AlBarclay

Well, the free trial on the coin identifier app didn’t end well. Tomorrow it said it was gonna roll me into a subscription at $6.50 a WEEK which is astonishing. The business model is clearly about being easy to find and then hoping your mark is rich. Of course there’s no way of unsubscribing through the app. There’s no website. Eventually I trawled through their comments and found them explaining to a disgruntled user how to go into Google and cancel my Google subscriptions. Naughty. Anyway at least I’ve learnt about some of the coins. I would likely have kept my subs for a year if they weren’t pricing themselves so highly. Nobody can sustain that for a numismatic collection these days, the price is likely set by the AI that made the app. Actually truth be told we could all probably make that app with our AI tool of choice these days. Likely the whole thing has been vibe coded. Give me a patient day with nothing but that as a job and I reckon I could recreate it. Because it isn’t very good but it’s functional. I should do it. We can all make ourselves apps for all our stuff now if we have the patience. Mostly they’ll be full of shit. And if we are unethical we can put them on the app store for moneys. But “This is your stamp” “this is your horoscope” “this is what you should wear” “this is how you should paint your house”. These inflated LLMs will keep reflecting us back to ourselves as we fade away like echoes.

Hence the lack of cancellation options. Likely the prompter realised that it feels like one of those early internet traps websites where you bought something mail order at a decent price and then they tried to take money every month and gave absolutely no way of stopping them and you had no means of contacting them and the only way was to cancel your card. I think they must have realised it is hard to cancel, but it would be too destabilising to take the whole thing down and put it back up with a cancel button (or better pricing) so they just left it there for the lazy rich to not notice for a few months.

I am satisfied that I cancelled it successfully. I’m gonna freeze my Monzo card before bed though just in case they try and take a payment at midnight. If they I’ll have to start getting creative with them.

Another good day today clearing. Vic my client seems happy every time there’s progress and we are definitely making lots of progress too. She’s got a full head sure. My job is to stop her needing to think about logistics, and to just start DOING. A lot of heavy things went up a lot of stairs. A lot of spaces were emptied and then refilled. My back held up until the last minute and when it twinged lightly Rhys noticed and took the brunt of the lifting from there.

I’m happy in this work, sorting and moving things quickly but thoroughly. And things occasionally pop up that are beautifully right. There was a Makita Sander stolen from the lockup back in the day. I never replaced it as I never had need but always felt sad that one day I’d probably have to pay money for a new one. But no, Vic gave me the same model today that was down there unused. “Do you want that?” without any hesitation and I wasn’t fishing. I’ll probably end up sanding things for her with it which is fine because I’m thrilled.

I’ve ordered some soundproofing material. I’ll get some spray glue tomorrow. And next week I’m gonna build a recording booth into the wheelie crate where the Doctor Who Thrones were kept (on its side, it works in theory and it’ll be portable… Then it’s about emptying Canterbury and consolidating everything that’s left. This week has been very helpful in terms of starting to build systems. Much still to do though.

Today largely I was on chauffeur duty. An old friend needed to move some paintings around and it aligned with my needs in that I had to go to the post office. I wrapped up my big parcel full of old shrapnel and together we descended on World’s End Post Office. I’m sending all my old foreign currency to LOC where they still buy that stuff, likely looking for rare serial numbers etc.

I’ve found a new app for coin valuation and got a free trial so I’m making full use of it at the moment. It is for numismatists. I’m taking photos of all my half crowns and old shady Victorian pennies and so forth. The app looks at them and assesses the condition. It is aided by AI so extremely liable to get things totally wrong with confidence. But as a quick way of establishing what things are and what people pay for them it’s proving a helpful tool and helped me find a somewhat unprepossessing George IV half crown from 1821 that is selling from anything between £60 and £600 online. I was gonna clean it up but apparently the patina adds to the value for many people. And the silver content gives it a good baseline. Haven’t really got the headspace to become an expert on antique coins as well though, there’s a lot going on at the moment. The chances are it’ll go on eBay with the rest of the ones that are worth about a tenner each if this app is to be trusted. Listing is getting quicker with AI tools so I might just sweep them into my coming wave of eBay flogging. I’m every day getting deeper into STUFF OUT mode.

I drove to Hogarth’s House. Had a little look around. You have to park in a layby. There are plenty of his etchings there. It’s an insight – right on a big arterial route out of town that would still have been busy with carriages in his day. Likely very close to a big noisy drinky roundabout that is now Fuller’s Brewery. A good spot for a man who enjoyed portraying messy people being messy.

Oh my lord my lord though, the winter is encroaching. Beautiful sunshine and clear sky in London today but as I write I’m thinking that, were it on my bed, I’d be considering popping the electric blanket on for a quick blast.

Much to do around moving things around. Flogging coins is the least of my worries but something I can do when I’m home and the day is otherwise done. I’ve never been very good at watching telly.

Funny how such a little thing can be interesting to people. Apparently they didn’t do that many because people kicked off about the crown being too big. People really do kick off about all sorts of made up bollocks. But it’s a reminder: even then we had demagogues trying to drum up support for nonsense, making an effect in the real world, spinning negative narratives.

The idiot who got a load of jobless men to use their cheap train passes to go to Dover and cosplay ninjas, he’s angry with the Daily Mail at the moment. Great people to be angry with, for once I slightly align with with someone who has the intellect of a stick. Some of his fat militia showed up in London to stand outside an office being completely useless and validating his self importance.

Nobody will ever remember this, least of all the idiots in masks as they are likely off their nuts in ‘spoons by now celebrating their “patteritism”. But that’s a thing that happened today. Crap flexing, jobless oafs trying to threaten people with jobs, all kowtowing to another posh kid in disguise who is more motivated by money than hate if he’s ever honest. But… going through all the Victorian stuff I’ve had, magazines and papers, political bits of ceramic, it makes me very aware that there’s nothing new under the sun. Twas ever thus.

Up to The Balcony Room this evening. The client was there talking through logistics with our point of contact. I had my actors booked for the evening and wanted to work them in the room for lines. It’s a scary thing being a producer. I can look after my input but I can’t do anything about anyone else apart from choose well and trust. I think I’ve chosen well though, and I also think I can trust these guys.

Perhaps part of producing is learning to trust MYSELF. When I look back on the event catering restaurants I used to manage, I know damn well that the reason I got good at them is because of the way I read people. My teams would work, everyone would feel they were well placed so long as it was a sincere team (fake waiters used to get put there by the evil overlords, tasked with being obstructive as if it wasn’t hard enough already). If I had a manager who took the teambuilding out of my hands, we’d all suffer, because people would be in the wrong jobs. If I could build the team it would always be smooth. Simple. Were I to go back to that work that would be my only request. Let me build the teams. I don’t think I’ll go back to it… but life is long.

This evening was lovely. We didn’t get the room until late but I got to introduce one of the actors to the booker, and we had the chance eventually to work with the extraordinary backdrop that Sam and his team made possible from The Balcony Room. It is such a beautifully located space, The Globe. And that room on a night like tonight is truly beautiful.

I’m actually quite excited to make a tasteful new piece of Shakespeare entertainment using these two young actors who have found The Factory and who give a shit. I employed them by instinct. I know they’ll rise to it. This evening I gave them a talk about the reality of corporate acting.

“They might be lovely. But don’t build to that. They haven’t bought tickets to see you work. They might think they can talk loudly throughout, they might think it’s totally fine to heckle you in or out of character. They might deliberately ignore you and speak louder to each other because they know you want to be heard and they want to show you they don’t care. None of this will be because of you, they will do what they will do. The only defence you have is to know your lines so fucking well that when they fuck with you you don’t fall into a hole.”

I brought up examples of things people have done in other venues in corporate jobs. I told the story of when we rehearsed audience moves for a musical entertainment for The Prince’s Trust and I played a nice version of an obstructive audience member (“thank you for the acting. I’m on my phone and I’m not moving. Please go and act somewhere else. You’re very good. Well done. Go away.”). and the director told me to stop making it hard for people. I said “it’ll be like that”. “No it won’t,” I was told.

It didn’t feel satisfying when everyone was shellshocked on the night because they were much worse than my warning. I really did try and would have been able to galvanise people had I been given any degree of credence. I was being paid the same as everyone else BECAUSE OF THAT SKILL. They were singing and dancing, I knew the event theatre game. It’s a different world.

But… I’m male and this age I am. It is sometimes hard when you actually know something but you’re inside that demographic that thinks they know everything. There are a lot of fools who look like me and were educated like me and who have loud opinions that have no use at all.

But yeah I think my guys are ready for whatever.

I’ll be on book as William Shakespeare for them and I’m framing it in a way that makes it possible for me to be on book and correct them if it goes wrong: “Help me out here, this is something I’m working on: it’s a love story. I think I’ll call it Juliet and Romeo, do you think it should be a tragedy or a comedy?”

I think these guys will be great and tasteful. I can’t wait. But they really need to learn their lines.

Canice and Frank and I met up in the morning. Big job today just starting, this time for the sister of an old friend. Trying to build systems and deal with logistics in a way where my client gets the value of what she needs taken out but everyone gets paid. I’m still young in this kind of clearance work and I refuse to underpay people so I’m more likely to take the hit on myself. So I’m paying my workers but not necessarily myself. But if I do it well then it pays itself back threefold in recommendations. Which, if I’m honest, is what I’m fishing for here.

There’s plenty going on. Confidential accounts stuff has to go into bags to be shredded. Free samples have to be destroyed so as not to pollute the market she stands for. It was a total headfuck in the room as the light was broken so just a dark horrid room. But … I came in yesterday to plan for it and made a decent plan. My client is a client that needs to have control of all decisions – that’s been their habit for decades. But thankfully there’s a trust between us. I suspect I can use my team to get this done, charge her a fair price, and solve a problem for her.

Frank was on photo and eBay duty. We had various annoyingly bulky stuff we had to get rid of. Rusty bikes. A baby buggy. Nothing sold yet but he’s been listing them on Facebook marketplace. I have given him access to my pristine eBay account as well. Fingers crossed. I trust him, but my mistake was to tell him the whole job. My learn is that I have to partition the jobs first and then just allocate responsibility. I never need to say how big the job is, I just need to know what I need from people and express that to them. #learning. Made that mistake before with Dave on a warehouse clearance where he came knowing how much he was being paid and rather than just doing it he started to try and take responsibility for the bigger picture even though it was covered. “You should start with this bit and then go to that bit,” he told me with the certainty of someone who literally hasn’t a clue but is panicking. I knew we were fine, I just had him on for an extra pair of hands, so I told him “I’m looking at the bigger picture so if you have a detail shift I love you for making it happen”. Then to everyone: “Dave has an idea. He’s in charge of taking things out, I’ll get on the load instead. He’s got a system he wants to implement. Let’s try it.”

I didn’t do it to shut him up. I did it in case his system was better than mine. The result was to shut him up though. He didn’t have a system, he was just freaking out at the size of the job.

He remained panicked for the whole day and I sent him home early in the end as I knew I was better off without him. Bodies are useful. But there’s a point where people can get in the way of themselves and everyone else.

He got sacked from the same boat job that I got sacked from which is the entire reason I tried him out. I wanted him to be great and them to be wrong because they were hideous about that process with me and exceptionally wrong.

My sacking was unnecessary, baseless and out of the blue, but I reacted very badly to it (for that reason) which gave them what they needed. I couldn’t go back at them because I went into a spiral about it and posted it here on my blog with all sorts of assumptions. And then harboured a grudge against the guy who dealt really badly with it, the new head guide, Mike.

At the time the work started fading I desperately needed such work and couldn’t understand why it was petering out. I attributed it to all sorts of things, but picked the wrong villain. It was Nick all along. Mike was just too weak to deal with it and wouldn’t tell me for some reason. Nick the skipper didn’t like me. For class reasons. Wanker. And he told them he didn’t want me guiding on his boats. Nick. Pig.

He used to try and knock me over. He would watch for when I took my hand off the railing and gun the engine in reverse. Then when he realised I had caught on, he would go backwards forwards. Always it would be fine but clearly it was him being extremely dangerous. Then one time when he knew I would be swapping from one side to the other he got the moment exactly right and did backwards forwards backwards forwards and the fucker got me.

I fell from the prow to the side of the rib and would have gone overboard if a passenger hadn’t grabbed my leg. I immediately got up, saw him laughing, and said “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Nick the skipper, he thinks he’s being clever by trying to make me fall over. He’s done it repeatedly for months and this is the first time he’s actually managed it so let’s all give him a cheer. ‘Hip hip…”

His voice from the back: “I was fouled on something.” Me: “Ladies and gentlemen, Nick the skipper is trying to make out this was an isolated incident but I’ve asked him about all the previous times at this exact moment and he always says he’s fouled on something. But he is no fool, he knows it’ll affect me, he isn’t fouled he’s watching for when I shift my balance.”

One time he even moved the bar from one side of the boat to the other on lunch cos he knew I would use it to lean on.

Nick. Absolute baddie. Is he gone yet? I really hope so. I had nothing against him until he took against me but he took against me hard and fucked my earning horribly. He was their most regular pilot. Spite keeps people alive, look at Rupert Murdoch. He might still be doing it, although he might think it is more important these days to go and stand in the sea dressed up as a ninja or shout at hotels… I bring my politics into my tour guiding and I think he might have been a little bit simplistic and a lot nasty.

It still hurts, being taken off the roster for those boats so suddenly and based on nothing. I was brilliant at that work.

I’ve found other mechanisms which I might not have found had they not pulled. But there was no logic, no kindness and no fairness.

Anyway Max and I had a pint this evening. With alcohol. Which is perhaps why I’m going over old wounds? Because in the long run, I’m the employer and all is well. I just have memories of things past. Nasty Nick. But also a very bad office.

Slower today and looking at the learning and admin that I kicked down the road for Sir Toby.

I’ve been happy today. Good news for others is making my view on the world a little brighter. I did a fair amount of running around today, seeing about the next phase in the stuff journey – the expelling. The stuff has been removed from where it slept and roughly sorted. Now it needs to go to a bright new future where I’ll be paying monthly for it. I knew this would be a busy patch so I built the cost of storage into my quote. But we are coming close to time to push it all out the other side now for better or for worse. Out out out out. Or it was never worth taking it in in the first place.

Stuff out, words in. This is the next few weeks. I’ve got two fucking AI scripts to learn now. Two of them. It’s madness. It is exceptionally difficult to learn that dross because it has no internal logic, no truth, no feeling. It is entirely dead. But … in absolute truth it is no harder than some of the stuff I used to have to learn in the early days for corporate training videos. Did one of those recently and it was just atrocious. You have to use mnemonics and so forth as there’s no internal logic even if written by a human. So … I’ll learn whatever they’ve sent and I’ll deliver it and it’ll be fine. It’ll take time, but it’s part of my job and I signed up for this a long long time ago.

I buzzed around my borough today, saw a few old friends, looked at some potential work for one of them, grabbed some bits from the workshop. Tomorrow I’ll start a wee project. And life, just… life. I’ll happy it’s still warm out there. And even though there’s two shows at Harrow in a fortnight I’m pretty happy that I can park worrying about Sir Toby now we’re done with the Wanamaker. What a treat that was…

Did it again for a matinee. We still didn’t have the space in time – this is a hire so we can’t warm up. There’s a mezzanine I often use when getting my shit together for corporate stuff. We ended up there and Adam had his lanyard on cus he does education. But there’s a cancer in that building. I don’t know how to shift it. It might be because they rely so much on sl…  on volunteers.

We were (not ostentatiously) warming up as a group a little bit before the space became available, in a circle. We were aware we were in public and weren’t doing anything noisy or requiring focus that takes us from where we are. It’s a barely used mezzanine. There are many toilets.

Some well dressed old guy came by because there’s a loo there, and we all made space for him, and we were lovely to him, and we made him welcome immediately. We stepped forward so he could walk behind. But he still knew there was a circle of actors and he really wanted it to be all about him.

Despite us being very open and easy for him he behaved like we were an obstruction in a way that felt completely artificial and forced, playing to his narrative. “Am I expected to do a cartwheel or something to cross this space?” “No no absolutely not you’re not interrupting anything please don’t feel you need to change your behaviour in any way.”

Who knows, maybe he was creatively involved in the main house show, I hope not cos he seemed like a secretly nasty piece of work and I don’t want that of that space. Whatever, he evidently went and moaned to someone and before we knew it two concerned young women in lanyards came up and told Adam (coz he had his lanyard on) that we were being “too noisy.” For who? We weren’t. They just needed to be seen to respond to whoever that old guy was. It was fine, we didn’t have to stop. But this sort of thing is RIFE in that building and it is to do with departments and possession of space and money. And it is so unnecessary and sad in a building made from passion to celebrate one of the greatest humanitarian world playwrights.

Adam put it very well when he said “It feels like it is an old old space, but actually it’s only young”

So yeah you’ve got three primary departments. Education. Swan. Main Space.

If they could play nicely then it could be one of the most potent art spaces in the country.

But again and again I see the different departments egoing about space rather than collaborating. It is extremely frustrating.

It was better a few decades ago, it might be better again one day. There are still good hearts in the building. Sam was the heart of it and those who carry his torch really would help us all if they didn’t carry it lightly. It’s a building built out of passion for the arts. There’s no room for your shitty ego. It is a lot, to carry the legacy of these people. And I know all too well the sort of nonsense The Swan has to put on to satisfy their clients. There’s an AI script we’ve just been sent which is horrifying.

Corporate, Education, Creative. They could all play nicely. I’m almost tempted to formally propose myself as a liaison. I haven’t worked or auditioned mainspace though. And until the building communication is fixed I’d never identify myself as someone who works for and with The Swan. Because… we are just an obstructive noise on the mezzanine as far as IMPORTANT is concerned.

I know Sam understood Shakespeare’s voice. I think I know what he would have wanted for that building. I think of my old friend Diana Devlin who I would frequently have a drink with after events. She was a historian and also got it. Where are these heads now for this building? I would love to talk to Michelle on this subject.

This weekend I’ve been involved in an outside rental show for this building I work in often. They took a vast amount of money I reckon to let the old school use the space. As it happens some of us are Education Practitioners and some are involved with The Swan. But honestly, hierarchy be damned. Dost think that because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?

We were treated well but at that price of course we were. The staff also were good and thoughtful, working hard to time things well for us, absolutely brilliant all three of the ones we had. But with the mix of us all it got me thinking about how much better that building could be at coming together. Which got me thinking about how I might be able to help.

I normally warm up pretty obsessively. For Othello I was usually first in, gradually getting my shit together with the luxury of time and space. Tonight though the schedule didn’t allow it and there was nowhere to go. There were so many of us, and the Wanamaker is a tiny space front and back.

I warm up fully because I know my own body use in the moment. I need to be in my body when I’m working from the start because in the immediacy I’ll do something big and physical that makes sense at the time but if I’m not warm I’ll go home with a sore neck.

My neck hurts. It’s a gurning injury. And it is entirely because I wasn’t warm. I was out on the South Bank half an hour before the show. Lovely evening but I have to remember that the habits I’ve arrived at come from experience.

We are visitors in the Wanamaker. We do not have the infrastructure of SHOW. We were still rehearsing when I would have been warming up. And then I needed a coffee and a bit of air and to see Lou.

—

With a good pack of audience it felt very intimate there, and they could give a little and make it feel like a lot. Lou was there for the first half, prearranged with her exit back to Brighton. I really felt the lack of her sort of team on our side. I appreciate from her how much laundry happens while everyone else is in the pub. Someone with a bucket at the end of the show would have been a tonic. I came off stage and my shirt was an oil slick. Close packed audience and candles plus unwarmed Al gurning through Toby largely unidentifiable thank fuck as there’s no programme.

I’ve taken the shirt home. It needs to be handled with tongs. I’ve put it in the machine. Now I have to stay up until it is finished. I’ll run a bath to see if my neck stops hurting with warmth. And then a matinee tomorrow and if I hang my shirt by a window before bed hopefully it’ll be a bit less wet than it was when I peeled it off.

A delightful day. All the staff at the Wanamaker were lovely. This is a capitalism hire for them so they don’t necessarily have high hopes for us as people – the fact we’re a booking from poshyposh school likely makes it hard for them to not expect what you’d expect if you were told two dozen old Harrovians were about to happen to you.

I hope and trust we did ok with the venue.  One more show tomorrow. Hopefully my shirt will be dry in time. It couldn’t be any more wet than it was when I put it in the machine.

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…

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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.

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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.

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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.