AlBarclay

I thought I’d drive to Walthamstow. Turns out that’s something I would regret. Couldn’t find parking anywhere. Eventually got a pay and display spot. Paid for the maximum three hours, knowing I would be there for a little more.  Some fucker camped it. Issued the ticket as early as possible after the expiration. I got back to Bergie and loudly wished sickness on him. I paid money to park there and I would have paid for longer had it been possible. There were spaces around me for other drivers. Once again, the car tax, and the letter of the law over the spirit. I hope he gets nasty boils on his arse. Fifty five quid.

I drove there to see Soho Theatre Walthamstow, and to attend a workshop from a new friend. The theatre is great, there at the top of the hill, surrounded by impossible parking options and hungry wardens. Up on the third floor, Callum and Emma were working with people on Patrick Tucker’s stuff. I only met Callum recently, but he’s been running in this mad game for longer than I have. He loves similar things. And he is carrying the torch from Patrick Tucker. Patrick came to my school when I knew I’d be an actor. He did a workshop that I’ll never forget on cuescript Shakespeare, up at the top of The Butler Centre, where I used to go to Flambards every week. Back then I was a kid but I already knew I wanted this life, somehow.

I went to Chalke Festival with some of them last summer with Henry V. All things being even I’ll get to come back this year – they’ve been asked to bring The Scottish Play – cue scripted once again. I love this kind of work, I love how hard it is and what it reveals. Geeky rigour. I’m always on for that kind of thing.

On the way home I saw a Korean butcher. I pulled up and bought a brilliant ribeye for a good price and when I got out some guy was about to ticket Bergie again. I drove away. “Oh thanks, is parking still restricted here on a Saturday?” No ticket issued, but I didn’t trust that fucker. Making a note of it here to remind myself of the date and circumstances as I reckon he is gonna try and make out like he had issued the ticket already but he won’t have photos and I’ll have to go through the adjudicator. I’ll wait and see. If he tries it then he can have the arse boils too, but if not I’ll let him off and the Walthamstow guy can get double.

Apparently confidentiality is terrifically important. If someone took a photo and put it on social media it would invalidate all of our courses. So says the man running our Speed Awareness Course. For that reason I won’t write his name, but : there’s a picture of him in his attic where he’s driving like a lunatic. Geddit?

It’s him and another guy, they do an hour and a half each of presenting a bunch of slides in a PowerPoint. The voiceovers are human and the graphics is CGI not yet AI, so I’m able to focus without rage.

I drove at 35 on a straight empty road at night. I was too tired to make my primary scan the sides of the road and my secondary scan the road itself. I made the mistake of prioritising looking at the road, and missed the camera.

None of that would wash as an excuse had I driven pell mell into some poor family’s prize anteater. They would have a critically injured anteater and I would have been even later to get to bed. “I was tired and the road was empty” wouldn’t wash for the sad family of the anteater. Plus my children and my granny won’t be confident to drive with an anteater injurer. I have now learned my lesson boy howdy.

Said lesson was delivered in an old transport museum an hour and a half drive from Imperial College where I invigilated the morning shift. I didn’t want to be late so had to floor it to get there and I’m glad I did as now I know the error of my ways. I’m a new man guv, honest I am. I can feel myself walking lighter than when I came into that course. The scales have fallen away from my eyes. I feel free. Bright. I could sing. SING!

“This is a fucking waste of time,” John grumbles. My neighbour on the right agrees with him. I’m between two ladies, I’m one of the youngest of the twenty four people in this room. Our facilitator is trying to bring lightness to a room full of pissed off old people. I’m here and not on zoom mainly because I’m curious to see this executed in person, and partly because I hate zoom meetings with a deep burning passionate zeal. Most of the people here can’t operate their phone.

But on my left: “Alexander! My name is the same as Alexander the Great’s mother!” She is enjoying being here. She doesn’t get out much perhaps. It is adult learning. I try take a leaf out of her book. She gets me a cup of tea. Might as well enjoy it while it is in front of us.

We play guess the speed limit. We watch hazard awareness videos and guess what is going to be drawn next on the screen. We see a parked van and have to guess what the hazard will be. Will it be a car? A falling piano? A workman in the road? The reason we can’t guess what they’ve made up is because the made up car we are following is driving a little faster than the previous made up car where the hazard was more predictable. Of course. Now I understand. 

For the second half I can barely see the screen anyway. I took my lenses out to rest my tired eyes. My neighbour has taken out her hearing aid. “It’s bliss,” she winks.”Selective hearing”.

I am now more aware of speed. I was expecting to have to look at a load of pictures of dead kids. Thankfully it is more practical than that, less of a guilt trip.

I think on some level something has likely got through the barriers. Mostly the fact that if it is 30mph and people keep crashing at 35 they are only gonna drop the road to a 20 and nobody wants that shit. Toe the line now, hopefully avoid losing more liberty down the line? Boiling Frogs. “Why are you on this course? Because they offered it. Because points on the licence would be more expensive.”

£2400 in that room.

140 million in revenue annually. They try and balance it against a notional “cost” from injury of 24.2 billion. There’s even a slide to tell us this . “Yeah but that’s insurance companies and private individuals and so on,” pipes up one wag in our group. Occasionally I look behind me and see how royally pissed off everyone in this room is looking. I’m sitting towards the front. So I can see the screen. Ish.

I’ve got my piece of paper to take home. Learnt a couple of bits and bobs. Hopefully that’ll be it for at least three years.

Sleep now.

Sammy sent me a photo today of a Cresta Run timesheet. It was for The Willoughby Cup. Her cousin was riding and she knew enough about me to know it would be familiar and interesting.

I haven’t been back to St Moritz for decades. I went under my own steam a few times after dad died and we lost the flat. The last time I went I was was still at drama school. I stayed in the Soldanella, but round the back, looking after an old guy who was a friend of dad’s who had been shocked by a car crash he’d had on the way up the pass. Urs gave me a deal in an unused staff room, so long as I took care of Kyle. He was feeling old. We played backgammon for higher stakes than I was comfortable losing, and I won thank God. I marched him to the cash point the next day. “You’re your father’s son”.

It was cathartic to go back there, fund it with a double six, ride again. I would have been so fucked if dad’s ghost hadn’t brought me that lucky double. Kyle couldn’t believe it either. “Double or quits,” he tried and I said I had to stop. O knew he was good for it. He was the one who named the stakes. I was being hustled. Dad again: “You can make profit from hustlers as long as you pull out earlier than they think you will.”

I wouldn’t be able to get near my times now on the Cresta. I was incredibly good, briefly.

The timesheets haven’t changed. It brought it all back to see him as an SL rider, in the Willoughby Cup.

Digby Willoughby was my first boss. The cup is named for him. He was a Gurkha Colonel, and he was an incredible man, in many ways. I worked for a season as a Tower Boy for him, running the timing machines and doing odd jobs. Putting the flag up in the morning, getting to know the various people who came through the club. I flew back to London from time to time to audition for drama schools. It was that time. My Guildhall first round audition was one such time, a stolen couple of days. It cost me anything I might have earned. I’m so glad I did it.

Digby was compact. Traditional. He hated all the technology that was coming in to this amateur version of Bob Skeleton. The Willoughby Cup is a new innovation that plays to his strength. You ride on a club toboggan in normal clothes, no skin suits. They have a seat that slides forward and backwards on the frame. If you are forward, your weight lifts the knives from the back runners out of the ice so you steer with momentum only but you are faster. If your weight is back, the little knives are in and you can influence your direction a little bit.

Basically for Junction riding on one of those things you have to ride full forward until just before Shuttlecock when you have to pull right back, right hand forward, pull up to Nino’s broom and then push yourself into a good line round the top, coming forward just as you exit and enter Stream. Then, so long as you can control the careening toboggan away from hitting the sides in the straight you’ll have a reasonable run through Scylla and Charybdis and a good time if you don’t stick your feet in. There are some fine points of steering and line, but if you’re on a trad you aren’t doing what I was doing as a young man and trying to see how fast it is possible to go. I preferred riding from top, but I had a death wish. Were I to come back now, I would start in Junction season.

It’s funny to think I got really fucking good at something and I haven’t been able to afford going out there since. I love it though. Dad is buried there. It is part of me, that valley town where I spent so much of my childhood. But the people we laughed at growing up, wearing their furs, spending way too much on everything – they haven’t stopped spending. And daddy doesn’t work there anymore.

I miss the place though. Oh lord. This season no go but perhaps next season I’ll finally get back out there. My handicap will be awful, in light of my old times. I’ve learnt caution in some small measure since those days. Not much caution, but a bit.

A friend of mine has been done over by a client to the tune of forty grand. It’s an old friend of his, he put his trust in him, ran up loads of costs, did up his gaff and now he’s blocked on everything and he’s gonna have to pay a solicitor. That puts my money woes into perspective. Forty grand. Lawks alordy.

This evening I helped him load up a dehumidifier, some cables, a tile cutter and a chair. We got it all into Bergie and I drove it over to his place in exchange for a beef pie. The pie came with gravy and mash, kale and peas. A fine exchange if you ask me. And it was good to catch up with him. Helps me remember there are other people in this struggle. We met in 2002 and we are both still at it. Both have light in our eyes. But both of us need to dump from time to time to keep that light. I could have stung him for petrol but a pie will do under the circumstances.

I got home from pie and changed my sheets. He’s only in Pimlico, one of my local friends. I try to see him a few times a year. It’s always pleasant.

I feel like I’m gonna need a really good sleep tonight though, so pie might have been a heavy choice. I’ll settle it with some chamomile. My dreams have been very very busy the last few nights and I’ve frequently woken myself up mid sentence.  It’s likely my brain processing away all the travel in America, and all the Shakespeare, calibrating back into this flat with the traffic noise and the friendly nocturnal cats. But it means I’m not feeling rested right now.

In other news, I washed my ruff today. Put it in a pot with a load of vanish and boiling water. Now it is on the draining board as it is soaking. I want it to drain thoroughly and dry in shape. That might take a few days. I washed it because it was covered in makeup and yellowing badly in the middle, and I thought I might have to lend it to Jack to cover me for a Shakespeare gig next week, but the client has decided to drop their money on a band instead. We are keeping our prices in the region of what we would like to be paid. No point dropping them to guarantee the client bites, that way you end up pulling the bottom out of your own market. The ruff has needed cleaning for a long time now and I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk it. With Lou’s advice of putting it in the pot, it seems to have come out fine. Annoying it won’t get put to use this time.

A quiet day today but I wanted that. Would prefer to be acting of course, but I didn’t spend much, didn’t make much, got a free pie. My only expense was a chai latte in Maida Vale, for over a fiver! It is getting unsustainable these days not to carry home made coffee in a keepie cup. I’m pulling out my delivery habit, might have to do something about the takeaway coffee habit too, particularly when I’m near home and there’s a coffee grinder.

Let’s go back in time.

Reading. Elgar Road. 1995 – 1997.

A little house rented out to three students. Me, Adrian and Tim. The gas oven igniter doesn’t work. We have to throw a lit match into the back of the thing to get it to take. We do this daily for months and never remove the matches, which calcify into a strange monument to unsafe cooking.

At night, often into the wee hours, the three of us dream with each other, downstairs. We all love theatre. We are all creatives. We all love to make things happen. I’m the President of the Drama Society at Reading University and the three of us have managed to get a big budget from the student union. We are programming. I’m the actor. Tim is the director. Adrian is the writer. That’s the base dynamic, but we experiment with roles.

The soundtrack is from CD. We are playing Loreena McKennit, the Braveheart soundtrack, Under the Pink by Tori Amos, Jagged Little Pill. Late night music. Sometimes we play cards. Shithead, or Magic the Gathering. We write scenes and perform them for each other and with each other. We write whole screenplays. And we believe forward. We believe hard. In each other, in hope, in hard work.

I don’t often put my memory back to those days. They were happy and focused. I prefer not to look back too much, certainly my halcyon days will always be yet to come, but they were happy times back then.

This was the tiny community from which I launched into this dumb job I still do. This was the hope and the rigour at the start. Three brilliant clueless boys, who rushed home on Friday night to be in time for Friends, who wrote poems for each other. Who went to London to watch theatre and wanted to make it ourselves.

Adrian married a singer and moved to Leeds. He had a kid and he writes still, as prolific as ever. His stuff is and always has been brilliant. He has had good recognition now for it, and he has stuck to his principles and his work ethic. Various awards have happened. I’ve heard people describe him as “legendary” and honestly, I agree with them. He is.

A while ago I did some readings for a podcast called Starship Sofa. I wasn’t paid for them, used them as upskilling excuses. I wanted to get better at editing etc and refine my home studio. I stopped doing it once I was happy with my sound. The guy who used to book me recommended me to a guy who is building an archive of video recorded Dark Fantasy short stories.

The long and short of it is, I got booked and paid to record a fantasy short story. When I told them of my history with Adrian, they sent me one of his stories to read. I did it at a studio in West London, right next door to my favourite casting director. It’s where I went with Sammy to direct her reading a book about light-en. They are very rigorous there. We recorded it on two cameras simultaneously and we had just an hour. With faffing and way too many notes from the engineer at the start, we had to rush the hell out of it. I still can’t quite believe we turned it in on time, but we did, and we did it well. Me reading one of Adrian’s short stories to camera. It’s a delight. It is so familiar to those long long evenings dreaming in Elgar Road.

This is the brief: “A young king is deposed by his grand vizier. Having been ditched in a cavern to die, our feckless anti-hero has a face nobody knows, a bag of money, and a vicious revenge streak a mile wide.”

It is written in a very unusual person. And it is read by a very unusual person.

I’m very very proud of this weird thing we’ve done because it connects so deeply to so much of the strange history that got me to wherever the hell I am. If you have time and inclination to consume this unusual tale, please do, it rings through my life and my passions. And Jesus for the love of God please leave a positive comment that isn’t about the sound levels. That’s on the engineer, not me. The guy was a bit of a harlequin, bless him.

I should have shared this when I did it, but it came out of the edit when I was in full rehearsal for As You Like It. I didn’t have the headspace to look outside of Shakespeare. Now I do, I would like to share this with any and all of you. It is 40 minutes of sparky writing, embodied by yours truly. Enjoy.

THE FACE OF THE KING – By Adrian Tchaikovsky. Read by Al Barclay. With a moustache.

While my agent forwarded the video of my audition, I went to invigilate an exam. There’s a guy who does it who is really really old now and he sometimes falls asleep. One of the others pointed it out. “We should say something!” “

“No,” I said. I’m in charge, thankfully. “He evidently needs the money or he wouldn’t be here. We have it covered.” She only noticed because there were so many of us we were totally fine for every eventuality. When people have too much time on their hands they start to look outside themselves at last. Sadly some people carry judgement into that look. “I’m not falling asleep on the job,” she maybe thought. “Why should he?” Because he’s in his fucking eighties, and he’s no more or less useless than you are when I ask him for something, darling. He’s just making use of the downtime while you’re demonstrating busy. You are both achieving precisely the same result. I know if I ask him for something he does it well. Much of the communication in an exam room is via sign and whisper. He can’t whisper for shit, but neither can she.

But this is why I long ago realised that working in an office would be death to me. I love people, but there’s a path of least resistance taken by those who haven’t got a deep vocation, and I just don’t understand it. Who knows what he’s capable of, who knows what he has experienced already, he’s still showing up for work – unless he starts working against us he’s welcome, and the fact he’s unusual makes him doubly so. I’m not gonna jeopardise his earning when we have too many invigilators in the room, it is dull as shite, and he has a snooze because there’s literally nothing to do.

This passes the time and helps with the bills. It is the opposite of vocational. But I’m able to send in auditions around it, and if I’ve got lines to learn it is a really good focused environment. I will continue to tick it over. And hopefully so will he. And hopefully nobody will tell on him. Because it honestly didn’t affect any of us.

We have to get better at leaving people alone unless something needs to be done. The idea of people’s needs and desires – measuring ourselves against them and that idea… This is at the heart of so much of the bad thinking we have at the moment. “I’m not eighty so I don’t need to sleep, why does he?” “I’m not terrified and alone in a country the other side of the world so I don’t need to be taken care of, why should they?”

People are magnifying things arbitrarily to serve their own agenda. “These old people are sleeping on the job so you can never sleep. They want to take all are sleep from are childrens! Vote Reform!” I wish things were less reactive than they are, but this is where we’ve got to.

If you’ve eaten any of these negative narratives, if you’ve been fed phrases like “suicidal empathy,” try to look at the agenda. It’s hard to have a reckoning with yourself but this cruel frightened bullshit is really prevalent at the moment and it isn’t going to get any better in the short term unless people realise they are being manipulated with their own fear and selfishness.

Another 9pm bed. I’m just getting more and more rock and roll.

I drove up to a friend’s. I had a self tape. The client wanted a full length body shot on the slate which is always an absolute ballache. I did it and got my friend to pull out from the ident by hand. It always shows too much, the chaos of our little flats. The artifice of the barriers and lights. This is part of the craft, I’m okay with it, but there are people with a big room in their house who can just casually do the full length shot in landscape and have clean edges. If it’s summer I might go outside for it. Today we just let them see reality. A rectangle of barrier and then a human flat surrounding it. So be it.

The script is set in England, my character is English. My character’s vocal idiom is American. There were five details that slightly clang, some more than others. I chose to send the version written down, rather than to anglicise it. No point in being too clever, I figure. And if they like the version of me that calls my trousers pants, they’ll know I can substitute words.

Nice to have a shot at something so quickly on coming back. This one would be good casting for me, I reckon.

I got to hang out with friends in Camden afterwards, but honestly I’m not made of the stuff I used to be. I don’t want to spend money and time drinking until bedtime. I’d sooner go home and eat nice food, play with the cats and get to bed at a reasonable time. Boo and I hit the laser pen and now I’m contemplating going to sleep without even using sleepydrink, and its ten past nine. Who even am I?

I need to put time aside to tidy my bedroom though and fully deconstruct my case. I sacked the cleaning lady before I went to America so I no longer have the reluctant reset button that she sometimes provided when there wasn’t a major Jehovah’s witness conference to watch on YouTube. Got to actually clean up after myself again. Lordy.

Knowing the axe was about to fall, Lou and I deliberately have spent two days just existing, no pressure, down in kemptown with the sea and Tessy. I know she’s about to go into a high pressure work environment with mister lookatmework in charge.

I’m feeling absolutely zen now. My agent has done their thing and brilliantly got me a very apposite meeting. It’s a tape but I totally hear it in my voice. Last night Lou and I spun through the director’s back catalogue. This is an American casting director, I’m willing to drop this one at the feet of my agent. Yay for Esta.

Might be a fair few people in the mix, but actually I’m right for it so it is one of those chilled ones where I can just show me being right for it and they can deal with the old agent-politics. There’s a layer where the actor either gets the job cos they’re with the right agency even though they’re miscast, or they don’t get it despite being perfect because darling you just HAVE to cast Bumply, and I know you want Faceface McGee. I’ll give you Faceface for the lead, and I know Bumply will be terrible under pressure but I’m going to make you sling your weight around and baffle everyone creatively in the name of convenience. None of that crap here.

I’m in bed and it is barely nine. Got no reason to stay up. Lou just took off. I’ve got stuff to learn. The world has kicked back in. I’ve loved my night by the sea. Lou and I quite often go to sleep by 9pm. It is ten past nine. I’m going to bed. Sure, that’s way too early. This is the new Al, who went on tour with a bunch of people twenty years his junior, and his only major insecurity was not to do with being unable to keep up – it was to do with being judged conversationally when he was bringing up friends of his who have made an impact in one way or other. I really want them to revisit that crap in twenty years time when they are my age. Yes, I call the Google voice Fiona. It’s funny. I’m not doing it to show off, I barely know her, through Fitzrovia Radio Hour, etc etc etc. It’s funny to have a name , but I heard that being received like I was trying to drop a name CLANG. We are surrounded by friends here and all of us do things from time to time that gain traction. But these guys are all right at the start of their career. In five years time they’ll all either have surprisefamous friends, be surprisefamous, or have quit the industry.

The times I have felt most isolated on tour from the lovely group I’ve been working with have been when I’ve used an example from my life that has sounded like bragging. These people are still at the beginning of their journey. They are still maybe carrying the necessary mistake that recognisability is talent. This profession sells the most tickets if we can flog the idea that there are special people. And we are of the special! Be impressed by us as we apply our special to these tales of the mundane. Be inspired. Bleech.

Some people I know are doing really very extremely yowza well. I don’t mention most of them because I’m not very well integrated into the notional meritocracies that have sprung up around this business of telling stories. Just because friends have been allowed to do well doesn’t make me feel special, it just makes me curious about their journey to that in a way that I’ll bring them up to people getting started. But… I’ve been “the justice” in a cast full of lovers and soldiers, and none of them have been able to see “the bubble reputation” from the outside because they are all still “in the cannon’s mouth.”

Hindsight is 20/20. Perspective is tough. I love these guys I’ve been working with.

I’m too tired to cap my argument. That’ll do. The thrust is intact.

Grey rainy skies aren’t going to dissuade Lou and I from going to Friston for a walk in the woods. Although they might curtail the walk somewhat. It was pretty miserable, but she’s going to be in Mumbai where it is on the edge of the rainy season and hot and humid and full of mosquitos. A squelchy walk in the woods where we can see our breath will feel like worlds away for her soon.

Me? I’m back next week into the rollercoaster of temporary jobs chosen for their temporary nature and therefore unpredictable and sporadic and sometimes all consuming. Maybe a self tape will happen around them. Maybe an old contact is planning something. Time will tell and in the meantime one more peaceful night here in the seaside penthouse with fluffy miss Tessy and healthier food than I normally eat, and wonderful peaceful Lou.

After we squelched through the woody woods we went to The Sussex Ox because as you all know I’m a sucker for a place with a good kitchen, but we’re both watching the pennies so we just had hot chocolate and sat by the fire. Getting older is no fun if you can’t do old person things in pubs. We didn’t play Canasta.

I’ll be driving Lou to Heathrow tomorrow. They had to reoute the flight – it was going through Dubai. The Kuwait leg has been cancelled altogether but she’s off for this one and I’m confident it’ll be fine, as is Lou, but perhaps not her mum and dad. This world… It is getting darker and darker by the moment.

So I’m happy that we are coming into the light again here in England. In terms of weather, not in most other terms where it is sliding sliding sliding. I tried to hook the weather in Louisiana and carry it over by plane, but it only half worked it seems. Hopefully the rest of it is not far behind, although not the tropical storms and flooding bit please, just good old fashioned T-Shirt and tan times please.

Curry night tonight. Lou buys these home made veggie currys from a local business and they are gorgeous. I’ve been missing curry in America – they don’t get it right over there.

Into town this morning for a lunchtime meeting sending some emails and making some strategic calls ahead of dayjobby work next month. Clicking back into gear with all the scattered obscure things I’ve been doing to make ends meet for the last few decades. Man oh man… And I’m knackered.

Grace Sam and Jo are all meeting up on Mare Street for martinis and a London night to see off what has been a really special dynamic. Benjy went home – his son is sick. The circle is already broken. I took a call not to join them. Don’t want to blow money on London price booze. I love them, but I’ve got to look forward again. I’ve gotta start saving like a grown up.

So I made my lockdown Carbonara tonight and fed everyone and there’ll be enough for another helping when I get back from dropping Lou. She’s off back to obscure distant climes. Mumbai this time. They were originally routing her flight through Dubai but in the light of recent scattergun Iranian rage incidents she has a different route now. I’ll get to see her briefly in Brighton tomorrow and then she’s off, but this time she is just off for a few weeks.

I spent some time with Bergie today. He is not happy. I left a load of damp cable ties in him and he’s got a little bit mouldy as a result. The ties plus the fact that he has a little crack at the bottom of his windshield made him a bit damp inside while I was away. Looks like a pothole crack. I don’t remember it happening but it isn’t in a very visible place. I’ll fix him up, but first I’m gonna need to pull money in. There are more pressing things to spend on first.

Tomorrow morning I’ll bring a warm cloth down and just give him a little wipe down. When I’ve got a bit more time I’ll process the rest of his contents and I’ll get a windshield and bring it to good old Shak at Culvert Tyres, who knows Bergie well, and who I absolutely trust with him.

I’m happy I’m not out in hackney tonight even though I do miss those guys. I sometimes felt every inch of my twenty years older than themness on tour. But mostly I was absolutely enamoured of the fact that they all live as hard as they work.