AlBarclay

I wasn’t wearing steelies and I dropped a stillage on my ingrown toenail. I should have been wearing steelies, sure, but I always worry that if I get run over by a truck they’ll cut all my toes off. I own a pair of them but still I prefer to just be nimble. The ingrown toenail means that if someone blows on it I’ll scream anyway. If I’m working with more than set dressing I might get them on, or frankly if it’s not my site. In terms of what could have happened, what was risk assessed, it was smooth as you like. Two of the lads left a handbrake off (to my knowledge) when they got out of the van but neither of them killed an old lady at a bus stop. Greg and John both butted a heavy pendulum when we took a blanket off a grandfather clock but not hard.

I’m now standing on my owie toe outside stage door in Victoria to catch Lou after a show she’s covering. Her train is booked at eleven, show comes down about now. It’s the only chance I’ll get to see her, as despite my romantic hopes of a sojourn in the lovely Peak District, it doesn’t work with her schedule. This time last night I was already asleep and had been for two hours.

It’s twitchy outside here at this stage door. I’m staying pretty aware of my surroundings. There’s crack addict behind me tweaking out about how someone robbed her of a tenner and a fiver “as usual”. There’s a security guy with a big helmet on from The Keyholding Company. Black cabs with their lights on are queuing up to get people as the crowds predictably come out. I reckon it’s a good hunting ground.

Here come the actors. Autographs and photographs. This particular machine has been packing them in for so long now. It’s all very convivial, “oh my gosh you’ve come a long way! Hiya! Wow!” And sitting next to us on the floor the angry addicted lady on the pavement is looking for something inside her trainers. London. It’s not the warzone those idiots want to make it, but it has always been volatile and alive and sad and loose and mad and varied, particularly on hot summer nights.

—

It’s fun watching the cast come out. Mixture of types. Some very extroverted, others excellent at switching it off.

—

And Lou emerged. We sat in a quiet spot at Victoria Station for a snatched moment before she got on a train back to Brighton. Absolutely lovely and much needed just to be be with my exceptional girlfriend even for twenty five minutes on a balcony full of dropped chips.

I’ve been rehearsing Sir Toby Belch today up in Harrow. Only did him once before a fair few years ago now with AFTLS, so this time I won’t have to have a fight with myself. It’s another of those things I do just for the delight of it, and to keep the connection with my old school. When I was there were far had various actors who still showed up for it. Some are still around. The OH play is an institution and this year they’ve managed again to get it put on at the Sam Wanamaker so sod it I’ll go and enjoy myself because that building carries positive energetic associations for me. The lions gate. Glad I’m rehearsing something.

One final day of sorting things out and just time to drive back to London before I hit the wall hard. That’s it now for today, there’s nowt left in the tank. It’s just gone 8pm, Brian and Maddy have gone for shisha so I had a bath and walked around naked and now I’m in bed bed bed oh joyful bed.

Last night Canice and I slept in neighbouring rooms in the Keynes block of the Kent University campus. A little single bed. And student breakfast the next morning. It’s alright for £70 each. Big old plate of sausage and beans set me right up to empty the shipping container and consolidate everything into Armadillo. Next job is to get it all out in September. But this next fortnight is a time of stopping. Not that I’m capable of that. I start rehearsal tomorrow but I know the lines so reckon it should be something to enjoy.

Mid morning I posted Rhys’ wallet back to Stratford. There was a little bit more thinking and sorting to do but mostly I just wanted it all to stop so I pushed towards that and managed to get myself home early evening. I thought I’d do all my laundry tonight and maybe cook dinner and send an invoice but instead I grabbed a plate of sausage and mash with John as he had my driving license and left my stuff in my bag. No more sorting things out today. I’ve had enough.

The party boats are in full swing outside. Every time I look at something right now I assess it. Every time I hear a rattle on the road I wonder if the load is properly secured.

I haven’t had a day off for a long time now. By the time I get up to the Peak District I’ll have forgotten what resting is, just in time to do lots of it.

I’ll do some now though. Sleep before nine. That’s a win, even if I just got asked if I’m going to a friend’s party. No.

Done done done. Chairs went to charity.

There’s a great delight around working with actors. Honestly it’s fantastic if the balance works. We’ve been in digs, getting into site early. Morale has been excellent. There’s always the possibility they’ll get a job, but I’ve got enough competent friends by now that I trust it’s fine.

Sure, some employers have a swarm of people on close to minimum wage in hi-vis and gloves… I know those teams, they do get things done just through numbers and averages, but as soon as they aren’t told exactly what to do they stand around. And it is usually a horrible day.

My guys make decisions. I don’t always agree with them but I always support that they’re doing it. Siwan was listing stuff to sell online as we went. She often disagreed with my pricing and didn’t take my suggestions, but… that’s why I employed her. I haven’t got time or headspace to make all those calls, my focus is on clearance. And she’s adaptable and brilliant and can do the lifting or tools too if I ask. My team is a bunch of opinionated creatives who can all properly graft. It’s a team I’m at home with that a lot of people would suffer with just as it is FULL of personality. That’s how I like it. And I would recommend these guys to anyone, the ones I’ve settled with.

It’s down to Canice and I now, the rest I’ve sent home but they’ve gone home with laurels and that was always their job time.

Rhys is going back to Stratford. He’s been great for his OCD packing and his eye on fairness. Mark slung his tipper back too. He’s been great for morale, big and glowing and sensitive and his energetic bubble is vast. Canice is the guy I always recommend first when I can’t do the acting job. He’s nothing like me but we are both the same category of human. But he’s practical and ordered while being clever about the unusual. I work very well with him. And John, man I just love John. He was in my year at Guildhall, we lost each other by mistake for a few years during the struggle afterwards. We are reunited and I adore him forever. He’s extremely handy, knows how to graft, gets it. The way this team works now, I could absolutely run a big event with them. I’d just need Lou on her laptop or someone else as organised. Sylvia.

The only downside to actors on events is: “I can’t do the race in Chile, I’m filming for one day in the middle of it.”

That thing we actors have as our primary focus? “Acting”. It can make us noticeable to the boring people, who usually also assume our motives are corrupt. If you’ve got personality and you have an insecure manager (so many so many, the scum rises to the top), they need you to be subordinate and beiger then they are … So you’re fucked if you do my job.

I try not to let on I’m an actor these days on events or any handy jobs, or in general frankly. It’s a boring conversation even without all the fucked assumptions. Lots of people around me know and weirdly find it interesting or positive which tends to blow my cover to the people who think it just means showtunes and moaning.

…

But yep that’s the end of the job. Me and a load of handy performers and we got it clear. I would trust them all with my life, even if sometimes one of them jumps out of the van and leaves the handbrake off and runs back to it just in time to stop disaster. Twice. I’m told it’s to do with the handbrake on the van being bad… and somehow I find it very convincing… Surely nothing to do with their skillset of convincing people of things…

Tomorrow we are consolidating, Canice and I. And I’m dropping off a load of stillages on the way home. And then straight into rehearsal dammit for the OH play which I’m too much of a pushover to say I won’t do when they ask me… Plus it’s at the Wanamaker… Too much of an alignment…

Call me if you want free chairs and the earlier in the day the better.

In Sittingbourne there’s this place called Jack Crush. It’s sanctioned. I think it’s called Sittingbourne Recycling falalala. Something discoverable. And if you’ve got a van, they will fuck you oh hello how delightful please come in here we go oooooof.

Bang.

I was absolutely dreading another job in the same area having known how much it hurt the last time. They took all my carefully sorted wood as “mixed” last time. “The people who take our wood haven’t taken it so we’re full.” “This has nothing to do with me…?!” So we had to drop our wood as mixed. After all the time we spent sorting it.

Three days we dumped wood as mixed and were charged hard. I really didn’t want to have anything more to do with them after that. The amount of metal they got out of us too… We had time pressure and not much experience, frankly. But they really made hay.

It’s a thing perhaps – they’ve got a great business name so they can take the brand out on their customers. They made loads out of me back then. Loads. We all learn. There are many better options that are harder to find and need more heads. Now I’ve got someone on the team to help find those options.

Siwan is here, thank fuck.

I haven’t got the headspace for moving stuff online within this job so I booked her for partly that reason and partly just cos I trust her and know her skillset. Nevertheless when someone shows up with a trailer and buys seven stillages it feels like witchcraft. I know these things are worth money, but… this is the world: If you have space you have the time…

If I had a warehouse for free, I’d be rich. But … land land land. So I’m moving them on, and I need Siwan as much as I need the lifting sorting thinking boys. I have way too much to think about. She’s handy. She can get into the boxes with the wazzer and then she can help try and find people that want the contents.

I think she’s found buyers for some of the stuff that’s worrying me. But there are some chairs… I figured I’d send them to Jack Crush first thing this morning – trauma bonding – but they rejected them. That way, by rejecting the bulk of the load, they could leave the chairs on the van and charge me their exorbitant minimum for the rest of the load. £111.24. For a toothpick. Fuckers. Never again no matter how far people have to drive.

“Oh no we can’t take them chairs guv they might have flame retardant stuff in them guv way too much we can take that toothpick but that’s the lot guv honest guv but there’s a minimum charge”.

Pigs.

I’m still knackered. I’ll emerge from this tomorrow afternoon. But… until that warehouse is empty I’m balls to the wall.

If you need some chairs or some stillages there’s two vans going back to London tomorrow from Kent near Canterbury. Anywhere along that route.

Five of us are sitting here after a big long day. It’s beautiful. Whitstable, The Old Neptune, seats on the beach. The lead singer of The Cuban Brothers gave us his table and some local recommendations. Good lad. I immediately liked him. One of us one of us google goggle google goggle etc.

The thing that’s worrying me right now is the stillages, which are worth money but I’ve got no time to list them for collection so I’ve outsourced it and people can get as many stillages as they can carry for £30 each cos I just want them gone. A man called Chad has already bitten for six of them. It’s a mad deal. If you’ve got a warehouse or anywhere to put them you can easily move them on for much more money over time.

But this is the job. I’m finding homes for things QUICKLY. The lads know that if they want something they can have it, but they do have to run it by me and today I had to arbitrate it. There are a pair of heavy duty sewing machines and two of the lads had it in their piles. After some thought I took them out of both. They know Lou, so they get the fact I’m pulling one out for her. The other one I’m gonna sell, because despite my love for these lads I’m trying to make money here when it comes down to it and I’m paying properly.

I’ve spent so much on storage this year because I’ve been busy. If I take on a load more stuff I need to make sure I’m not being an idiot about money as usual. Sure the stillages could go for much more but if they go on someone else’s truck they go positively and not on my clock. Time is not on my side.

My head is so full though. All I know for certain is what I’ve destroyed. All the things I’ve kept? No idea what they are. But I’ve had John photograph the lot going in.

My team is perfect, I’m so happy. A group of friends and creatives who don’t do this all the time but take a similarly strange joy. Right now we are all watching the incredible sunset from the Old Neptune in Whitstable after the perfect post work fish and chips. Clouds catching the light as the sun ducks under to give us all a moment to rest. Back into it tomorrow first thing. Here we go go go…

—

Canice took a picture of me writing to you. He sent it to me as a kind of gotcha, but I’m happy to see it. A reminder that we can be in our phones and in the beauty simultaneously. This is the dumb flat face of these scribblings – I’ll often try and find a glorious place to be when I make them.

Right. So I’m the gaffer. Was it wise to have oysters? Likely not. There’s very much not an R in the month. I’m in Whitstable and didn’t think about it until I got into my flat just now. There’s way too much to do tomorrow and I’m gonna get it done so if there’s any shitting through the eye of a needle to be done I’m hoping it happens sooner rather than later. Whitstable is an oyster town. We went to a seafood place that comes highly recommended and most of my team thought the service was rubbish. But it was a pricey meal. And it was on my company. And there were oysters involved, if only for Canice and I.

I went off to my own little gaff tonight as the place I first booked can’t sleep everyone like I hoped. I’m there now with a fan blowing, but right now I’m up and down every few minutes. It’s half ten. So long as it doesn’t get any worse I’ll be fine, I’ll be empty before long, I just don’t want my body to go into poison reaction as that’s a long and extremely unpleasant process of emptying. In this heat with this job tomorrow…

Oysters were never a good idea. My body knows them, sure and I can hope towards that. I grew up in Jersey. My inner fire is extremely zealous. But tomorrow I’m the gaffer and the gaffer is gonna be much more use if he isn’t shitting himself, especially considering this warehouse is barely plumbed. If I was home I’d eat some bread. But I’m in a badly thought through flat with stickers on the glasses and excruciatingly dull art. It’s another IKEA buy to let monstrosity with adjectives on the listing that have nothing to do with how generic and soulless it is here. Despite the free chocolates.

So yeah, hopefully I won’t shit myself to death in this insincere polyester sweat trap. There’s a fan in the room. I’m gonna leave it on. The blinds were open so it has cooked in here. Very few people if any have slept in this bed. I hope I will. I’m not feeling ill. I’m gonna go back over the clam post from Camino and compare symptoms as I started that with no clue where I was going…

—

Ok good, I’ve read back over myself from that last time I had food poisoning, and by the time I was writing this I was already in full flow in both directions. Fingers crossed then. I was thinking it was just an emptying, and not the marathon that was to come where piggy pillow saved my life. In that convent last time they had real sheets and God. Everything in this adjective laden apartment is made of plastic and is soulless.

—

I bought a reciprocating saw today (distracting myself with tools now). I’ve wanted one for a while and it is a very good way to get crap sofas out of small places. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to a light saber. You don’t need a chainsaw license unless you’re determined to chop a big tree. This thing eats chairs, arms, sofas and shins.

And apparently Canice is just happily gurgling with his tummy. So yeah, I’ll just get myself to sleep on this atrocious plastic sweatbed and trust in the gods that all will be well tomorrow. I’ve been worrying for a while about this job. I’m sure the tummy bubble is just part of it.

Live music on the wind. The sound of laughter through the window behind me. The people of Luton have come up to their Henge for this festival. And we are dressed in thick black Jacobean clothes trying to work out how best to disguise our radio mics. Showtime, for one night only. Another of the uncountable number of temporary groups that we have all been part of in this game. We are getting ready. I thought I’d write a little down before we start.

Adrenaline will kick in before long and I’ll start walking in circles and popping and obsessively checking my presets. But… for now there’s space in my head to write some words to you oh constant reader. I haven’t really been making time for this of late, I’m dashing them off at the end of the day (waheyy) frequently tired and becatted. So I thought I’d start it pre-show, here in Marsh Farm House, in the downstairs “History Room” – allocated as our Green Room, as we all put on our thick black clothes in the evening sun.

Another great costume I didn’t know I had until recently. The boots I’ve always had but the rest was in Canterbury.

—

At this point a huge choir of people bundled into the Green Room and my dream of a contemplative moment was dashed. So we all went and changed with Bergman. He’s been pulling his weight as a dressing room / cast transport / shed this weekend.

We all performed this powerful unusual needed piece of theatre together in a stone circle at the height of this exposing stark summer. Now I’m home and the full moon is smiling down through promising looking clouds. A smattering of skywater wouldn’t go amiss. What a few months this has been.

How many times have we all come together in small groups to make magic and then disippated again? It’s a great community to be part of, theatre folk. Going for a 0% drink with my agent last week helped me key into that – there’s a consistency through the generations. We all care about this strange thing, for all the multiplicity of reasons we have, and it is at its best when we get to do it and pay the bills at the same time.

Next week I’m tearing things apart. Happy to go into that from this, to remind me what’s possible with work and belief so I can have that head on when I assess what to throw and what to keep. There are so many factors at play with theatre. I’ve got the community bit sewn up. But… which stories do I want to tell? And what do I need to tell them how I need to tell them? That’s my question for next week.

Once again I’m bouncing from version to version of myself. Today I was experimenting with a new version of Van Al which combines him with Gaffer Al. Since I was paying for a day of Canice, I figured he could drive the van so I could better do emails and logistical things from the passenger seat.

Canterbury is too far away. It took all day to go down load come up and then do it again. I am likely about to fill that unit up again, so I’m happy we have pretty much emptied the fucker. All options for the swift evacuation of this Dargate unit the better. Much better to have the costumes in London where they can be sorted, used and, God forbid, monetised… I’ll be wearing one of them tomorrow, a combination of things from clearances and bits I’ve bought, with a Glyndebourne shirt. Simon will be wearing a Glyndebourne top as well. And the death cape came through Hammer into Gatsby before it ended up in a load of things Jack and I had to pull out of a damp warehouse out south west somewhere and now it lives in my car.

As Lou observed last week, everyone is being forced into smaller and smaller places to live so everyone has to get rid of things all the time. Certainly the people I know do. If a friend had just moved into an empty house I could make it look incredible in a fortnight. But as it is I’m gearing up to be as ruthless as I can, knowing that time is going to be my worst enemy here.

But tomorrow I get to forget all that again and go and be creative in Luton. It’s showtime. I’ll be back in Actor Al – the version where he doesn’t look like he’s enjoying himself but secretly he is. Nasty person actor Al. Surrounded by good people. A treat.

I walked in the door twenty minutes ago and put the bath on, ordered a bacon cheese burger from Five Guys, stroked Misty and let Boo six sniff my toes. It’s half ten at night and I left just after 7 in the morning. A sausage butty and coffee at Gregg’s. A coke. A refuel and an Irn Bru. And never not rushing. Plenty of lifting. Some quick decisions. And the costumes are in London. As are two lovely chairs and a Cyberman Desk. And I’m gonna scoff this burger, wallow in a bath, go to sleep and do a show about witches tomorrow in a magic place.

Thank the lord for Canice. He escaped the van drop off but he only got out of my clutches at about half eight. A good hard day. Much achieved. Zzzzzz nomnom purr purr splish splosh zzzz drive drive ACTING drive drive zzzz.

I am absolutely bewitched by Luton Henge.

My first ever day on set was in Luton, at Luton Hoo. Somehow I ended up in the thick of it, thanks to Wendy and Stephen. I was in a neighbouring Winnebago to one of my heroes, Richard E Grant, who had enough grace to spend the day with me and keep me company. I met Sir John Mills that day as well. “Your first movie? It’s my hundredth!” “I hope one day to be able to tell someone the same thing.” Ha.

That was, as you can imagine, a magical day, perhaps made more magical by my latterday understanding : it wouldn’t just become an everyday thing for me. Back then I assumed this was the new normal.

I’ve rarely been to Luton since. I was there today and I’ll be there on Sunday. But… the henge is a very different affair to the hoo.

The Hoo is a stately home for hire. The Henge is a new thing, a piece of magic on the land. Built from passion and need. A stone circle thoughtfully constructed in ancient ways by modern minds. Parks and dirt bike tracks intersecting. Public land but inhabited. Room for play, room for ritual. A border space, that old word liminal, the shore where one world brushes against another. This is where we need to make art, where we have to make art. The border spaces are the only fertile spaces left once everything at the extremes has become toxic.

I don’t know who spearheaded this henge but I see what it is. Volunteers with a building and a site that they can use to teach workshops to the local kids. One of them wants to teach kids plumbing. “There hasn’t been much sign up for that,” I’m told when I ask, because for me I know what a free workshop about plumbing could have saved me over the years, let alone what it could have earned me on top of that. It’s a skill that pays more than law these days. But the kids of Luton are yet to catch on to that.

It is a powerful initiative, beautifully executed in a strong site. We are helping make it flow by embodying Cheryl’s script there for just one night on Sunday.

It’s gorgeous. Arid at the moment as this summer of drought has been proving. But the thistles are flowering. The long grass is straw now, and at least there’s been no fire. We will do a show on Sunday about connection with the natural world and ourselves. We will keep making art while the world burns around us. We all need to try. It’s the only way we can justify ourselves as a species, making beauty. Otherwise we really are just barbarians.

Showed up at The Cockpit with a bunch of stuff. A top for the puritan minister. A slitted black doublet and hose with boots for me. And a death cape. The label inside it says “Bill”. I’ve had it for ages now, that cape. And it has been in Bergie cos I use it as a blanket. I’ll be wearing it soon, finally. While banging a drum. It has arms and everything. I forget what I’ve got, a lot of the time. But I think I’ll be able to have a place for it in London for a while. I might be able to make sense of it yet, friends and rates and deal dependent.

These people are great. Running mates. Most of them I’ve crossed paths with before but often unawares. We are all still here though, doing this ridiculous thing.

Ellie and I met in the early noughties doing a thing best forgotten with a load of people best remembered. The money man was running the project, making what he considered to be art in a well loved space. He employed a couple of dozen young actors – he was the money man so he was looking for people he could attach his stuff to but didn’t have a great deal of instinctive discernment. He found a brilliant company by mistake by Sylvia.

The most impressive thing about it is that pretty much every one of the actors is still in the game decades later. It was the beginning of many great collaborations and friendships. Mel and I met on it, even if we forget that now. Ellie and I and ditto. Annette and I, but she inexplicably stopped using me or responding. Dan and I – we still see each other often, employ each other. So many others that I’m in loose touch with or could pick up very easily. I don’t want to list them any further as there are so very many and I still hear from most of them. Very few have quit, which is the point. Some are doing mad well. And obliquely, (precisely because it was a tasteless mess), the tasteless event we did led to Jon spearheading the corporate stuff he and now I have been doing ever since. The leader of that particular project would have made an enthusiastic mess of that so he blew his shot. No taste or understanding. People aren’t idiots.

This weekend I’m going up to Luton to do a powerful piece of theatre with an extraordinary small group of genuine creatives. And I wouldn’t be doing it if it hadn’t been for that odd thing we all did decades ago that introduced me to Ellie. “The problem with Al is that he says yes to everything,” my agent was quite rightly told when I signed. I’m getting better at that now but I still do it… “yes” leads to life, to colour, to mad joy. Without these things, why would we weather the waiting?

But it’s 11pm. The next few days are gonna be full on. Bedtime, I think. Night night friends. And if you are anywhere near Luton on Sunday, I think I’m right in saying that this round is free. We will be back in October. But if you want to be part of some sympathetic magic in a powerful place, this is the best link I can find…

Sleep well my pretties!!!

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