AlBarclay

I got home and looked at the news and that silly algorithm sent me an article by Matt Ridley in the Spectator saying that the glacier fall in Nepal had nothing to do with climate change. So there we have it. Old Etonian Matt Viscount Ridley 68, CEO of Northern Rock in 2007.

I wonder why he still has a platform? I wonder whose interests he might be serving with that platform?

This fucking generation of monsters and all we can do is wait for them to die so we can get the world back because they are so protective of how it has always been for them. In America, in Russia, in Israel. How will history look back on his period?

I can’t get too pissed off, I’ve got to get to sleep. It’s past midnight and I just got home. Had another pizza but this time I ate it in my car while driving home. We’re in the theatre in the morning tomorrow. It’s still sketchy but I’m having fun which makes me realise that I’m pretty much as rarefied and privileged as that lamp-post Ridley. I drive up to Harrow to rehearse in my car. I’m helping provide costumes too. I’ll get a pittance for the boots mayhaps. Doing this is a luxury. But I do genuinely like the people I’m doing it with so that’s alright.

Dom showed up today to be the priest. We did one of these OH Plays when we’d both just left university. It was Much Ado that time. I was Pedro, he was Jon. He’s another one that has gone on to a rich and full career and he is only playing on Sunday in a kind of celebrity cameo, bless him.

We were talking about some wonderful work he recently made for Alex who co-founded The Factory with Tim. He’s bright and positive about it. It was genuinely really lovely to see him, as up until he showed up there’s been nobody in the company who was contemporary with me at school. Five years seems a long time but it’s over in a flash. I didn’t particularly like my contemporaries in my boarding house so my networks for staying in touch have been shunted off track a bit. It was nice to see him tonight. We found ourselves reminiscing about other contemporaries some of which have gone on to extraordinary levels and others who have made and continue to make absolute fools of themselves in public. The two things seem out of balance but with just 150 students every year and all that money I guess extremes are to be expected in many walks of life.

I’m gonna try and go to sleep quickly despite the cheese. It was the right idea to get that pizza and eat it driving but now I’m gonna need to be disciplined and get my head down. Dress rehearsal adrenaline is happening a tiny bit but largely this one is stress free. I’m not really expecting anyone to witness it. I’m just gonna explore the time I was medicating grief with alcohol, AKA my entire thirties. Toby Belch is a lesson. Some directors kill him at the end. ” ‘has hurt me and there’s an end to it” Some directors redeem him: “if sir Toby would leave drinking thou art as witty a piece of Eve’s flesh as any in Illyria”. I’m going towards that version here – he knows there’s a way out but isn’t taking it until he has to. But he does. Let’s be positive about this. No matter how far gone you are there’s always an escape if you let yourself find it. But it has to come from you.

It’s ten o’clock at night. We just finished rehearsal in Harrow up at The Ryan Theatre. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing this but I’ve gone over the road to sit in The Castle. It’s a pub.

I’m sitting in the chair Martin sat in last time I saw him. The dear old fucker went and died on us all. I found myself thinking that that’s why I’ve ended up doing this Old Harrovian Play this time around.

He did very well with me. He had an extraordinary amount of energy to encourage those of us who were interested in performance as a job. He had “the conversation” with me that you have to have when someone realises they’re gonna be an actor no matter what. It’s important to make sure. This life can look shiny but mostly it is a lot of uncertainty with a side order of rejection and a large portion of constant hustle, for which you are paid barely a living wage. Sure it can be a delight when it works. But filling the gaps…

I’m filling some sort of a gap here I guess, coming up and trying to remember Toby Belch for the OH Players. There’s a good heart at the core of this company. We have some very involved music and nobody is certain on their lines let alone their meanings and targets, but they’re willing. We don’t have long at all before we open. We have had no rehearsal process to speak of. No six weeks sitting round a table before anyone even stands up. No workshops with fight directors or intimacy coordinators. We are making it up with good will and as always when I’m not certain I’m trying to style it out with energy and attack. Let’s see how that pans out eh? Hopefully I’ll get away with it.

Meanwhile I’m sitting here this evening with the ghost of an old friend old teacher old mentor in The Castle. I can’t drink as I’m driving home. But I can sit here a moment and open up my energetic filters and have a flash in the elsewhere place thanking the ghost of a man who really didn’t mince his words. There’s an imprint before we start again. I’m gonna stop writing and tune into that energetic memory thing.

—

Last time we were here he called me a puritan. I think he was cutting into my unwillingness to shift my primary focus. A lot of people would have thrown in the towel a long time ago. I’m never gonna. He knew that. I will miss knowing he’s in the world. And his wry support. I could have made things a lot easier for myself.

He leaves behind two sons. I will likely keep loosely in touch with Louis as we have already crossed paths a fair few times and he knows Esta very well. It was Esta (my beloved agent) who informed me of Martin’s passing. We learnt that we both knew and loved Martin very early on in our professional relationship and I’m sure it is part of why we’ve understood each other so well since I signed with her. Apparently he described me as “A young Michael Hordern but completely mad”.

I guess since my parents shuffled off I’ve been splintering the questions of youth into many people who are older than me and in some way involved with or judgemental of my life choices. It was helpful to sit with Martin here and have him affectionately tell me I’m a puritan as it gives me something to contemplate. I might have been on the non alcoholic beers at the time, it might have been as simple as that, but it’s somehow helpful still to have people who are older than us, somehow invested in us, and absolutely clueless about the nitty gritty of our lives to make sweeping unwelcome subjective judgements about our life choices. That’s a parent’s job primarily, that big fat unwelcome hand.

We have to find people to do that crap once the parents are gone. Because we need the perspective. All of us. You get better at perspective the longer you do this stupid life thing, although not necessarily at context. Look to your elders though. That’s been the last few days for me.

I’ll miss him. A wonderful mad angry delicious bastard.

I’ve stopped at Perfect Pizza which is the halal place we used to order from on weekends on the hill. They are making me my schoolboy pizza. I’ll drive it home and munch it.

Tonight is the only night I’ll be able to see Peter do Krapp’s last tape. I dearly want to see it. But it’s sold out so I’m at The Cockpit awaiting a return.

Peter is 86 now. About five years ago he started coming to The Factory. I remember very clearly one night after a session with him in a pub in Borough Market. Pretty much every one of his running mates had gone forward, he told me. He was coming to The Factory to keep in trim and find a new community. Still going. I hope to God I’m the same if I last that long. I remember the wry grief in him, and the twinkle twinkling still.

He first did Krapp’s Last Tape maybe a decade ago. It’s one of Beckett’s best known plays. It’s about memory and aging. Peter was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a couple of years ago. He’s going back to this, working with tapes made for his original performance. He’s acting with his younger self.

The Beckett estate did a thing where you aren’t allowed to put his plays on with alternative staging. So you’ll never see Godot set on the Titanic or whatever. Which is probably for the best but it does mean that they are artifacts. But in this context it’s a good thing. Peter will be on familiar ground but also with the potential open barrier of that condition that every stage actor dreads. It’s why Gambon quit. You can only get away with reading your lines off the back of props for so long.

I’m happy the BBC got hold of the story and wrote an article about it. I want it to be sold out for him. But I also want to see it so hopefully there’ll be a return… I’ve got number 1 on the return queue so I’m sure it’ll work out…

—

I just saw him in the foyer. Had a hug. He stores things in his phone so he knows who is who and he now has a ridiculous photo of me captioned “Al Barclays” because I didn’t have it heart to correct him while he’s trying to remember this show. “I first played this part in … … I think it was 1958 in the west of Ireland.” I still don’t have a ticket. Lots of familiar faces in the foyer though. Nobody I know well enough to come and greet but Peter and he’s pre-show and 86. Nice to see The Cockpit as a destination theatre.

—

I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE COCKPIT SO CROWDED. Talking to the people who bought tickets, lots of them just bought it because of the BBC article. Great work the PR department. It IS a story. Wonderful actor with Alzheimer’s plays against tapes of his younger self in a play about memory.

—

That was really beautiful and strange and sad. Peter was dignified and brilliant. It was deeply telling to see him like that in that show. I think I sat next to Gemma, an actress who was part of the reason I went to Guildhall.

How can we make Beckett relevant when it is enshrined and ossified like it is? Maybe there’s something about context. Good on them trying it. And God love Peter and his support network and everyone who made this happen for us all.

So yesterday we recorded a few pages each for a theatre tape. It was surprisingly fun and having the Freston costume place proved useful once more. I didn’t really want to get too swept up in Carnival after but it was good to plug into the energy of it all. Rowdy and messy though, with street evangelists shouting into microphones near us all about some nonsense they’ve made up and attached to the language of the Bible.

Today a quiet day but sad news at the beginning of it. My agent rang me. Martin Tyrrell was my English teacher at Harrow and directed me in a number of school plays. He died last night.

He would set a table up and curl onto a chair in the drama studio with a mug overflowing with ash and cigarette butts, always a fag in his hand. He was bald in his notes and didn’t pull his punches which I liked and benefited from. The better he knew you the ruder he could be, but it was usually done with affection. Sometimes he’d get astonishingly drunk and then he might say things just to be horrid, but most of the time he was insightful and challenging. I loved him. I’m sure I’m not the only actor still working who will be very sad to hear of his passing. Generations of Harrow actors passed through his smokey hands. He gave us confidence and skills and a thick skin. He had been an actor himself but he had shifted to teaching as many do. He was also an inspirational English teacher – he made the texts vital and human. And he wrote very funny no holds barred school reports.

We stayed in touch, occasionally saw each other for a pint. I have been meaning to go see him at home for some time, and said as much to Ricky just two days ago. We need to act on these impulses.

I’m doubly pleased I’ve come back to the old place for Toby Belch, but sad I’ll never see him again. I owe him a great deal. 

We’re at the Wanamaker on the weekend!! I need to make sure my lines are all in the right order… … I’ll dedicate this one to “Melvyn” as we used to affectionately call him. He was a true character. Absolute bastard in the best possible way.

What a treat, to be making things in Freston during carnival. I had to drive through a temporary barrier. Tristan gave up. “Just tell them you’re helping an artist,” I suggested. I can give them my RBKC Council Tax info. He got through with my coaching.

We are up for a spot of fun. Jeeves and Wooster. And Steppings. Tristan asked if I might help him with Bertie and I told him I was up for a stranger part. Obviously I’m Jeeves but maybe they already know their actor for him. I’m happy however. It’s enough to get an audition these days frankly.

I’m gonna edit the tapes later on. There’s enough there to make it clear we know each other and chose each other to help with the audition. Will that help? Who knows. You have to be insane to cast theatre from tape. But we tried to make a good tape anyway.

This evening was very curious. We finished work and went briefly to a local place eaten by Carnival. This is my time of year in London, this has been my manor for ages.

I’m happy to have used my studio. After that there was much noise.

I’m falling asleep. It is glorious to have used the space like I have. I’ve been there so often lately. There’s much to love.

Onwards.

I am curious generally about graffiti, you might know this already about me. It’s an expression, it’s a mischief. People get very exercised about it. It carries meaning beyond its meaning. You can learn huge amounts about the undercurrent of any city you’ve just arrived in by the nature of the tags.

Helch was another of the “anonymous” taggers, like Banksy despite the fact that a few people missed the point of that a few months ago. He wasn’t as acerbic or as clever as Banksy but that’s not what he was setting out to do. Nobody has been able to do commentary and mischief as effectively as Banksy through that medium, which is how he got to shred his own picture at Sotheby’s.

Helch was a different creature in the same world. London’s own, and he was big contentious and colourful. He pissed off loads of people by tagging over “Give Peas a Chance” on the way into London, making it “Give HELCH a Chance”. He apparently pissed off the queen when he tagged something she could see from her window. That’s reach for any artist. I’ve been following his stuff for years – I thought I’d written about it already but I can’t find the blog.

His tags were usually big bright noisy “me” tags. Just his H or his name, often very colourful. And he got them in really tricky places. It requires dedication, work and skill to get these things done, it’s against the law and you’ll piss off the small c conservatives no matter where you do it.

I like it for that reason. Some people got so pissed off about Banksy not chiming with their worldview that they decided to try and “unmask” him and then discovered that nobody really wanted to know. It isn’t a big “gotcha” to publish these people’s real names. Largely the people that think it is are the ones without an artistic bone in their body. We saw it again with Count Binface, and people thinking they had some big scoop when he was always open about it and that wasn’t the art. It doesn’t matter that it’s David Prowse and James Earl Jones, we are happy to say Darth Vader. Binface was performance art and found a perfect moment. He annoyed a lot of people too which is as it should be.

A great joy of art is that it’s subjective. One person might love it, ten others might hate it. That doesn’t make it any more or less art. The art world intersects with the mischief world even more completely than the acting world does now. It hasn’t been coopted by people trying to make everything safe and predictable.

To my sensibilities, HELCH belonged to the art world much more than anyone whose placement, contacts and money got them the leg up they needed to have their stuff accepted by the gatekeepers. The art itself wasn’t the art, it was the timing and the placement and the spirit. Also he clearly wasn’t doing it for the money. There should be grants for that sort of thing, or community whip rounds to buy the paint…

I’m very sad that he’s gone. Whatever you think of the medium, a prolific artist who changed the London landscape and went quite a long way, dead by suicide it seems. A loss. His tags, of course, will remain. Some of them probably for decades.

I don’t know who he was, I just know he was a Londoner. And … he pissed me off when I first became aware of him, so I examined myself. He gave a response. Helped me learn about myself a little bit. That’s art. My mum loved “Give Peas a Chance”. “How dare he trample on that institution,” was my kneejerk. Good work. Good work and thank you.

I’m sad he’s gone cos he brought us some colour and a bright mischief from a dark place. It’s hard to shine in the cracks. He managed it for decades. Fare forward.

A couple of long days in a row, just because even the business of barely rehearsing a Shakespeare play requires logistical thinking and practice, particularly with complicated songs and a jig at the end. I suspect part of my love for Shakespeare started when I was at school here, and actually the OH shows were often inspiring in some way. James Callis came and played Lear’s fool one time just after he left drama school. John D Collins was a regular for some time. Alistair Boag… Richard Curtis did a turn once… These were all important people to me growing up, a connection between my school and this industry I knew I was going to embrace, spikes and all.

I’ve made friends through the OH Players, and my inability to say no to things. It’s a reminder that some people do acting for fun. Most of them are lawyers. This is their weekend recreation. I’m enjoying their company but I don’t really want to have to get up tomorrow and rehearse from ten till nine. But it’s a discipline. Even just learning lines and paying attention and finding targets and clear intentions and changes, it all keeps the muscles moving. There’s much to do. Choose your battles though. The pronoun highlighting is off the scale. There’s plenty of side slapping and wandering around and pacing and meaningless gesture. Fuck it. I’m not gonna say anything.

On the way up and down I’ve been listening to the news which is never a good idea. The unbelievable destructive power of that wall of water – looking at those videos has been compulsive. Then the usual gallery of aging ninnies trying to cling onto their relevance and doing increasingly ridiculous stuff. Lake Ontario. Threats to nuke England.

Faced with all that on the radio it is easier to contemplate the fact that every waking hour this weekend is going to be with a love story written 425 years ago. The rain it raineth every day, and today it finally did in London. We have been so parched in the south it was welcome. All day it came down, finally petering out at sunset.

Hopefully this rain will help. There was a fire in Neasden that stopped the trains this morning. The glorious long summer has brought a host of problems. The rate of acceleration globally is becoming really apparent. We must be past the tipping point by now, and still they want more. We are such a destructive species. Nice that we can get together sometimes and just make a weird visual story together as a community loosely bound just by random things like where our parents sent us away to as teenagers.

Up in the morning and over to The Ryan Theatre. It was a contentious building when it was built, mostly because it was attached to a private school. It was always going to be a good thing, it is a good thing, and it is so hidden away that only the most maladjusted people could hate it. The campaign against it when I was at school was bitter and used remarkably unpleasant rhetoric. “Say no to the rape of our village”. I don’t think it has caused any negativity, but the idea of something is enough in many cases. Like with the meta glasses.

I’m rehearsing Sir Toby Belch again but this time with the Old Harrovian Players. I think it is important to help people like I was. Privilege is a thing, yes, absolutely. And it is problematic in our industry. But I have to be the devil’s advocate here, because I am from privilege and I am an artist. Artistry is not exclusively from those who haven’t had privilege any more than it is from those who have. If I stick my oar into the OH Players then maybe I help temper some of the unconsidered stuff and maybe these young practitioners with such a boost will have a better grasp on what they got for free. Maybe.

Meantime I’m playing and remembering. I asked for Toby as I don’t know him quite as perfectly as Malvolio, and Toby represents chaos. In this context it isn’t right for me to be Malvolio. In most other contexts it is.

Tristan messaged me today as he has a tape to send for some theatre and, as luck would have it, I do too, for the same project and for a different part. We are gonna meet up on Monday and hack it all together. It won’t be learnt I fear, it is a lot of text. So yeah It won’t be learnt but the two of us can do it well with each other and leave some Easter eggs for the casting department.

Cos I’m back in town. I thought it was late but actually it isn’t, Brian and Maddy went to bed early. Friday night. I’ll be down soon and there’ll be no weekend to speak of but I’m looking forward to making sense of Belch now. There are some actors in the company that I’ve been curious about for a while. And there’s an old friend who made some serious opportunity who might show up in a cameo. Let’s see. I just think it’s nice to support the old alma mater… Posh twat using Latin.

A peaceful evening by the sea once more. The sound of the seagulls in the dusk, something that feels like an ancient sound, but of course there are more of them here now than there would have been before the invention of chips.

I don’t think we would have driven up to Stanmer had we realised that Brighton were playing Ghent tonight, but we did so and went for a late afternoon walk up a hill and into some woods. It was only when we were about to drive out through the university that we saw all the football shirts and turned around just in time to avoid the gridlock outside the stadium.

I’ve enjoyed this peaceful day or so with Lou, more for her company than anything else. And Tessy, who is extremely boundaried but carries peace with her. There are workers in the block and last night they were full of vodka using power tools in the flat below us at ten pm. I can hear them now down there again and it’s coming up to nine. I’m hoping we don’t have to go downstairs and look stern again. They’ll just ignore us anyway. But they’re behind and they’ve got the new landlord on their backs about it. They live in the block for the refurb so their hours are elective. It’s a strange life but they’re handy lads despite the vodka. And the late night power tools.

—

Reflecting back, something of a new moment today regarding my mechanical prowess or lack thereof. There’s something weird going on with the push button ignition in Lou’s car. It has been since she’s owned it. I don’t like these arrogant electronics, like the fact you can’t lower the windows manually in modern vehicles so you’re fucked if you drive into a lake. All these YouTube videos telling us how to break the windows? Or a handle you can turn.

Lou’s vehicle is lovely but it’s trying to do it all for you. And it all goes wrong sometimes. I had to force the back window down in Wales once when the key ran out of battery and wouldn’t open the door. We pushed the ignition and the engine tried but wouldn’t catch. It’s a common problem. Apparently all you have to do, Lou tells me, is get your hands in that bit and fiddle with those wires.

Reader, I fiddled with the wires and lo and behold the car was fixed.

I once had a plumber teach me how to reignite the pilot light on the boiler using a match. Never blew myself up or poisoned anyone, saved us thousands on callouts as I did it about fifteen times before finally replacing the thing. Lou had an AA guy point those wires out. Good on him. I’m always up for fixing things. We don’t do enough of it these days cos the market doesn’t want us to, and that’s another contributing factor to the world turning on us. I’m sure those idiots are already saying the Nepal thing is just an isolated incident and not pointing out any trend, just as they did with the heatwave, just as they still will play that fucking fiddle as we sink.

It’s the middle of the working week but I’ll be busy over the bank holiday so I’ll take my downtime with Lou right now. Although she’s in the middle of a big order of silk camisoles for some American woman on Etsy. This morning I watched her sew and had coffee, and a self tape came in. Slow August but it’s like my agent can read my mind. A bit of theatre? Oh what a delight, the prospect of employment that lasts more than a week? I had almost forgotten the smell of it. A tape for theatre, hopefully a recall in person, hopefully a little jobbyjob.

It’s not due until Tuesday so I’ll work it out later. I just looked at the script today, that’s all. Fun parts to play and inside my casting. The sort of stuff I’ve been good at forever but rarely had a shot at. Comedy.

So we drove to Alfriston. Lunch at The Sussex Ox which is a great pleasure of mine. Didn’t go and see my favourite tree which is nearby, but did stop in the Ox, where much of The Goon Show was written. Something in my body was having unusual cravings, so I had chicken liver and ox heart. Organs. Protein. By the end of the meal I was in a fug of endorphins. It’s good quality there, they source it all locally and the kitchen is great. A lady had her horses in the pub garden.

Then a stroll. A constitutional. Alfriston is a crafty little town, busy with traffic, lots of pleasant little flint buildings. We struck out across fields to Berwick church following The Cuckmere Way which is dressed up in the pageantry of pilgrimage – scallop shells and crucifixes, stamps in the church. Only a couple of miles and no stern Spaniards judging you at the end of the journey to determine if you warrant a proper Compostela or just a credencial.

Through the fields and into the lovely little church painted up by the Bloomsbury group. Then an early evening stroll down by the Ouse. Sparrows and herons. The river is still crawling its way through the rushes, and the heat of summer has stressed the berries into early ripening. The bushes are lively. We are shifting from the ripening to the rottening. Beautiful but you can see the edge of summer. The storm is coming. But not today.

Today was glorious. Was birds and sky. Still and heat. Lovely Alfriston. No wonder property costs so much down this way.