AlBarclay

Tech went right to the wire in Bedford today. Barely time to do presets let alone warm up. There’s an ambitious amount of lighting state change and sound cueing going on. Venus our stage manager was worked to the bone today. Impressive work though. But we had to let the house in so there was no time at all for rolling around on the floor as is my wont.

As the play opened we didn’t really know if anything was gonna come out in the right order, including our lines. We’ve done it a few times but never under pressure and never with all the tech. My adrenaline was off the scale.

Problem is that immediately after my hardest scene I have to lie down on my front for ages and eventually be dead. Dead people don’t tend to bounce around lots. My heart was going like a jackhammer and I was lying on it. As Simon lay the shroud over me I thought I might have been bouncing up and down like a pogo stick. I wanted to pant like a hot dog to bring the rate down but all I could do was lie as still as I could and hope that my crazy heartbeat didn’t bounce me out of the theatre and into the parking lot like a Mexican jumping bean.

It’s a sign you care, that sort of adrenaline shock type reaction. But it’s also a sign you haven’t had time to warm up, frankly. I don’t get dicky legs anymore, haven’t since I trained and learnt to breathe. But it was close at that moment, lying heart down on the floor thinking about what the hell I say in my next scene, heart pressed to the stage and jumping. Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I haven’t got loads more to do so calm was a long way away. But I’m there now…

It’s a long drive back from Bedford. Both Venus and I regretted not making the decision to book a little Airbnb in Luton tonight. Nice to be home though now I’m here. The cats are fluffy and there’s an electric blanket which is on. I skipped dinner but had mushroom risotto for lunch. I’ll get up in the morning and cook eggs. Too late to eat now, it’s past midnight.

That was a treat. The audience really heard it, really got it. You never know what a thing is until you hear people listen to it for the first time. There’s a lot that was last minute, a lot that might have been more precise. But there’s a lot of joy in this thing we have. And tomorrow in Luton I expect there’s gonna be time for us to warm-up.

First night tomorrow. I’m still loving this bunch. It is a complicated and strange and wonderful piece of theatre. Unusual on purpose. I really respond to such things. I think of my favourite directors, how they all are in some way or another deliberately against the establishment.

So yeah I’m happy here making this thing. If you’re in Bedford tomorrow I know we could sell more tickets. Luton the night after. Then two nights at Playhouse East. It’s a short tour for something that has been so long in the becoming. Cheryl and Ellie and co have been eight years with this to get to where we are now. Eight years and fuck knows how many lifetimes. This is low budget theatre red in tooth and claw but for unusual principles, motivations, clarities, restructurings. This ain’t anything close to the stuff that annoys me where people just want to be looked at.

Of course we need to sell tickets for this though, and that energy in the cast does help sell tickets. We can’t afford to advertise for it and fuck knows how but Cheryl is able to pay us all. But I want this play to be seen. I want this work to be celebrated. I love these practitioners. Hopefully I’ll see some of you in the second half of this week.

Here’s the ticket link for this one. Come see. Pay money. Etc

Shameless plug done.

It’s a lovely bunch of coconuts.

Outside of that I’m just being functional and using Bergman as a vessel. Being reliable and physically safe. Carrying props if needed. Doing my job.

There’s never enough time in the day.

I got through the first thing I needed to record just in time. I was editing when the ventilator system in the block decided to go full on demonic and make a consistent loud rattle. The location of the sound really felt like the building was trolling me. I tried to get the maintenance guy out but he had clocked off early. It was egregious enough that I could let myself patternmatch a belief that he was watching me through the CCTV and cranked up the aircon when he realised I was recording then pretended to clock off so he could laugh at my distress. More likely the burst of heat that was released when I left my hotbox oven studio and pulled up the curtains to air it – that hit some sort of thermostat sensor and caused all the building fans to go into overdrive. It was cold air vented in from everywhere and something isn’t screwed in properly.

Almost always in these cases, the random reality bites harder than anything targeted. I was unlucky. I was under time pressure and feeling it and things outside my control weren’t perfect. Perhaps I should have started earlier but I wanted a lie in. As a result I didn’t have enough time to overcome the unexpected. That’s why we start early.

Still… I’ve got something done. I’ve done what I set out to do. It isn’t perfect and I want it to be perfect but art is messy and I am pretty sure the guy has enough to work with now.

Back at home and Brian cooked tortillas which was an unexpected delight and very welcome. I’m post prandial, happy of a day of work even if it didn’t go according to plan. My own stupid fault for not checking for edits. I’ll have a hot bath and an early bed. That sort of behaviour is habit forming.

I’m starting to properly understand my little soundoven now. It is functional and works very well in shifts. I spent too long on ladders looking for a thermostat control to stop the rattle, but as Lou says I just need to wear very little when I’m recording. I have wrapped the thing in fucking velvet now, stapled soundproofing to the outside of it, it’s good and I keep getting better at it. Should’ve made it years ago but never had the space. Long cold winter ahead. Unless they have noisy heating in that building it’s gonna be the best place to be. I’ll have to come up with some projects around my Santa commitments.

Mostly one thing.

Mostly.

I thought I would be able to have a nice day tomorrow prepping for Awaken Production Week. But getting home this evening I had an email from a studio engineer.

I’ve been reading a short story for an anthology. I read it a year ago so just used my annotated notes. Turns out the author has edited it and reworked some parts of it. Oops. The engineer must have thought I was randomly improvising large sections. I think he only got the courage to ask about it when he listened to the other story and I wasn’t making it up. So I’ll have to go back into my box and give new versions of all the edits.

Today was delightful at least. At Telos, running Awaken which will be my life for the next week but for tomorrow.

Sara has managed to get some chairs for the space, and also hung some small amount of serge. Any of you who know any theatre that has serge (aka blacks) that they are getting rid of, I know she’ll bite your hand off for it. She asked me to build the scaff tower and hang what little they had but it was the day I was at The Globe.

“There are loads of actors coming to help but we need someone who knows what they’re doing?” I responded: “I’m busy as is Canice, but I pretty much guarantee you there’ll be an actor who can work it out and upskill themselves in the process.”

Sure enough there was. That’s the joy of actors. You have a potentially very skilled workforce chasing an absurd dream. My best friend at school was an engineer. Things rub off. You’ll find actors who are very employable in many other walks of life. They are doing this thing they have to do, and as long as you can make space for that as an employer – the fact you’ll have to occasionally step aside if they get some filming etc – then you’ll get someone with a work ethic and a positive attitude and, randomly, some skill.

They’ve hung some half decent soundproofing. It doesn’t sound so cavernous anymore. Telos is a new thing and I really want well for them and now it isn’t so echoey they are gonna do their Racine.

Me? I’m gonna go into my booth tomorrow and try and finish this thing. It might turn into quite a long day which I’m not so happy about. There’s no fucking internet there so it might turn into something impossible but I might be able to rinse local cafes. Last time I broke my phone by tethering. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it tomorrow…

Siwan is extraordinary and I’m very happy to have become her friend. This evening we had a strong reminder from a coked up audience member of that truth. She agreed to record a thing for social media that definitely never needs to be seen by human eyes. Then she disappeared off to the bathroom for ages. But she LOVED Siwan.

Tonight was my last night on the Halloween Walk. Canice is on it now and Sam. I’m happy to have found people I trust to fill in for me. Neither of them are anything close to a like for like replacement, but that’s kind of better. The things I do are not the things they do. With stuff like this it is better to let charming people do whatever they do. I have my own eccentric full on delivery. Imitating it would be a hiding to nothing, it’s too personal and too immediate. Canice and I have shared jobs before, Sam has a work ethic you can see from miles away. The tour is in good hands, and if I’m free I’ll go watch it on the 1st and thoroughly enjoy not having to be the energy that sticks it all together. Because it is knackering.

Now I’m just back home, and the flat is full of people sleeping. Tom is in the sitting room trying to kip. I’m hungry though so I’ve booked a pizza. I thought I’d be good to just go to sleep but… reality bites. No way I’m going to sleep unfed even if it means staying up later than planned. I almost cooked a cassoulet I have in a can, but it’s just me and it would be too involved. With Tom asleep in here I only have a little window of light. So I’ll get expensive cheesebread.

Amazon was supposed to deliver a load of stuff to me for an upcoming job and they totally failed to deliver it, asking for a one time password even though people were home. Absurd little fuckers. I’ve never claimed something wasn’t delivered so that’s over the top as far as I’m concerned. It’s all just packing materials, but I need it all for a coming job.

Anyway, it’s pushing one and now finally I can focus on Awaken without obstacle. The next week I’ll have just one thing to think about. AND YOU CAN COME AND SEE IT! This one is trad theatre, fourth wall and all. Three different venues, there’s a director wot does directing. We had a rehearsal PROCESS. Kids, this is the bomb.

I’m very proud of and excited about Awaken. We are in Bedford, Luton and Playhouse East.

I’m at The Freemasons trying to regulate my temperature. I spent all day in bed with my laptop sending emails and listening to the rain hammering on the window. At one point I put pants on and closed the window properly so it wouldn’t blow in quite so hard. This storm is not fucking around. I saw a video this morning of part of the West Pier in Brighton collapsing into the hungry sea. As we gear up to plunge ourselves into darkness this night at the edge of winter, I knew I would have to be thrusting myself out into the heath again. And reader, I didn’t want to. I would like to be in a hot bath right now.

I edited and sent a short story. I like my reading of it. Haven’t heard anything from the engineer but he’s downloaded it.

Then I dragged myself into my car. The dream was to do my laundry. The reality was different.

I am wearing warm socks and all black. I’ve been waxing my cape. I don’t get much adrenaline for this these days and I fucking need it. None of us want to go out in this deluge. But I’ll put a face on. I’m gonna go get my cape and hat on. Oh hell. But somehow I still know I’ll enjoy it when it happens.

—

It was fun. It was wet. It was quick because it was fun and wet. I didn’t want to sit in it and nor did the audience. We went from place to place joyfully. But the rain was relentless for the first half.

Second half a respite and just wind. By the time I got home I was literally soaked to the skin and that’s with two capes on, one of which was waxed.

It went well. Now I’m back in bed. I think if I had my way I’d stay here for the next day until I start production week for Awaken. But no. There’s much to do. Oh joy.

Actually an unexpected moment happened just now. The Magdala. It’s a pub we love in Hampstead. We wanted to end the walk there every night, but it got temporarily shut down under very suspicious circumstances. The same way “team know how” from Curry’s found twenty year old mouse droppings behind an oven in my flat and used it as a reason not to install the new oven or take the old one down the stairs. If you know the game and have an agenda you can use regulations to your advantage. Apparently they found historic droppings in the Magdala somewhere and called it an infestation. Someone was in on it, I guarantee you. I call FOUL.

Tonight we ended the walk there. They’ve reopened, but the manager was leery of us stopping there every tour. She even tried to hit us with a minimum bar spend which was a bit “fuck you” but I like them so I rolled with it. Mostly we are going to The Garden Gate where they take your first born in exchange for badly casked lager. The nights the Magdala manager told us it would be okay to go to them, we will go to them, because I prefer them.

The Magdala had an excellent kitchen, excellent staff and was one of the best pubs in Hampstead. The negative stuff is about people wanting to turn it into flats. It’s such a shame. Money and greed using social media to try and destroy an important pub in the area, and one with proper history.

Pubs die all the time. Brian has a show about it. Choir of Man. It is always a loss to the local community when they go. Public houses are a way of bringing people together. They’re important for communities.

We had a great night tonight, and no rain despite expectations. And yes, that unexpected moment I referred to:

I left, told a couple of people I was leaving first. But I was trying to leave discreetly which is impossible since I’m wearing my hat and cape in order that there’s no possibility I’ll forget it. And everyone in the pub had been on the tour and suddenly I’m leaving a pub and someone starts it and suddenly literally everyone in there is clapping for us… For me under the circumstances. Yay etc. I’m the fruiting body of the mycelium that is Siwan. I’m visible in my big hat. It’s hers not mine but I’m the one shouting.

Waheyyyy etc. It was a pleasant validation. I just chatted shit to them for a few hours. We take the validation where we can though. And I’m fucking good at crowd-work now. Been doing it ages. Won’t do it for what they offer with most of the bad contracts across the major immersive shows in the industry. Often I see breakdowns looking for people with the skills I have where they want to try and pay them in buggery. No.

Anyway.

Tomorrow I reckon it’ll be soaking. I’ve bought some wax for my cape… Let’s see. It’ll still be fun even if it’s wet.

Today felt like a series of remarkable alignments.

Up at Sprite one day I remember It was standing at the edge of the walled garden talking to Jon and someone hadn’t shown up to one of his corporate gigs. At the time I was doing what I thought was right to build my skill and my contacts. I look at it now and I know I was working too hard for nothing. But back then I remember learning what the actor would have been paid, and wondering how the fuck they wouldn’t show up.

Jon clocked my indignance and he was misunderstood on the Sprite job as well. The director was putting energy into waste, and making it harder for him to turn in the excellent performance he turned in. We became friends in his adversity.

Jon started using me for the corporate gigs. Then when he decided to drop it, the baton passed to Ffion and I. And there we were today. Ffi and I are sufficiently different that it works. We are both absurdly busy at the moment but we’ve managed to just just just make everything that everyone needed for the thing today. It is an extremely positive creative partnership. We piss each other off but we love each other and we are both pointing the same way and we allow space for each other.

They wanted all sorts of AI stuff. We presented them with a script. We built it, I paid Lou to make a crucial costume, Ffi brought her sister in. Outside of the two of us we employed three actors today.

I even made Canice learn and deliver a sonnet. “That’s the first formal acting I’ve done for ten years,” he says. And he is fucking brilliant, every time, always. And this is the joy of the address book that I’ve got now. Joanna as The Wall, with a wall of really hard text, and not only is it learnt, it is learnt with attack because she is Joanna. Claude with sonnets and a clear legit and authoritative delivery. Ffi and I are there for the ease around it being a first gig like that for most. I kept my mic on to do occasional Voice of God, as the client kept moving the timings and the requirements.

Then home. A very happy client and jobs for those we love. This is how it should be.

An evening zoom to Australia, and another collaboration being discussed. Old friends coming together, this is an alignment of the mystic, crossing the world. Deep deep things and wonderful possibilities, and yeah, actually, this is what I signed up for. I never wanted it vanilla. I never wanted it easy. I wanted it to be weird and bright and forever fresh and possible. I was cash broke for decades while I looked for it. Now I’m here, still only just threading it together but doing so with expensive tastes and so long as I have time to pull that fucking ridiculously expensive Canterbury storage out then things are manageable in this damn city. Just about. Within reason.

No time for thinking. Much time for being.

Lou and I left in convoy this morning. I knew I wouldn’t be going back so she booked a justPark so she could get the train back. I absolutely still rate that service.

Tomorrow I’m going to one near The Globe for our gig there. I looks tiny but it exists. And £24 for the day in Southwark is, surprisingly, a good price, despite the collapse of NCP.

I’ll make it work. We are offloading costume at 9 so I’m gonna need to be up at like 6 to make sure of it all as the costume is still in Latimer Road.

We had a read through tonight of something that is so far down the line I almost can’t be bothered to credit its existence. But it’s a good script. Just not one I can look at yet or care about yet. Nice to connect with people. I didn’t connect too much. I’m too busy with other things. But the part could have been written for me and the things I do and care about doing. It’ll be a thing when there’s headspace.

Today we stopped at Crawley to change vehicles. Then we stopped at North Acton to pick up a sewing machine. Then to Sloane Square and tube into town for a matinee of Hayfever. This is a badly kept secret present from Lou.

I love that old stuff. Of course I do. Facebook reminds me that 19 years ago this week I was in Norfolk playing Victor in Private Lives. That job brought many more. I’m very happy and well placed in that stuff, and it used to be everywhere. The industry when I entered it was all about surviving to now, when I would be eminently employable. I survived but the stories changed. There’s still room for 50 year old posh white men but we aren’t the only story anymore. It took a lifetime for the world to adapt away from me and it seemed almost to adapt as I aged it on purpose. I’m happy to still have use – we aren’t sympathetic anymore, but I’ve always enjoyed playing baddies. I’ve seen enough wish fulfillment fantasy where some guy my age has written what they think they are.

I loved Hayfever today in the West End. Well cast across the board, I felt everyone was comfortable in their part, none more than Christine Baranski who absolutely owned it. They are selling it partly on the Grant name over hers, but she’s the star of it. He’s a proper actor though and has perspective. I was lucky enough to spend a day on set in the winnebago next to Richard E Grant. He took me under his wing bless him. It was my first job out of drama school and I was starstruck. I got to hang out with Withnail. And he was fun and kind and left me feeling like I could have a wide and strange career. Which I have.

Tessy is going bananas trying to get into the wardrobe next to me as I write. Outside that it is extremely peaceful here.

A simple routine. When I come down it is the weekend at the moment, and that’s been the vibe. Up in the morning and out seeking coffee and I liked the look of an Indian Restaurant we stumbled on by mistake. Then back here for a zoom rehearsal which was really helpful just keeping the ball in the air regarding Awaken, but I was freezing so did it in my coat with hat and scarf. Didn’t want to be shivering. Lovely to connect with them and that work again. I think it’ll come easy when we get into production week but I’ve still got two more projects to deliver and the last three tours before it becomes my next one.

Halloween is now automatic. I can riff with it, it doesn’t hurt my head beforehand, it is a happy place for me. Just forty people and all I have to do is be charming and witty and audible. That’ll probably be what they put on my gravestone so it isn’t costing me anything. I think I’d sooner have “So you’re still alive…”

So yes, I sat in the window and tried to remember my lines. And then Lou finished making a Wall costume for Thursday while I puddled around looking for mushrooms.

A little clutch of Wood Mushrooms. Didn’t stain yellow so not yellow stainers which are sicky. I’m still not good enough to be certain they aren’t bad amanitas though – I’d take a spore print if I was considering eating them but actually they are only my second positive on a wood mushroom… Agaricus Silvicola. Brown gills, ring on it. My rule is three strikes on the same mushroom with second opinion confirming before I can eat the damn thing, which seems stringent but when you have things like these which grow in the same habitat plus look very like the ones that murder you no matter what, it’s the least you can do really, to check properly. Life is fun. By and large.

This evening we went to the Indian. No time like the present. Had a perfect vegetarian meal for two for 32 quid. That’s the joy of not being in London and staying off the sauce.