Month: August 2017

Friday night in the West End. It’s ridiculous. Thousands of people shouting. Desperate constant grunting. I’m walking through it and nobody makes sense. Everyone is too cold. Very few of the people who are talking are using it to do something other than complain about the temperature. I decide to get an uber pool.

 

My Prius arrives. It’s always a prius. And suddenly it’s Kiss 100 and a shitawful cover of “Let’s talk about sex” and people sharing an uber pool. I prefer to take pool because you have to share with randoms. I like sharing with randoms. It tends to make things more convivial. But not for this evening.

 

This evening I had a chance to explore the depth of my geekiness. I like to think that I’m a low level geek. I believe that I can go about my daily business and not sabotage myself because I don’t prioritise my geek. But today I learnt something. I met up with people who I geeked out with at school. I spent hours seeking their geek. As a result I have a good understanding of the various geeknesses.

 

I went to Star Wars Identities. It’s an exhibition at 02 containing many of the original props, models and costumes from Star Wars movies. I grew up with that stuff. Joseph Campbell’s work as script supervisor on the original trilogy fits with my fascination with the hero’s journey, and the basic mythological tropes that Lucas was curious about in his work. He created a playground, a frame for our pretend. In a lovely way, George Lucas shared his childish imagination with a generation of children and we owe him for that.

 

The exhibition is essentially a piece of sociology. You get to decide the strange details of your existence. You learn about peer pressure, self Identities, time. I’m glad that I created a character that comes close to what I think is important.

 

In a nostalgic throwback to my schooldays, I am playing an incomprehensible game which takes ages. I’m with Dan, who has been living in Canada forever, and John, who lives near me but somehow I never see him unless Dan’s in town. We were uncomprehending children many years ago, thrust into a horrible smush of entitlement and ego and told we had to grow up and find friends. We didn’t grow up but we found each other and kicked along being marginally odd but pleasant for a few years in each others company. We played a lot of almost incomprehensible games, but took the time to comprehend them.

With us is Ros, who is considering getting an uber (she’s got a kid), Jules who has been reading articles on her phone, and Mayumi, who is filling up everyone’s Sake. Apparently some of us understand this game. I certainly don’t. It involves stopping the world from being swept up in a pandemic. It mostly seems to do with little bits of jelly spreading over a rudimentary map such as you’d be offered by a cheap travel agent for a round the world ticket. “There are only 3 cities in Africa, mate.”

The problem is that as we get longer in the tooth our capacity to invest hours and hours in inconsequential fuckery is waning. I remember when I’d gladly stay up until 4am trying to work out how to get past the “Herbert Droid”, and think nothing of getting up at crack of dawn to go to school.

Dan and Jules make fuckery now for a living. They design build and produce computerised versions of what we are doing. Playing games for them is similar to me going to the theatre. They have a maker’s perspective, but they still love it. It’s good to see them, and I feel that in common. But for tonight I think the world is going to be consumed by jelly diseases because none of us have the awakeness to hold out to the end. This Americanocentric world that only has a few major population centres is doomed. It feels a little like the news according to Twitter right now, while Captain Dickneedle hovers his little fingers over the big red button. So big. So red.

—

Yeah, we just gave it up. No surprises really – the outbreak team is simultaneously entirely clueless and totally blazé, and everyone has had way too much Sake apart from John who has never drunk in his life (and still incomprehensibly contrives to be one of my oldest friends.)

—

I’m in an uber home. We abandoned the world to the cubes of jelly, but it was great to hang out with people I’ve known for so long. There’s a shorthand that develops with long acquaintance. Strangely, though, I met Jules this evening for the first time in the flesh. And she easily became part of that shorthand. But we have many people in common, and loved people at that. And we both chant. We probably should have known each other for a while. We will see more of each other tomorrow. A new friend, I think.

Around all of this I’ve been back on the email train. Trying to make things happen for myself. Perhaps another reason I’m so glad to decompress with friends.

Now in this uber pool, someone gets in. “How you doing brother, where you from I know you’re from Africa somewhere,” he says to the guy driving. “Oh yeah, how’s that?” Says the driver. “From your name,” he says after hesitation. “What – Raoul?” Says Raoul, who is driving. “Oh uh yeah so that’s Spanish…” says my boy. There’s a pause. I think about suggesting one of the three places in Africa suggested by the game I’ve been playing. I decide that I prefer to sit back and watch sleepy London through the window. After about half an hour, Raoul lets him off the hook. “Yeah. I’m from Congo.” I don’t tell him it’s not on the map as far as tonight is concerned. The rest of the trip home is silent.

 

A commercial casting, today. All I know about it from my agent is the location, time, product and “dress like a nice dad.” I dress in the brand colours. I learnt that long ago, the client likes actors to be on brand. I don’t shave my beard though. And I don’t know the casting director’s name.

They get me into the room on time, which is rare. There’s a boy in there already. He is meant to be my son. He’s already cast, and he looks just like I did when I was his age. This is why I’ve got the meeting. A trick of genetics. But I didn’t know this going in so I’ve still got a beard. “Do you have any clean shaven headshots?” asks the casting director immediately. “Yes, I’ll get one sent to you. I just kept my beard on the basis that it’s quicker to shave than it is to grow.” “They might decide that you look more like him clean shaven,” says the Casting Director with a beautiful featherlight shiver of detail. Contained in that innocuous comment is the rebuke “You idiot. You’re supposed to look like this child. How can you possibly think a beard will help you.” I refrain from saying I had no idea I had to look like anyone, and thought that “nice dad” might be slightly fluffy. Sure a dad has kids that look nothing like him. But for this story, perhaps, resemblance is paramount. I just suck it up.

There’s a cultural thing where actors are expected to be morons and are treated as such by default. Like we are all idiot narcissists desperate to be looked at and adored and that can be the only reason we do this. Certainly at the level of this casting I am used to being treated like I’m remedial. This particular casting director was pleasant enough to the idiot, but at the end of the meeting I go to shake her hand and get, baldly, as her body spasms backwards: “I won’t shake your hand.” One of my friends in Los Angeles once got “Oh I’m a waver, not a shaker.” in similar circumstances. Not only do we get treated like morons, people also don’t want to touch us. After all, who knows where we’ve been. She clocks my shock. “I’ve got a cold,” she tries. “I wouldn’t want to give it to you.” I don’t believe her but I let it slide. “Oh ugh I wouldn’t want to catch that from you,” I say, playing the game because I want the job, adding more layers to this conversation-onion.

It’s shit that I want the job. I don’t even know what it pays or when it shoots but I’ve already been told it’s essentially walk-on rates. But I’m very happy to be associated with this particular brand. The meeting involved sitting in a chair pretending to watch TV. We only did one take and she wouldn’t touch me. I left the meeting feeling slightly soiled. In the Japanese caste system, actors come below “rogues and vagabonds”. That’s where I felt I had been put. I’ll still be writing her an email thanking her if I get the job. Because jobs like that give us more liberty to make beautiful things and do more theatre.

I learnt long ago that there is no correlation between your experience in the audition room and your chances of getting the job. Years ago I met Luc Besson for a movie, and the third round was him in person in a little room in Notting Hill. Halfway through the meet I said something innocuous and his face went dark. He looked at me with rage and stormed out of the room. I heard a heated discussion with the casting director. He then came back in and curtly dismissed me. I phoned my agent; “I don’t know what I said but he went weird on me.” Three months later I was flown to Bangkok and filmed with David Thewlis and Michelle Yeoh. I thought I’d fucked it up. But the thing that had enraged him helped secure me the job. I had mentioned Aung San Suu Chi, who I was reading about at the time. The film was about her, and it was under NDA. I wasn’t supposed to know, I didn’t know, but he thought I’d found out, and he’s got a temper on him.

I went out to Thailand. I didn’t tell anyone about the job because of the NDA. I just went to Bangkok. They were filming The Lady, about Burma, in Thailand, anti the Burmese junta. Information lockdown in case the Thai government decided to shut the set down in solidarity with the junta. The flashback sequence I was in was cut entirely from the final edit for budgetary reasons. It was Michael Aris meeting Aung for the first time, and David and Michelle both worked with dots stuck all over their faces, to map CGI younger versions of their faces on in post-production. Of course it was the first thing to go – expensive and time consuming. It went, and with it all of my work. I watched the film in growing horror and realisation. All I got was a credit. At least I got that. I’ll never see the footage as it will never have been graded but a credit is a footprint.

Now seven years or so later I’m fretting about whether or not someone refusing to touch me in a commercial casting will have any effect on whether I get to sell a little bit more of my integrity for lovely shiny pots of cash. Ugh. This is such a strange existence I’ve fought for for so long…

—

Some hours later my agent calls to tell me it’s a heavy pencil for tomorrow or Friday. Which means I’ve a good chance of getting it. Perhaps she was lovely and didn’t want me to catch her cold. What does that say about the inside of my head? What does that say about my expectations?

—

I took no photos. Here’s one of pickle. After all it was International Cat Day.

 

One of the major downsides of being self employed is the speed at which you get paid (or not). It seems to be slowing down year on year. I’m still owed £150 by the Heritage Lottery Fund from about 7 years ago for dressing up as Dracula under supervision of my friend Roland. I expect I’ll never see that and I have no idea who to contact about it now. Roland left between the job and the invoice coming to term.

So these jobs that I do between the acting jobs – I don’t even know for certain if I’ll ever get paid, and how many hoops I’ll have to jump through before the money comes in. And when it comes to well paid work that I haven’t particularly enjoyed it’s even more egregious when the money comes slowly.

There are a lot of people shouting at a WhatsApp group in order to try to persuade a man in Turkmenistan to release pay for us from the horse races. He is responding with details about his internet capabilities and information pertaining to administrative issues that sound depressingly like the fallout of someone who would prefer to pay us slowly than to make too much of a fuss. Meanwhile mortgage deposits, nursery fees and, for me, the ability to tax my car and get a parking permit are deferred by another day and another day. He says “It’ll be in soon.” We say the same to whoever is down the chain. But if it isn’t soon then everyone down the chain feels it.

I’ve been sat in my car all day, driving around or sitting there with the hazard lights on as I am now. Occasionally I’ll feed a meter and get a coffee, or go to a charity shop and buy some CDs for 50p each. (Right now I’m on Stoosh by Skunk Anansie. 0.49p to Cancer Research.) Every few minutes I optimistically check my bank account. Today was given as the day it would definitely come in which is why I have been keeping my car here. Nothing. Tomorrow I’ll probably take it outside regulated parking and leave it for a few days. I was hoping to be able to avoid that. For tonight I’ve only got half an hour left before it’s off meter, so I can leave it round the corner from my place and feed the cat and have dinner.

The advantage of being confined to my car is that I can go visiting my friends who aren’t working. I dug out my friend Tanya, who is training as a Pilates instructor and has time in the days.

She lives close to a Waitrose where I can park for two hours for £2.50. The rest of the day was spent emailing on my phone, trying to sort stuff out. Thank God for smartphones. I get so much use out of mine. If only my employer, Neil, was able to use his more in Turkmenistan on our behalf to chase the payment.

I’m back home, and running a bath. 4 days in a tent in a field in Oxfordshire. I didn’t shower. I only washed my hands with water and soap once. The rest of the time it was just horrible foamy sanitiser, from the dispensers on the side of the vile plastic festival loos. And occasional face wipes to get off the makeup. There are showers at Wilderness with hot running water. It really is the most middle class festival possible. I should’ve used them, but I didn’t.

There are only a few sound-stages, but the quality of the programming is high. We had Grace Jones on the last night, naked in white body paint at 69 with a bunch of acrobats, and looking amazing for it. The festival has a full orchestra all of its own. They play film soundtracks on the last night. At The Forum, there’s a variety of spoken word and comedy. The folk tent has little known bands who are glad to be there and giving it large. Even the main stage is giving rare chances. On the first night, The Turbans finished their set saying “Thanks. We are not a main stage band.” Then they all took a bow. It was beautifully humble after a great set.

There will be big names from time to time there, but more often smaller yet significant names. The “lost” musician Rodriguez played Cold Fact a few years ago, shortly after the wonderful documentary “Searching for Sugarman” was released about him. I stood next to an ecstatic South African couple who had come all the way from Johannesburg to watch him play. The evening was perfect. He hauled his broken body into a chair and played to a perfect sky. The guys next to me held hands and wept.

I think I’ll keep going to that festival if I can, and make it to ten years. It’s given me many happy times. I’ve made it work with some tricky schedules. It’s only 2 hours from London which makes it rushable. And over the years I’ve gathered a wonderful group of friends that meet there yearly. It’s a collection of international misfits, all working hard in their respective spheres, all using the festival to depressurise.

And I’ve certainly depressurised. I feel great. Ready to get back into the fight. I’m aware of a double headed problem. First, that I have been longer than ever without a good long acting job. Second that I’ve been documenting my day to day, so that’s publicly available information. It’s time to get back to headbutting the wall. I feel I need to invest some money in some casting director workshops or some such, just to get back in the game. I’ve always balked at paying for them, but it works for some people so it must be worth a try. I’ve been at this long enough that I know what I’m doing. Much as I love these festival jobs, I can’t keep doing them into my sixties, sleeping in freezing tents on deflating mattresses among the spiders. When I get paid for all this catering I’ll invest some of my I’ll gotten gains. Meantime I’m going to scrape off the accumulated crust from my body and turn in for an early bed.

“Let’s go and learn how to make cut glass coasters!” “Yoga is at 12.” “Anyone want a swim in the lake?” That’s the morning here. Children running around everywhere, parents about my age covered in glitter. Wholesome activities executed wholesomely. Meanwhile the likes of Yotam Ottolenghi prepare banquets in a marquee for a selection of organised people who book months in advance. There’s a spa that books out early too, in seven years I’ve never been. But even as Tarquin goes for his gong bath in the healing fields there’s another festival gradually groaning into wakefulness back in the campsites.

Somehow the weather is usually good for these three days. The long nights have mostly been dry. As the day reaches its height, an army of colourful zombies stumbles into the site. They wear the heads of lions, or antlers, or pirate hats, or devil horns or shocking wigs. The zombies come seeking sustenance, their steps heavy, their eyes wide. They descend on the meat trucks and juicily devour all they can afford. They are waiting for the dark.

Tarquin and the zombies gather together before the few small stages and vocally appreciate shining noisy people. “Yayyy” says Tarquin. “Uuuuurgh” say the zombies. “Bang crash wallop” says the band. Everybody cheers. Tarquin is confused by the zombies. “Mother, why is that man trying to eat his own arm?” The zombies are concerned by Tarquin: “Not here, look, there’s a kid. Put it away.” But the dark is coming. It’s time for Tarquin to go to bed. He goes, his parents occasionally glancing over their shoulders as they head to the campsite. And then a miraculous transformation begins.

The zombies, sensing the lack of Tarquin, know that their time has come. They begin to consume magical drinks, pills and mushrooms. They lick bits of paper and each other and maybe even toads. They put things up their nose or even their bottom. They inhale smokes and vapours and spirits. And they transform. First they switch on little lights on their hats and coats, to shine through the darkness, to not get lost. And then as the night draws in, the zombies become Tarquin. They run and play and dance, immune to consequence, pulling cross eyed faces, laughing at nothing, repeating the same jokes, repeating the same laughs, wide eyed idiot children seeing the world anew. Selfish and obvious and strange and trapped in freedom. Joyful and desperate, like the end of the world. Fueled by light and music in this beautiful woodland until dawn is close, and “Come on Tarquin, we’re going for a swim in the lake” heralds the changing of the guard and the Tarquinzombies fly back to their canvas chrysalis, and pupate in their sleeping bags to become just zombies once more for the morning.

My “work” is fun, but because we are obvious and silly we get mobbed by Tarquins whose parents are glad to have a focus for their random energy for a bit. “You can have them,” they smile. It means I am rising relatively early and doing wholesome things as well as trying to join the night time rollercoaster.

Festivals are bizarre. Thousands of people trapped in a field, pretending to have fun. The experience is utterly weather dependent and today we can’t depend on the weather. I’m waiting once more for the people I’m working with. It’s going to be another slow start, but festivals and work are a bit like oil and water for some people. We will make it work.

—

We did. Today was mostly about managing crazy children. Now I’m back at the campsite and about to change and go out for the evening. I’m using this time in a field to properly unwind. It’s a strange way to unwind. The nights are freezing cold, there is constant noise, you have to stumble through nettles to have a pee. On the site thousands of people crush together in queues for nothing much that take hours. But I have good friends here now, and I feel a part of these woods now having been here so many consecutive years. This year I’m on antibiotics and my rib is still not ideal which limits the extent of what I can do. But I’m still planning on going in and seeing some lovely things this evening, and dancing as much as my rib will let it.

I just put my phone down. “I’m not feeling it. I want to get into the festival now and unwind. But I know that if I don’t write this now I’ll never get it done.” “Do you have to write much?” says Mel. “Just write a paragraph and have done with it.” Good shout, I say. I will probably write up this whole experience properly once it’s finished.

So I was given the keys to a van full of yellow stuff and ridiculous props and told that my job is to make people Happy. Then I was given two other people’s phone numbers. Problem is the other people couldn’t communicate with me easily and none of them knew what we were supposed to do. And nor did I. And they were both late.

First of all I waited under a tree for an hour and a half and then I met Abbie. Abbie was great but I greeted her badly. I opened with “I could’ve got some people on my campsite to have done this.” She rolled with it. And we started to problem solve. The other actor wasn’t there at all and so we decided to just get the stuff and do it.

Cut to the two of us humping all sorts of random crap through a campsite while I’m on the megaphone already announcing the presence of the Ministry of Happy, and checking people’s happiness levels as we crossed the campsite. Dressed in utterly ridiculous brilliant yellow jumpsuits. And Abbie is brilliant and extremely diplomatic. She reminds me of how I opened our exchange once we have bonded. She just gets on with it. It’s ace.

Half an hour after I’ve met her we are improvising in front of strangers, running round with measures and pumps and mirrors and ropes. Madness. Utter madness. And with two complete strangers attempting to make sense of it. It was lovely. I think the reason I love performance work, or one of them, is that you have to meet total strangers and immediately form a bond with them. Within two hours, Abbie and I had forged a funny positive nuanced working relationship which then disbanded immediately as she was only doing today.

I’m getting ribbed in the campsite now for writing my blog. By people who are reading it. “We need a bit less “Al” in Al’s blog,” says Nim. He’s right. But right now, Al is off to see Two Door Cinema Club. And Al is happy that he made things work for the people that made this festival work for him…

Posting this without any reread or edit and a generic picture that I preloaded from the website. Internet is rare and spotty here. Phone battery life is precious. You might not even get the picture…

Seven years ago I first came up to do Wilderness Festival. I was in a piece called “Bugs” and as far as I remember I had some form of mental illness. I got the script on the morning of the show. It was strange.The next year I came up again. Did I do the Odyssey? I think maybe I did. Yes. I took so my clothes off and came out of a stand of bracken with a hat for modesty in book 6 to be found by Nausicaa. It’s entirely textual. The third year it was the Odyssey again, in the driving rain, under a tree with loads of glowsticks and a small group of committed audience. I loved The Odyssey. Wonderful. Mad. Dark. Strange. Immediate. Varied. It’s funny to think I improvised the Odyssey consistently for about 2 years with some amazing voyagers. Happy strange fun times. I miss them.

The next year I was back again and I delivered a neuroscience lecture in The Forum with PowerPoint. Then I did a piece about Transhumanism which is feeling more and more prescient. I got the lecture three minutes before I delivered it. I had never seen the slides before. It went down brilliantly. Natch. The fifth year I wrote a radio play about punching cows and growing tomatoes. It was performed in the same place I had delivered the lecture. I lay on my back and listened. Then the year after that I drove some lovely people out to the festival and they paid me to be their chauffeur with a ticket. I adored them for that. We are still mates. I just hugged them all. Last year it was so much a part of my calendar that I still wanted to go. I was filming until Friday night though, so I couldn’t commit to a show. I actually bought a ticket. I paid £100 via Gumtree. It was strange being there with no job, but relaxing. I’ve always stayed in public camping anyhow so I can camp with my friends and because it’s closer to the lakes for swimming. But not having the performer band almost caused me problems on arrival. The guy wouldn’t let me in as I was “too late” so I had to sleep in my car, apparently. Thankfully I knew enough to drive round to performers where they were kind enough to let me blag through the gate. “Delivery for The Factory. They need this for the show late tonight. It’s an emergency.” “Yeah mate, of course it is. Go on. If you see a guy with a beard, let me know. The other gate are on the radio saying not to let him in.”

I’m happy to be back again, which is just as well because Happy is my job. I’m working for the Ministry of Happy. Measuring the public levels of happiness and administering more in case of emergency. So I’m here. I set my tent up in the rain. Once again I’m in this particular field with old friends. This is going to be delightful. And I’m posting this now with a generic photo just so it’s done and I can get stuck in. Aaaaaaaaargh

Also the internet will get flooded soon. And my phone will die.

Trains are bloody marvelous but hell they’re expensive. How can they justify charging £106.20 for an off peak day return from London to Leeds? It’s not my expense account that suffers, it comes out of Teach First. But Teach First is hardly made of money. It seems excessive. It’s why I prefer to have a car. I’m in a train heading back from some work for Baz training teachers. It’s been a lovely day.

I like to look out of the window and watch the world go by on trains. Oh England etc. On a day like this you get flashes of beauty and question, too quick. “What’s that, on the hill?” “I can’t see it.” “Well it’s gone now.”

The evening is perfect though so all the unrecognisable things look briefly beautiful, and this train is fast. Not £106.20 fast but fast. Cathedrals, corn fields and violets. Little stone towns and big concrete blots on the landscape. Angry graffiti and cows and pylons.

I somehow seem to get into relationships with women who have entirely unusual relationships with trains. It’s changed my perception of the things. One old flame just loved them. Loved them. Oh how she loved being on trains. If I’d been doing well financially back then I’d have got her birthday tickets for the Trans-Siberian or the Oriental Express or both and then I’d have died of a heart attack with a smile on my face. Probably best I couldn’t, but mmmm…

Another wonderful woman who ran alongside me for a while had a childhood fear that she could never quite shake. She suspected that there was only one place in the world, and it was where she was. It’s the pathology that led to The Truman Show. When she got in a train, the doors would close, and the windows were large video screens. They then played videos of a pretend journey while armies of people ran around swapping Leeds for London. Other people had the job of rocking the train and making weird noises. Actors had conversations on the train to further authenticate. Then she would exit to find all the workers pretending to be normal people. It was a child’s narcissistic paranoia, but she couldn’t quite shake it. I found it hilarious and worrying. Mostly hilarious.

Maybe she was right. Nowadays one of the theories de jour is that we are all living in a simulation. I’ve had moments in the past where I’ve spotted what could’ve been a glitch in the matrix. I suspect we all have. Things not quite adding up. But that could be as much about our brain hallucinating reality than that we are conscious simulations. Right now I’m pretty convinced I’m on a train that is moving from London to Leeds. I think this is the real world. But a few days ago I saw that policeman move.

I can see the appeal of simulation theories, and narcissistic constructions, but I don’t like anything that takes away consequence. If I throw a stone I want there to be a ripple.

I’m off into a field tomorrow to be with a load of people picking at the layers of reality via varying levels of substance abuse. I’m on antibiotics which will mean I have to be careful what I put into myself. I’ll probably limit it to food and care. But I’ll still be living in a field for a few days and jumping in a lake every morning to swim. Ok I’ll be doing it in the company of 30 thousand stoned people talking about quinoa. But I’ll put my hippy hat on. I may or may not be able to write about it. There’s a strong chance my phone will run out and I’ll have no reception. So we might have a service interruption. I hope not, but it seems worryingly possible. Like simulation theory.