. And I can never talk about it publicly.

So yeah, I burnt things with Minnie. Nothing gained by holding onto things. Onwards onwards forever onwards.

There’s power in ritual.

So much, I burnt. Sides for an audition that how did that not land? Bits of ritual towards stunted hopes… This year has been hard to make sense of. It is comforting to find myself doing a job I did twice before COVID. Somehow, maybe, the work we do pays back over time.

God I’m tired though. And tomorrow morning I’m gonna get woken up way too early by Minnie’s girls. I’m in the middle of the living room. Best get my head down.