AlBarclay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A good day in the palais des costumes. I think it might be called The Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia Wardrobe Department. There’s enough here to do what we need to do. I’m pretty happy we’ve got them in clothes. Now its just about making sure they know the words they’ll be speaking, and speaking them with enough of a degree of confidence that it lands well and lifts the evening into an entertainment rather than just something a bit flat. They’re a nice pair of actors, new in The Factory and that generally means that I’ll trust them to pull it off. But it needs to be something. We can’t just phone it in. One thing at a time though.

Once we all had clothes that fitted us properly, I grabbed a bowl of microwaved pasta from the Eastern European greasy spoon and burnt off most of the inside of my mouth. Then I drove home and fell asleep for a power hour, washed the grime off and jumped into Bergie. Time for some relaxing seaside and fluffy cats, here in Lou’s sky cottage overlooking a bright moon over a calm sea in Brighton.

We took an evening constitutional down the seafront to SushiMania where we both ate enough and mostly cold food for £11.11 each. All the hipsters were out and about on the way back home talking nonsense to each other about eclipses. We stopped at Morrisons to get some mouthwash just to help protect my scorched and peeling gums.

Now Lou is singing to the cat instead of sending the email she is trying to send and I’m taking a moment to sketch this day here. Tessy is sniffing my toes. All is well.

In some ways it feels like the beginning of something as it’s the first time I’ve had people I don’t know very well coming into the workshop to try on costumes for a thing we are going to do for money. Having just had an email from Prangsta costing up another job it helps me crystallise quite how much money we aren’t spending because I’ve got this hoard of treasures. They want £350 each plus VAT and a £300 deposit each, for some pretty basic costume. It’s a wild and wacky world, the world of fancy dress, and when the industry leaders charge as much as they do, there might well be room for the free and independent republic of Frestonia Wardrobe Department (catchy ain’t it, I want a wall of text underneath it as well and branding that looks almost soviet. Name and idea subject to change at a moments notice. Look over there!)

So I’m feeling chilled and happy and looking forward to plugging in to the vibe here for a few days. Lines to learn, sure, but it is still August. School doesn’t go back for a while yet. I can climb a few more trees first.

And I’m home. Lying on my mattress.

Up in Chinley I had an attic room and it felt right. I like to be in the eaves. It became my office and my launchpad and my cat petting place and my blogging place. But my back started to feel funny as I’m absolutely spoilt by this mattress. Just through paying attention and having a car that can move such things, both of the mattresses in this flat are the kind of mattress that you pay absolutely absurd amounts of money to own. I’m very glad they both happened to me. Both pretty much unused, both from clean households that just needed them gone. I’ve driven some mattresses to the domestic tip and hoiked them and nobody has batted an eyelid. But these two stayed. I can’t remember which is the best, I think it might actually be the one that fits Brian’s bed. But they are both astonishing. And my body has missed it. I’ve been getting all sorts of aches and pains from lying on a perfectly good mattress up there with Gwyn on my feet. I’ve missed this hard bed. I’ve grown used to it.

The heat is passed for now. Even in the city it feels mild. Storms are coming but here and now it is just pleasant. A good night to break my country idyll.

I drove to Harrow and realised there was no reception at The Ryan Theatre, so I drove up the hill and parked directly outside my old boarding house, Elmfield. There were three windows I could see where I had spent a school year. The closest was where I spent my final year. The perfect room for me back then. Eminently scalable.

“If you can break the rules and get away with it then it doesn’t count.” That’s an official unofficial lesson from these places that you see playing itself out in all walks of life in this country for better or for worse. In that room, I walked back onto the hill when I had no permission to leave and saw my housemaster clock me walk past his window. I saw him leave his office and I remember I ran to the window, climbed up the window corner, wrestled the window from a crack to full open and sat at my desk with a book, trying not to pant as he burst into my room hoping to catch me. “Oh good evening sir,” and we both knew I’d come in through the window but he was an army man and that was the game. “Bit cold to have the window open.” “Yes sir, but I wanted some fresh air ” “You seem out of breath.” “I’m very excited at an idea I’ve just had for English homework.” “Good oh. Carry on.”

Today I sat and did a zoom read through playing a part that could have been me had I gone to the bar as I was advised to. I read the lines looking at that window, I could have been in that room in thirty seconds.

I left a note there in the desk one summer holiday, knowing that people from Dracula – the one with Gary Oldman – would be staying in our rooms. I assumed it would be Keanu Reeves.

I can’t remember but “hi, wow, welcome to my room, I really want to be an actor, my name is Al Barclay, here are my contact details, I’m really excited to go into the arts and be an actor, how wonderful that you are in my room.” I got back at the start of term and Claire Brayne-Nichols our wonderful “matron” had found the reply. “I thought of getting rid of it but I thought I’d leave it as a lesson. Take it with a pinch of salt.” A crew member had left me a diatribe about privilege. It was eloquent but absolutely vile to me as an idea. At the time it really stung, because whoever wrote it had no ability to think into different circumstances and was very angry about public schools. Empathy needs to be honed on both sides, perhaps. But also I needed a check on my assumptions.

I kept the letter, it was a cruel thing to do but Claire was right to leave it as a lesson. I had no reason to suspect until then that people would hate me for what I represent to them rather than what I am. I’ve lost it now in the mix of time, it’s probably somewhere. But yeah it was a hard lesson. I would read back over it sometimes, wishing me failure, promising to blacken my name. An angry voice but maybe one I needed to hear back then. I was an awkward fucker and needed a shift. I’m still an awkward fucker but I’m better at knowing.

Up in the morning, feed the cat, back to bed for a bit. Then up again, relocate the guinea pigs. I move their run to better grass every day. Then out for a coffee. Then back to clean up. Wiping surfaces, putting things away, cleaning the loos. I want to be asked to do this again because it’s a glory. So I’m making sure they come home to a home.

Sure guinea pigs are lots of work for squeaks and cuddles. They do know who you are though, that’s a lesson. They used to run away but now they know I’m a provider of lettuce and cuddles, and I take them to their grassy safari in the morning. Jesus they can eat.

I’ve tried not to spread out much in this big home. I’ve been living out of my small Wasserman rucksack from Paris. My rubbish has gone into Aldi bags and I’m driving them away and finding bins after missing the collection on the first Wednesday night. I don’t make much but for cooking. Hob is clean now. Everything is put away. It’s feels alright here.

Tomorrow I’ll be up earlier than I have been in order to change the tabloids for the rodent effluent collection. I’ll have to accidentally read all the nonsense that they’re shouting as I put them down. This is the right place for The Daily Mail, soaking up the micturation of rodents. It pleases me very much to use them this way but still I remember people in my life who I’ve loved who mistook that garbage for the news. I’m absolutely certain that the suspicious negative worldview they are peddling was a major contributing factor to mum’s untimely demise. I’ll feed those guinea pigs lettuce galore. SHIT ON THAT RAG MY DARLINGS! DRINK MORE WATER! WASH IT IN YOUR FILTH!

I’ll huck them out while the sheets wash. Hang everything up and then one bomb drive to Harrow. I’ve filled the car up with petrol that is cheap for now but still horrible thanks to that idiot. I’ll get to rehearsal just in time for lunch to be over and do some Shakespeare.

We went up Edale just as sun was setting. Just a fifteen minute drive and you’re there with the big sky and the hills. Gorgeous in sunset. I love it up here. Wonderful that my cuz lives here, she knows all the best places. I don’t like putting up pictures of people without permission so here’s a friendly creature instead. See those long shadows! This was just before we lost the light.

I’m coming to the end of this two week sojourn here in the big house up north. I’ll miss it. Sunday afternoon I’ll be back down south and immediately rehearsing and then looking at costumes and putting the “madness” light back on in the shop window. “I’m open for all the ridiculous things”. I’m looking forward to that as well, sure. It’s gonna be back to being very varied. But there won’t be much lying around on sunny lawns.

Meantime I’m still chilling with the animals and writing endless emails about Shakespearean entertainments. Jon gave up in the end and I kinda see why – it’s okay for me when I’m not employing other people, but as soon as there are actors involved who aren’t me and Ffion then my desire to be professional and not mess people around kicks in.

Gwyn likes to sleep on my feet still, but she’s merciful about waking me up. She doesn’t drag me down to biscuits until about 8am by which time I’d likely be awake anyway. And the guinea pigs know who I am enough to not object when I pick them up.

Two more nights in this attic room. Tomorrow I’m gonna try and be a domestic god. Liz left the place clean as a whistle. I am pretty self contained when I’m not in my own space so I haven’t spread out much, my mess is happening in the car. So it shouldn’t be too much work to make things shiny again for her and the family when they arrive. I’ll huck out the guinea pigs before I go on Sunday.

Apparently it’ll get hot again before we lose it. I’m not gonna complain. It seems someone bought the “Seasons Plus” package on weather so everything is amped up. Summer has been extra hot. So we might need Michael Fish in October to tell us everything is gonna be fine.

We ate out. First time I’ve done that since leaving home. A high street Indian in Chapel le Frith. A lovely old Norman town up here, and where most of the big shops are. Me and my cousin outlaw shared well, and it was gorgeous.

I’m making sense of the me that does office things. I am so easily distracted. But today was a day for it. It took me two days to build myself up to it.

All I had to do was edit some Shakespeare, make it look nice and send it to the client. They are being demanding, which is fair as we are charging what we are worth. But I need them to confirm. They’re a media company so they’re masters at wasting time and charging extra. I know and the venue knows that I can provide what they’re looking for better than anyone they could possibly ever find at the price. This is a thing I know so well now, playing into my two big areas of professional geekiness: Shakespeare and rigorous but flowing performance. But they want spreadsheets and measurable proofs. I even made sure I found two Factory actors for my Romeo and Juliet just so we have the media footprint. Our event company is very new and I need to work out how to make Ffion a partner.

AI is in the conversation at the moment, inevitably. Two of my potential clients want AI Shakespeare stuff. What a world we live in where these aggregators are called creators.

I can write this blog without brain freeze, every day, without fail. But that’s because I’ve given myself permission to do it without structure and to barely check my work. As soon as there’s the idea of assessment in it I freeze.

I found myself using Copilot. Not for text, but for donkey work. The copypaste Shakespeare texts always have line numbers that end up just in your script35. Placed in a way that seems quite random36 until you figure out it’s counting lines37 based on the way they’re spaced out in the text38

What I would have just ignored and sent to the actors, as too much work to get it out, I did with a prompt. “Can you take all the extraneous line numbers out please?” Blurpblurpblurp done. And then you have to read it to make sure it hasn’t randomly made something up to replace the numbers.

We can hate it but it’s here. So how do we get it to do the bullshit work so we can be creative. That’s what happened today. I had an enthusiastic dumb office intern who is brilliant at tech and thick as shit. “Can you format this better and make it look like a script please? Oh and change the font to Times New Roman without messing up the formatting.”

I currently say please so that it likes me more. Maybe I’ll end up being a better breed of cattle if that’s the way the singularity goes. With the hideous narcissists in power in so many major companies, this is the world AI is training on. My client would have got the same idea today without it but it wouldn’t have looked as shiny. But I had to have clear opinions and guide it. I didn’t like the font or formatting it first proposed. As I say, like an enthusiastic intern… Perhaps this is why some people who prompt art start to think they are making art. They aren’t. They can’t. But this is a curious tool for taking crap labour out.

In the daytime, next door is building an extension. In the night it’s still peaceful.

I had no idea Liz had managed to move into such a property. It’s not deeply furnished, there’s stuff in my lockup I would have brought up here had I known. Throws and so forth, things to stop me grinding a hole in my foot. But I’ve got the measure of this lovely home now. Gwyn sleeps at my feet, the pigs don’t run from me. I still can’t make the shower run colder than burn. But I just keep it extremely short.

Guinea Pigs… Was a guinea a small amount to pay for something that eats all the crap you don’t want and that poos guano? Like gerbils they baffle me. It’s remarkable how hygienic cats are when you compare them to all the other domestic animals. But we know each other now.

The builders start in the morning early and they listen to commercial radio. Westlife. Beyonce. All the stuff we are supposed to be listening to because the money owns the art. These familiar generic manufactured ballads. We all share them. They aren’t great art but we share them for a time and then new ones come and only the cheesiest ones manage to continue to have a life – sometimes in unexpected ways.

I’m watching them break down the job. It’s a lot. Of course it costs. These guys are skilled and they work hard. They were pissed off this morning as it had rained all night and they’re digging trenches for pipes and wires. At noon they I heard an “Is it me or is this really slow work today?” They’re likely lads but also the client is right on top of them offering them tea all the time so they have to be careful. They’re in someone’s home and even as they crash through with hods of rubble and the cement truck parks outside they are under constant scrutiny.

“Shall I make this corner good?” “Nah we’ll do it in one pass at the end of the day.” That’s what it should be. But “Shall I make this corner good?” “Yes of course it’s important we make it all good as we go.” Cos the client is clueless but listening. So time is wasted.

Anyway it’s almost eleven and tomorrow first thing those lads will wake me up with hits of the noughties and drilling. Gwyn eats early. I’m gonna get my head down.

Eccles Pike. One of the local hills. There are plenty round here with names like The Pig’s Back. Every day you see German bikers or people in recently bought gear standing around working out where to go. I’ve even seen paper maps. Remember them? It still isn’t illegal to have an A to Z open on your steering wheel as you try to work out which road connects to which with your bobbly compass badly stuck to the dashboard so you have some idea which way is north and nobody is gonna knock on your window at traffic lights and say “I see you’re consulting your map,” even if your map is taking up most of the windscreen.

Walking. Cycling. All of this is happening. But also “this is a commuter town,” someone said last week. And it makes sense. I hadn’t thought of it. Half an hour to Manchester. Half an hour to Sheffield.

This evening I went to see my cousin outlaw who happens to live in the same town as Liz. And we hoofed it up Eccles Pike. I knew what to expect having done it before with her. She’s a fast walker, surprised if you keep up without complaining. I’m happy to go go go. But I realised immediately that over this week of nothing that I’ve been enjoying, various muscles have atrophied.

It is glorious up there, and we are much like cars – we get worse if we aren’t used much. I was coughing exhaust fumes and leaking oil by the time we got to the top. But this week is about getting back in the world. What a glorious walk.

Gwyn slept on my feet all night last night patiently as I rolled around. She’s used to me now so she tries to lie about her food so she gets fed twice. She reminds me so strongly of Carlos who I looked after in Rye.

The guinea pigs are still an anomaly to me. They are just fluffy conduits. Is it a coincidence that their pellets look like their pellets? Their digestive cycle is so quick and they eat everything. They kinda show us what we are doing by doing it so quickly. Consume voraciously. Shit everywhere. Consume more. Shit more. Wait for someone else to clean up.

A very happy and slightly more active day. I’m gonna start weaning myself off this lifestyle now as London and Canterbury are stacked up for my attention and I really really shouldn’t have said I’d do the OH play.