AlBarclay

Over to Freston to do various things. It’s brilliant as a work away from home place. If only there was internet. I rinsed my phone data setting up the voice booth and ended up paying a fortune to add more.

Today I operated everything through my phone rather than tethering. I think my laptop tried to update over my phone last time. I blew 20 gigs in a minute.

Free hotel rooms in Jersey and free food came with a price in work. It was beholden on me to make content about them. You’ll see it on my oft neglected Instagram at @alecsparkly . It’s not something I’ve been in the habit of doing, that sort of content, but I’ve got the software from self tapes and over the course of two videos I had some very useful learns. I used my sound booth to record a narration. It’s dark in there because I let the light run out of battery and the light strip I bought isn’t chargeable like I thought, it has to be plugged in. It gets hot in there as well. I’ll be in there for an hour tomorrow and it’ll be sweaty at the end of it. I don’t really want to leave it until I’m done just as going away and coming back will affect the sound environment and might be jarring to listeners.

Still it’s a good thing. It’s a start. It’ll be useful.

Claud showed up and I fitted her in an Elizabethan dress with a bustle and corset. She’s gonna be helping out at The Swan for the next event. We are training her up. She’ll be great.

It’s a bit more up in the air than usual this one. Hard to judge what exactly the client wants. Lou is making a wall costume. We are doing what we can to make what we think they are after. I’m sure it’ll be fine. The amount of random stuff we’ve ended up doing over the last few months, this is just more of that surely. I find I genuinely care too much and it makes me worry too much.

November is filling up now. I keep thinking there’s gonna be a stop. I think though that the stop might be December. No Carol. No Underglobe. I am trying to avoid Santa. No Panto. Someone’s gonna hit themselves in the head or something and I’ll end up on stage with three days notice… But if not I just might have a peaceful festive season, calloo callay.

That’s more than I can say for the next few weeks. I’ll take my stops where I can but there are lots of things pulling my thoughts in lots of directions.

My only night off tonight for some time. I went to the Affordable Art Fair. Didn’t buy anything. Saw some friends and family. Left early. Going to bed early after a hot hot bath. Night.

AHH.

I’m knackered.

The dress rehearsal of our Halloween Walk. Joanna had met some lovely people who work at Fenton House. They came along to help make up audience, as did Jo who was in it for a decade. One friend had a group booked, totally forgot, and styled it that he was unexpectedly busy when I rang him asking when he’d arrive. I’m glad he forgot so completely that he picked up the phone to me. It meant I heard the penny drop but it also meant we didn’t waste time wondering if he’d show.

So it was me and five women out on the dark streets of Hampstead.

Considering that, it was very heartening to hear them genuinely laughing. I was trying out new material as I always do. This walk is closer in discipline to a standup routine than it is to an acting job, but it has the wonderful get out of jail free card that unlike standup, it isn’t supposed to be funny. I just have to talk to them. And the ladies tonight were all lovely and clever so it was fun.

We had a few pub changes last minute. The Magdala has opened again after greed tried to shut it so we will try and end there when possible. And the manager at our middle pub fucked it. We hadn’t met her in scouting or we would have read it by instinct… People like her get my back up. My instinct is to say yes to everything but snacks. That’s a good way to exist as far as I’m concerned. She’s a “no” person.

We had a great experience a few years ago with that pub, but it all stands or falls on the management. We are asking unusual things in exchange for more punters at a busy time. We are predictable and disciplined, but we operate on nights when pubs are crowded.

Her being an instinctive “no’ person manifests as borderline rude. Having just had a wall in our faces, we walked 2 minutes up the hill to The Duke of Hamilton. We walked in to the Duke having just been repelled, and literally before we had even asked they recognised us and said “Do you need to store some stuff?” They were thrilled to see us, we used them last year, we weren’t gonna use them this year, but they won it right there at the last second. So we rejigged it. Now we’ll go through them instead.

We wanted to bring it to the smaller pub down the hill and we had arranged it as such. We know it can be good for places like that to have guaranteed custom. But everything suddenly felt like it would be too difficult.

Tonight we asked for somewhere to temporarily store a box of masks for the dress rehearsal while we worked out the logistics. She didn’t even ask what they were, how long for, showed no curiosity at all. “There’s no space at all,” she said, with a cellar beneath her feet and an empty private area above her head. “Absolutely none,” she insisted.

Once we knew The Duke of Hamilton were okay with us stopping there instead, we told her to strike us out of the diary. Communication had been tricky anyway between her and Siwan – this was not the first alarm bell.

We told her and she suddenly came across all passive aggressive with “I’m sorry if I “offended” you.” on repeat.

She hadn’t offended us. She’d blocked us, sure but more importantly she’d exposed an instinctive “no” which is Creativity Death. No point wasting time when you hear that knell.

You’ll notice I haven’t named her pub and I won’t. This isn’t a vendetta. It’s just a bad personality alignment. We are Peculiar London. We like Peculiar People.

Book a ticket!!!!! This Sunday we are so undersold it is almost worth cancelling. Go on!!!

Fun fun fun fun etc etc etc etc

This morning I woke before the dawn even though I didn’t have to. I went out into the garden of my wonderful room at The Somerville and watched the dawn. My last morning at that lovely hotel. Good to make the most of it.

I took it easy today. Let myself rebuild after filming. Didn’t put any pressure on myself to DO even though I was in Jersey. A full English breakfast. Then I checked out. I had a full meal at Tides Restaurant last night. Sure I paid for my drinks but everything else was on the room. When I checked out I half expected them to hit me with unexpected charges. Instead I got an unexpected compliment. “Your style, your clothes and the way you are – all the staff are talking about you. I’m glad you had a good stay.” I’ve been nice to them and I’m twenty years younger than the average punter there. It felt like he was being pleasant to me, not concealing a barb. I walked away smiling. Nice to feel relevant when you’ve just been the old guy on set.

“We should do more of these. I’ll be your Peter Cushing,” I told the director.”Fuck yeah,” he agreed and showed me some incredible stills on his phone that I can’t share. I’m genuinely quite stoked at what this tight knit Jersey team have achieved. I think it’ll look beautiful.

“After today I’m gonna forget about this until it’s made. I want to be able to watch it without remembering my acting choices.”

It’s hard to watch yourself. I hate it, but I’ve got better at it because of self tapes. I feel for Andy the director, going solo into the edit. He’ll have to watch himself acting a lot. He never did too much though so I think he’ll forgive himself. And he’ll have to spend a long time looking at my big long face too. By December I reckon he’ll have as many lifetime “looking at Al Barclay face” hours as I did at the age of 40.

I barely recognised him this afternoon without his goatee – the missus made him shave it immediately after we wrapped. I was driven into St Helier by a fresh faced young slip of a fellow.

Then absolute whistle stop catch-ups in town with an old schoolfriend (ten minutes walking while he mostly took phone calls) and a very quick catch-up with Adam, who took me to the airport.

Up and down is so quick. The flight was to Gatwick. Took me no time to get home from there. Jersey is currently accessible – even with the fuel crisis it was £35 to fly back this evening, all in.

I’m happy to be home. Switching my head again again. Halloween now, and perhaps an audio book recording if I’m up early enough. To which end, goodnight goodnight my darlings goodnight!

I’m in bed in one of the Garden Rooms at The Somerville Hotel in St. Aubin Bay. It’s one of my favourite parts of the island and this room is a treat and a revelation.

We finished the filming today for Bread. It’s a film about sacrifice and fear, need and desire. It’s a folk horror short, beautifully shot on a shoestring. Core team was an experienced director, DOP, Sound and Lead. Everyone else working upskilling. A happy set though and the basics were covered. We were incredibly well looked after by local Jersey businesses. I’ll likely name them all in later blogs as I’ve felt very involved in this process since arriving here and seeing what people have given to help make this a thing.

I didn’t really fully understand the extent to which the film is gonna be about me experiencing things. But yeah it’s me and my beard vs the ineffable. There’s virtually no dialogue. It’s about light and feeling. It’s film. And a very lot of my face.

“Jen is a great contrast to Al,” says the DOP. “She looks so young and fresh whereas Al …” and he glances up at me and isn’t sure if he should finish the thought. He’s been looking very closely at my face for ages and I’m not made up here. It’s his job to look at my face and he’s getting me raw, I didn’t tend my beard on purpose. I’m chaos. I try and finish his thought for him with a smile: “Whereas Al looks like he’s been through the fucking wringer backwards because he fucking has.” I’m ten years older in years than the next oldest person on set and “I’ve seen things”…

It’s in the edit now and the DOP is upbeat about my craggy face. “Some people look beautiful off camera and look flat on camera. Some people look weird off camera but they ping out on film. You’re one of them.” The sound guy is sound and the director is a mad delight. Everyone seems happy with what’s in the can. Apparently I’ve given a great performance so now it’ll be put together however it is put together, my work is done, I only have to try and show up for the premier and then see how it does in festivals. If it gets through the edit. There’s plenty of stuff I’ve done over the years that died after the shoot. But I’ll enjoy the feeling of a happy set tonight.

I’m in a certain amount of pain this evening. I’ve already told you the director isn’t an actor but he’s in it anyway for budget reasons. Before the fight I tried to teach some rudiments, the aikido stuff and curves versus direct. Only once and in the heat of the moment his opening move was an open palm directly to my rib with his full body weight behind it. I had tried to say “avoid impact at all costs, you can sell impact with the reaction and pulling away at speed”. I don’t really blame him but in the heat of that moment he bruised my rib. It’s not broken, but it’s a rib I broke once by skiing into a metal pole to win a race. That kicked off all the fun with double pneumonia, lung collapse and a year off school. I’ll keep an eye on myself this time. I’m not a teenager with parents who are divorcing this time so I’ll action it if I start to feel my lungs filling with mucus.

Bread. A Jersey film, here where we all have currency with the French language as well as Jerrais. Bread. Pain.

I have my way through the journey of the character. We’ve tried to avoid answering questions whenever possible. But I’m in pain tonight because of that bread. But … I’ll be reet. And this footage we took this weekend, I think I’ll be able to stand by it for a long time.

Half past eight. I just went to The Muddy Duck, which is my favourite place to eat in Jersey. It didn’t exist when I was living here but I found it by happenstance just after it opened about eleven years ago. Since then I go back whenever I can, even if I’m only here on the island for a couple of days.

The hardest day on set for me tomorrow by a long chalk. I’m gonna have to fight and die. I’m also gonna have to find an authentic journey through that. There’s a lot of action in this script and very few words, as film should be. I only have to tender my journey, really. But we are a small unit. And the director has put himself into the film despite not liking acting. He can serve it when he has to, he just doesn’t want the lens. Tomorrow, I’ll need to make him take his time over things and I’ll need to persuade him that he needs a close-up when we square off to fight about the bread. I think if I don’t suggest it as a shot he’ll skip it. He is good at the stitching but he’s deliberately stitching over himself knowing he’s not an actor but he couldn’t find one.

That said I trust his vision. The DOP is local and is genuinely excellent. The Sound Guy is a sound guy as well, as they weirdly always are. He’s the only crew member with a Leatherman on his belt. (I didn’t have mine as hand luggage only, so couldn’t do the old surprise actor tool use). He made a hole in my belt. No wardrobe department here. This is a skeleton set. No gaffer. Skeleton lights. But… we are so fine with the skeleton team we have.

This is a local Jersey film with a few deep practitioners in core roles. There are four of us who know their role deeply, and at least the four of us know our roles very well. Director. DOP. Sound. Lead. You can make something good with that square even if everyone else is learning.

“I don’t know if this island could support a native gaffer,” one of the lads says. And perhaps they’re right. Gaffers need a van really, and if most of the work is on the mainland then they are at the mercy of the weather to get their equipment over. Lights are both precious and heavy. We have been shooting outdoors, so natural light directed via diffusers and canopies.

This is low budget film but the team is good. There’s a shot at something here. If this works, if the sound design matches what we already have in the can, if tomorrow works out, if if if THEN…

One thing at a time though.

Also just generally a helpful tip: if you’re playing the lead in a woodland shoot where there’s just one rented portaloo a long way from shot, don’t ask for hot noodles the night before no matter how much you love spicy food. It was touch and go at points today. I managed to make it work. But some of the pain in my eyes wasn’t feigned.

I landed at Jersey airport about an hour ago. Was sitting at the back of the plane so I disembarked right away. Walking down the gangway I looked up and there’s a little bit of rooftop where mum and Peggy and Oz would often stand to wave at us as we landed. As my foot hit the tarmac of the land where I was born I hit a wave of unexpected emotion. I haven’t been here since Christmas Carol.

I waved at the ghosts and they waved back. And I was met at the exit and bundled into a Renault. We drove down roads I’ll never forget to St Helier. I am staying in The Omaroo hotel.

A brief talk with the director. He is very much invested in running this shoot properly. It’s a short but he cares about it. I have faith he will make it well.

Apart from the new Bergerac which was mostly shot in fucking Devon there isn’t much being filmed over here and there’s scope for it. Sure it rains a lot, but there are landscapes and seascapes, there’s big skies and history. When I was approached about this magical short it immediately played to my tastes. It’s a bit pagan, a bit edgy, it has a voice. My grandmother was a witch here. She would tell me of spirits she spoke to. Her spirit has become very active in my life recently again through Cheryl and Awaken in London. Of course the best way to reconnect with the dead is to hang out with people who talk to them for a living. And I have a feeling peggy’s part of the reason I’ve been flown over here for three days to make this film. Still working hard behind the scenes. I’ve been talking to her again.

I went down to the beach just now, stood in the dark and listened to the roar of the sea. This island still pulls a bit of my heart with the word “home” every time I come here, much more than The Isle of Man.

“I’ve told everyone to call you Mister Barclay unless asked otherwise,” I’m informed. “Probably better if you maintain that separation.” I actually understand that part of the game better now than I used to. The star is the star and it helps morale if we all pretend they’re special because otherwise why the heck are we all working so hard ironing these trousers in the rain and holding up these reflectors in the wind? And this time it happens to be my turn to wear the silly hat. Great. I know how to wear it now.

I bought a book at the airport. That was an early observation of people I admired at work on set. They stay self contained and easy to find, and then they show up when the camera rolls. If you’re spending all your energy being social you’re spent in the crucial shot. And the most important shot of the film will be tomorrow afternoon.

I’m gonna get in the bath. This is a delightful thing. I have been overextended recently. I didn’t expect to be but I’m so glad of it. What a treat to have three things I care about all running alongside each other. But I don’t get to see Lou as much as I want to.

“Are you still with the wonderful woman who read my i-Ching?” That’s the director. And yes. Thank the lord. We are gonna catch each other soon… “Tell her to come out and stay in your hotel rooms while we do the shoot!”

Tonight and tomorrow The Ommaroo. Then The Somerville. Both are being very generous and The Ommaroo have put me up in a fine room with a HUGE bed. Which I need to get into. Breakfast at 6:30. Dawn just after 7:20. Carpe Diem tomorrow.

I’m learning lines for a movie this weekend whilst also learning lines for some theatre at the end of this month whilst also sorting the route for the Halloween walk. I’m fried. Tomorrow I’ll have to come to rehearsal packed up for Jersey and then it is touch and go as to whether I’ll make my flight. It’s at 19:40 from terminal 5. If I leave at 6 then according to Citymapper I’ll get to the airport – if there’s no transport fuckery on a Friday night – at 19:13.

Lou is very clear on it: “Just tell them you’re leaving at lunchtime!”

I’m gonna stay as long as I can at rehearsal. But the director left at 5 today and I’m gonna aim for that precedent if at all possible cos it’s not about missing the plane. I did everything I could do to make this work and I wish there was a later flight but the airport staff in Jersey have to start early in the morning so I get that they won’t have a midnight flight.

I went straight from rehearsal to Halloween walk. I’ve drafted in some people to replace me when I’m not a around, and to replace Jo who made this walk what it is. I felt really validated this evening. I have recommended beautiful people. Jo is literally irreplaceable – my god the macabre make-up and her transport solutions alone. There’ll never be another Jo, and she’s coming to the dress rehearsal. I really hope she agrees with me about what a wonderful team we have now. Because yes… Good people who get it, that’s all you need. It really is all you need.

Hand luggage only tomorrow but I’m flying British Airways so they aren’t monsters. I’ll be in a hurry so I wanted to guarantee a decent treatment. Which reminds me, I should check in online. I’ll be flying back EasyJet so they might make me cut off my leg it or something. At least I’ll have the headspace to cope after the shoot. What am I flying to Jersey for?

I’ve been sitting back on this, but a young film maker I met playing Scrooge has built something around me. He knows it’s where I’m from and where I want to be. He’s trying to lure me back by playing to my strengths.

But film requires a very specific type of learning where you have to take care of the track. It’s only a three day shoot and my focus has been on Awaken. So tomorrow in the middle of the day I’m gonna experience a head jolt. My plane and my hotel room tomorrow will not be peaceful, they will be about conditioning. They have respectfully already sent me the call sheets for each day, and they are working with my limited availability. They’ll pick me up and drive me round. Without that care it would be too much. Well done them. One thing at a time, but each thing has to be attended to properly.

Up and Lime to work in the rain, but I’ve got the clothes for this. Helen’s dad’s leather coat. He’s got to be useful for something I guess. Keeps me warm and keeps the rain off.

It’s still a lovely room to be in, I’m very lucky. And I won a day! I thought today was Thursday. It is much better knowing it is only half way through the week. We are taking shape, we really are. It’s starting to look like we know what we’re doing. Lines lines lines but it’s a modern piece and they often flow at this stage. We could hack it together tomorrow if we had a gun to our head, but we don’t want to and we won’t.

I love this small company, I’m so happy to be part of it, and the history I now have with Ellie is really quite something to know. We first collaborated in 2002. The weave of our friendship groups goes in and out of so many different parts of this ridiculous and wonderful industry intersecting in surprising places.

Tom and Sara are one example, and they are trying to make sense of a huge space with sound issues. This evening was about trying to work out if it’s worth pulling down a load of plasterboard, knowing what an absolute bastard it is to dispose of. We are going round in circles about soundproofing. Canice thought maybe we just need to hang Calico from the scaffolding, but Lou is quite right: Calico won’t stop the sound. It’s got to be serge, and then once again we are back to £3000 worth of heavy fucking wool before anyone has even put the stuff up.

Not my problem I know but I like to try and be part of the solution… But sometimes, as I told Vic during the office clearance, you have to choose your battles.

So I’m gonna put my focus back into Awaken and the filming this weekend. I can’t be everything to everyone and this is too big and expensive a problem for me to try and troubleshoot now with no money. My instinct is: try it with an audience. Build a show in the room you’ve got and see if sound is an issue. Actors can work in difficult spaces, they might have to lean into their diction. But it might be workable just as it is… Better than spending thousands on a temporary workaround. Bigger fish to fry. Keep your eyes on the prize. The walls look tidy. They just reflect sound. I’ve played worse spaces.

Paint it black. See how it goes. I’m going back to full focus on my own stuff.

I’m comfortably installed in a hot full bath and writing to you. This morning I got in an hour earlier than needed by mistake. Somehow I just aimed for 9. Didn’t think about it being ten until I got there. It’s an experience though, taking a bike over Vauxhall bridge at that time. You feel like you’re part of a movement. Unbelievably heavy footfall in both directions as the new game is an unreliable Victoria Line from Victoria to Brixton. Everyone is out pounding the streets or on wheels. It’s a better idea than tube. I had to do it by tube once and knew I wouldn’t do it again.

London really feels buzzing right now. Loads of bright young people with shit to do every day. You do not stand still here. It’s why they’re after your phone. You’re paying a fiver for a coffee and you need that coffee to work. After work you’re unlikely to be spending less that 7 quid a pint. But as ever in this place, the parasites adapt to fit the hosts.

I’ve got multiple jobs on again and it feels totally normal. Stopping is death. I’m working with and for people and those people have me in the front of their mind and one of them might think of me for another thing and so it’ll roll until I end up like dear old Peter and his Last Tape. I hope he made some decent money out of that. We have to be paid. Especially now when the techbros are using the language of making to describe things they’ve instructed through an LLM. Like going into a restaurant and ordering a meal and saying “look at this meal I made”.

I ordered a thing on Kickstarter years ago and it just arrived. I sometimes wonder about myself.

It’s a ButterBot. It only exists to pass the butter but its arms don’t work so it is unable to do that.

It isn’t connected to the internet but it is open source which means it is infinitely customisable if you’re patient and clever. There will already be people who have created incredible apps for it. Even with the Kickstarter I got I can set it up as a carbon monoxide and smoke detector and there are so many other plugins it’s crazy. I haven’t got time to play with it right now so I just taught it my face and left it on the table. Boo is likely to cause it problems. I think it might be called Andy. I’ve left it to charge tonight.

Bedtime feels very welcome. This week is just madness. No way I’ll be able to record the audio book this week. But I’ve got a few days next week so that’s my moment for that and just… Just aaaaah…

Splish splosh. Time to go to bed…