Month: November 2018

I’m wearing two different hats. Actor and Stage Manager. (Any stage managers that knew me of old will find that jarring. Yes, I’m looking at you.)

Today I’ve been building the space for actor Al to roam free. Jack and I are just … getting stuck in, as always. Many hands make light work. We know this show, and the director can’t be on site because he is busy at The Donmar. Creative acting stuff is harder to detail without him. No real point rehearsing. So mostly Jack and I are creating a space for the show and working out the tricks and world changes and practicalities and dressing. We are laying the foundations for ourselves to play the show. We’re world building.

We have our first show tomorrow. The set looks brilliant. We have an amazing small team. Three of us at the core – a new show runner but I haven’t her permission and I won’t blog her without.

Last year’s snags are covered though. There’s heating in the venue so no audience members will be moaning about the temperature. The electricity isn’t going to be a problem. No dogshit from nocturnal guard dogs. No portaloos or exploding water tanks. We have sightlines. I’m not worried about it.

But it’s unusual for the leading actor to be wiring hazers the day before opening night, and thinking about sightlines and all that. Traditionally I should be burrowing up my own asshole.

I slipped into my assistant director mode today to call the tech. Someone had to temporarily do basic talking and run the room. “Is everyone ready” “so we are going from X line” etc. In theatre I’ve never really liked the separation of people into closed jobs. Of course I’m happy to work in a job where I’m closed off as an actor – I understand that dynamic and it means I get to go home really early in rehearsal, and get lots of clapping when it’s open. But theatre is group storytelling. It’s a team thing.

Skills take time to learn. Training helps of course. But everyone gets protective of their “area”. I trained as an actor. While watching actors I have to monitor myself when I see people who aren’t taking care of what I think of as “the basics.” I often shout at people who are lying on cheap TV. But why should “the basics” cost three years of time and money? You can learn not to be a twat on the job (which is “the basics”) even if you’re beautiful – as long as your mind is open and you can let go of your own shit when necessary.

I’m learning stage management on the job as best I can. I have been by osmosis for decades. I’m always curious. We are making theatre. That’s a passion. Theatre is many skills, many people, much passion, no money. Yeah, sometimes you can hit a zeitgeist and make something huge. But Jerusalem is rare despite all of us pilgrimaging to it. Mostly we just tell the truth in a corner and hope there’s someone listening. Why? Because we are a beautiful bunch of geeks. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m a lead character actor. But I have a growing hat collection.

The first time I was “acting ASM” was maybe a decade ago. It was a tour. We had to build a load of flats and repoint the lights in different venues and work around whatever we had to work around. It was an eye opener. I’ll never forget the moment where an actress who is still a respected close friend walked in and immediately complained about a door that was clipping on a rake. (A rake is when a stage slopes towards the audience. Some old theatres are raked like ski slopes. Richmond Yorkshire. Margate. It makes the actors look like giants, if they are “upstage”. But it’s a bugger for doors.)

We had taken that door off three times and planed as much as was rational so it could open at all before the company came in  She arrived and behaved like we hadn’t noticed because it scuffed a tiny bit. It was the deepest rake we had built on, the deepest we were going to build on. Any more off and we’d have a gap under the door for every other venue. We had weighted the flat as well, to raise it. I learnt a lot about being an actor from observing my friend as she said “Come on, you just need to take the door off and plane it down.”

… I’m being technical. The point is, if you’re making theatre you’re probably not there to be famous or rich. You might pull  that off But at heart you’re there to make theatre. And theatre is multidisciplinary. Much more interesting to understand the lot, so when the machine is turning you know exactly what your cog has to do.

I’m going to have a ball this month, and probably write lots more stuff like this. But my head is in my craft again, and I like it being there. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The first time I did Christmas Carol, five years ago, Scrooge’s debt board only had three names on it, written in chalk on crepe paper taped over a pub blackboard. That was in Manchester. We had built into an old “Hooters” restaurant. We had hessian closing off the roof, chandeliers made out of polystyrene, and lots of good will. It was glorious. As part of the spirit of Christmas Yet to Come I had to instinctively understand that there was something under the crepe paper next to my great big chair, and tear it off to reveal “RIP Ebenezer Scrooge.” It was a cognitive leap that required me to park my rational faculties. Scrooge, for a moment, was magically psychic. Fine if the audience get it, and they did.

Since then we’ve rolled this beautiful show around going hi tech to low tech and back again. We’ve done it in a pub, a West End theatre, a village hall in Rochdale, a warehouse in Shoreditch, and the room in York’s Guildhall where the £200,000 Scottish ransom for Charles the First was counted in 1647. This year we’ll be back in York for a week in an equally historic room that we have to treat with respect. But first, we are in a custom space at Theatre Deli Sheffield, where we can build what we want.

We have made something that already pleases us. It’s really exciting, even if lots of our surfaces and dressing has been aggressively eaten by other shows. I guess I can do without Ebenezer’s creepy bird. We can make this show in a pub with nothing but a board and some paper. Everything else is just noise. Still it’s good to try and make nice noise. We wouldn’t be us if we didn’t.

This is the first year the show has been in Sheffield. The first few weeks look like small houses, as we are not known here and Christmas is still a long way off. But I can say with confidence that it’s going to be a glorious show.

This little Christmas job is the only gig I’ve done for which I get repeatedly stopped on the street. Funny considering the audience is necessarily small because of catering. But often someone leaps out of my day and tells me wonders like “We were on a first date at your show and now we’re married.” Or “You’re Scrooge aren’t you! That was our first night living in London and we both went home so happy to have moved to this city. You welcomed us to London. Thank you.”

Or the more frequent “Can you tell us where and when so we can book again with our family? We have X number of guaranteed ticket sales.” “No. I can’t. I’m sorry. It’s completely random and there’s no website.” People stumble on it, love it, and come back if they can work out how. There are few enough seats that it’s a treasure hunt.

We had a guy propose once during a show- (he had given us advance warning and the producer laid on a choir for him to sing with, projections of their life together and loads of confetti cannons.) I’ll never forget it. We sat her in Scrooge’s Power Chair to play a game. She blindfolded herself and he came and sang to her there. She thought she was just going to be playing a game but thankfully it wasn’t an unpleasant surprise for her. She said yes. They came back the next year to actually follow the show. We gave them free tickets. His line: “I couldn’t focus for the first half for nerves,” her line: “I couldn’t focus for the second half for nerves…” Sweet.

It’s coming together slowly… Bed now.

In Sheffield, next to an Office Outlet, in a huge car park, there’s a great big old retail space that is currently occupied by Theatre Deli. Deli have existed for over a decade now. They’re a charity, set up by three old university friends who care about community and theatre. They’ve all been mates of mine for decades, and they are still making opportunities for emerging artists, as well as old lags like me. It’s a coincidence that I’m in one of their spaces, in that I didn’t drive the connection, but I’m thrilled about it. One of the three, Jess, showed up today in the venue. I run into Roland frequently in London. Effie is more elusive. She’s in LA, and I couldn’t raise her in pilot season when I went and kicked that particular ants nest and started this blog all that time ago.

Theatre Deli take over unoccupied buildings for a short while and they fill them with life. They make jobs for arts professionals. They make theatre for communities. They take empty space and turn it into life and joy. It’s a great business model and a great calling. Jack and I are going to have a lovely few weeks doing Christmas Carol here. All we need now is an audience. We even have all the candles.

BBC Radio Sheffield came in today and recorded a bit of rehearsal footage. Then they did one of those interviews where we get really enthusiastic about everything. It was a pre-record, so they can save it in the edit. It’s going out tomorrow I think. I won’t be listening if I can help it.

Every year we partner with a charity for this show. This year it’s St Mary’s “Timebuilders”, a local Sheffield charity that provides community and meaning to dissociated people who might otherwise have slipped through the net. The catering is being organised by them, and I have a feeling we are going to have some strong personalities bringing dinner in to Scrooge’s Parlour over the next few weeks. We met Graham today for the radio spot – he seems to be in charge of the team and he’s a man that positively radiates both calm and kindness. We are in good hands.

Jack and I are settling into our minimalist IKEA digs, although we are bemoaning the lack of various basics like dishcloths and bedside lamps. It’s as spare as spare can be. Even my wardrobe is basic. I couldn’t work out where I’d hidden all my clothes before I sublet my room in London, so I went to Primark at lunch and bought sweatshop stopgaps to take me to Christmas. Now at least I’ve got some pants and socks, lovingly made by crying Bangladeshi children.

I’m settling down to an early bed now in my ripoff Star Wars jimjams. Rest is going to be important these few weeks. At capacity we will be playing to a very big long room, which I did the first time I played this show in Manchester, and which I know is very tiring energetically and vocally – but I’m fit. Although weirdly I’ve got shinsplints. I never had them for the whole of the walk but they kicked in yesterday just strolling from A to B. My lower body, which mended itself so effectively while I punished it for 50 days – it’s now doing the things it refrained from doing when I had to walk fifteen miles a day. Glad it saved it until now but it better damn recover fast.

So – an early bed for us in our warm empty rooms. And tomorrow it’s building the set. Joy.

Sheffield. Jack Whitam. Christmas Carol.

Weeks ago, as I was wandering through Villavante, I spoke to Jack about actor’s digs in Sheffield. “I can’t sort accommodation for Christmas Carol mate. I’m walking. Can I leave it in your hands?”

Theatre Deli had given us a budget. We’ve both had so long living in other people’s houses where you can use the kitchen but actually you can’t really because X and Y and Z. Where you can get home to chill, and someone who owns the space immediately wants to know “what have you done on telly” at you, or “how was the celebrity in your cast this evening?” These people can be wonderful, but in a show like Carol – which is about connectivity – I have to recharge by shutting the door.

Jack got on Airbnb and found a place where we can both recharge. I should always let Jack find actor’s digs! It’s a new build, listed on Airbnb cheaply to get good reviews. There was still a price tag attached to the sofa. There are missing basics, like chopping boards, but nobody has ever lived here before. We are the first people to ever use the loo, use the bath, use the beds, use the fridge.

“It’s actually a lovely little space isn’t it. You’d have that wall painted, loads of paintings, you’d change the colour over there, you’d get this that and the other uplit.” Jack is already imagining that the space is his to do with as he pleases.

It’s bare. It’s very bare. It’s IKEA. But we can fill it with incense and guitar music. Jack is guitar noodling away as I write. My accordion is currently located in Theatre Deli, the venue. I think I might get it tomorrow so I can practice with him in the evening.

I’m looking forward to having a new centre for a few weeks. Let me know if you’re around because it’s mostly Jack and I here in the sexy digs. We can easily accommodate friends on the sofa. Right now it reminds me of the years at Sprite that made the two of us friends. He’s playing guitar and we are singing as I’m hacking out my blog.

We are also talking, in the gaps, about what we want to make here. We have to call the shots over the next few days, so while we’re building things we have to call what will work.

Jack and I have done so much over the years now. Almost a decade in Ripley. We lived in a semi abandoned farmhouse with a working Aga and a swimming pool full of frogs, we lived in a huge sprawling party house, we lived in the perfectly appointed home of the dot-com millionaire who was thinking about going rogue with a shotgun. Jack made an award winning internet comedy series and roped me in. We toured America. We are planning an Outer Hebrides Tour if it all goes wrong. We really really know how to play together, and most of it is coincidence. Now we get to live in this IKEA house as we make a Christmas show together for the fourth time running. This should be a glorious glorious season. Humbug.

While I’ve been walking, the jaguar has been sitting in the cold. Brian turned it over from time to time so the battery’s still good, but it badly needs a bit of use. I’m not sure where I’ll park it in Sheffield, but the residents permit has run out in London. It’s cheaper taking it up north than renewing it. But it’ll be a limp to get there in the state it’s in.

Both of my front tyres were completely flat when I got back from Camino. Slow punctures.  That was fine for a few days. It’s not like you need a car in London anyway. Parking away from home is punishingly expensive, and the buses are great. Even the tube is quick and easy if overpriced. So I let it sit there until this morning and this morning I rang the RAC. I thought about driving it half a mile to the garage, but a few feet of noisy rolling persuaded me that the tyres would be shredded if I tried so I stopped and rang the breakdown number.

I get a couple of callouts a year on my bank account. The guy came fast, was great, and filled it up with air. We limped to KwikFit.

Turned out that the geezer I bought it from cross threaded all the wheel bolts.  Another of the little surprises he left me. “I can get them off but I reckon they won’t go back on,” hisses the Kwikfit man. I was about to pay him £186 for 3 new tyres. “Don’t take them off,” I tell him. He’s relieved – it was going to be a lot of work for him. He wouldn’t take money for his labour either. But it means I can’t fix it now. I have to go online and buy new sets of bolts. Then get them fitted and sorted up north.

So … tomorrow I’ll be limping up A-roads to Sheffield with 2 slow punctures and one crap tyre. Hopefully I’ll make it in one piece. I doubt I’ll be flooring it. There’s no rush. Although I’m looking forward to getting started. The Airbnb we rented for 3 weeks is the nearest thing I’ve had to a permanent base since September. Although tonight I get one more night at home, but a sofa night.

Home is a little sad today. I’m not the only person experiencing problems with expensive toys. Brian bought a 70 inch television with no warranty second hand, and the thing has gone kaput. It takes up most of the space in the living room and currently it’s a very big crap mirror. There’s nothing that pleases him more on a Sunday than to watch movies and play PS4. We were watching Black Panther when it just started screen-blanking with sound still playing. It got more and more frequent until we accepted there was a problem. Then HOURS of diagnostics, until I worked out it did it even when everything was unplugged from the back of it. So not a hardware conflict or a wiring issue. He’s pretty cut up about iti. But it’s Cyber Monday tomorrow, and my credit card is burning a hole in my pocket.

I might get up in the morning and make a crazy purchase. 100% if the tables were turned he would do that for me.

There were all sorts of things I was going to do today. I was going to see friends, do some publicity photographs, pack all my stuff for Sheffield, build a tower of wood and stone that reaches to the very heavens, cook roast dinner, build a garden bridge across the Thames, fix up my car, and write a load of emails.

About two hours ago I put a chicken in the oven. The rest of it went south. I haven’t left the house except to go shopping and I have no intention of doing so. It’s a lazy Saturday with Brian. This is the last chance I have for a day like this until Christmas and it’s worth taking advantage of that. I’m sleeping on the sofa tonight again, but my sofa is comfortable. All is well.

I haven’t spent much time at home recently, but it’s good to know that I finally have a place that I think of as home enough that I miss it when away. I struggled with that for years. This is a home, with the chaos and the cat and the people. Always people, often a little sad at this time of year, coming in and coming out less sad and probably a little bit tipsy.

We had a few tears from one of our number tonight and the solution turned out to be Muppets Christmas Carol. A little early, for sure, but to hell with it. I’m about to start doing that story for a living again so it’s always good to kick my head back into it via Kermit and Michael Caine. After the film it just seemed logical to break out the Christmas lights and stick some baubles on various objects and generally scatter festivities about.

After all, once I walk out of the door tomorrow, the next time I walk back in it’ll be Christmas Eve. Sad not to do it in London – I had Camino friends messaging me today because they wanted to come en-masse which would’ve been absolutely lovely but I can’t get them to come up North to see it.

But now I’m sitting on my sofa surrounded by garish lights and tinsel, watching Brian shoot people in the brain on our incomprehensibly vast television screen, and wondering what I’ll forget when I up sticks tomorrow. I have two candleabras. I have a papier maché bust of my head. I have my accordion. I have tinsel. My iPad. No charger – that went to someone else years ago. My brilliant Bose travel speaker. I don’t even know where my pants and socks are so I’m still just living out of my rucksack. At some point in Sheffield I’ll go to Primark and just buy enough sweatshop clothing to see me through December. Then on Christmas Eve I will come and reclaim my territory, a conquering hero, probably having lost even more weight through sheer volume of sweat. The plan then is to throw as much as possible away before I get too attached to it once more. Let’s see how that goes in January…

I’ve been sofa surfing. My first realisation is that I’ve got some brilliant friends with brilliant places to sleep so despite the phrase “sofa surfing” the only sofa involved has been my own sofa, where I am tonight. I’ve been so spoilt. Sara and Jack have a spare room with one of the most comfortable beds I’ve slept in for months, apart from the one that Tanya and Tristan have… I’ve had two great beds on opposite sides of London presided over by people who matter deeply to me. It’s unusual shifting my base in this town. But I’m very used to waking up unfamiliar. My moments after waking have been confusion.

I’m still dreaming pilgrimage, which is understanding considering I’m still living out of my rucksack. But I wake up and open my eyes in an unfamiliar room and recalibrate myself and wonder where I have to go today. Perhaps that’s how it should be. Where do we have to go today? Good question to ask, every morning. Small portions.

All of these big things you are trying to achieve – you don’t just teleport there. You wake up, portion out the day, aim for a minimum distance and go. Sometimes you don’t make the minimum. Sometimes you make much more. Either way you’re not where you started unless you do nothing. If it seems too far away you just aim for the next big city or the next waypoint. You meet people on the way who are heading in the same direction as you. Some of them you stick with. You’re in competition with none of them. Sometimes they’re faster, sometimes slower. But everyone makes it in their own way. And you get to where you get to. The only real obstacle is you.

I had times where I didn’t care about anything I was heading towards for weeks. After Pamplona there was nothing I was interested in until Cruz da Ferro. After Cruz da Ferro, nothing until El Cebreiro. Weeks in between just inventing destinations. But eventually I made Santiago. And then Finisterre – my true destination, with the closure that was so necessary for that walk. If I had really thought about the distance I might have stopped myself before the beginning. Big tasks in small portions. I’ll be off to Jersey in January for another one…

I’m glad to be heading to Sheffield for Carol, because it’s a chance to ply my trade and express what I do. The Scrooge story resonated deeply with me – more so than ever now. No matter how fucked we think things are, it’s never too late to turn a corner. That’s the message, for me. And that’s a powerful reminder. Because I’m concerned that having the distraction of a nightly show will push me back into old habits, when I have a lot to do.

I think the key is how I wind down after work. I remember witnessing a conversation between my best friend and a well known actress about this. How do you put yourself back in after a show? I think this run, I’m going to experiment with ways to wind down that don’t involve being up all night.

Here’s the ticket link by the way for Sheffield types. This crazy happy show that has become part of my life and has brought me so much joy. Come play if you can! (Particularly in the first few weeks as I think they need more sales then!) 🙂

Here’s my bed tonight… My crumply sofa. Because despite two great beds and numerous sofas across town, I wanna be near my car and able to load a case full of clothes because I might hit the North tomorrow…

I woke up this morning at Sara and Jack’s in Clissold Park, and we immediately broke out the laptop and got writing. Christmas Carol is back on, this year in Sheffield and York. Last year, after Christmas Carol, we had bizarrely had the foresight to transcribe the show such as it is now. We did it over beers, in a celebratory state of mind, and around the time we finished writing the long opening scene and got into the Spirit of Christmas Past we had abandoned it in favour of fun. Thankfully a large portion of the necessary script adaptations were in that section and we got them down fresh. The script we have always been working off has virtually no correlation with the words we have been speaking and is in a format that brooks no copy and pasting. We had to rewrite the whole thing with the words that work, which have been arrived at through trial and error over more than a decade – only four years with me though. And only three with Jack and I. Many years of trialling what works and what doesn’t through different brains under the constant guidance of the extraordinary Tom Bellerby.

If this show is to be outsourced – which it might have been this year if New York and London hadn’t fallen through – the actors that don’t know it backwards need to have a clear line through it. It’s good to have a text of sorts for this madness. Even if a lot of it is impossible to write down. Because this is a very odd show.

Our next question today was about whether or not we actually have enough stuff to run the show. A van went up north but we don’t know what went up with the van. We need a load of candleabras and we fear they’ve been scooped up by another show somewhere. Everything has been in a particular corner in a store, but the vultures have been in anyway. Without candles we can still do the show. It’ll just be a live radio play where the audience sit in the dark and imagine. We also need a desk. It didn’t go up I think but I can get it in the jag. We need various items of costume that might be lost or worn by other people in other shows. So I’m going to go up to Yorkshire a few days early to work out what we need and to start getting my head into troubleshooting the gaps. This show is a joy and I’d like it to be the best version of itself that it can be. There will always be compromises. But right now we’re aiming high.

It feels great though, to be dreaming with Jack again. To get this collaboration back online and to anticipate a month of fruitful creative partnership. But until we find a top hat that actually fits – ideally our one with the red paint on it – then there is shadow work that will be lost and world building that will be weakened.

Meantime, I’m hanging out with Claire.

We toured America something like four years ago. She’s a lovely friend. It’s sad to think I won’t really be in town to see all my friends before I sod off to Sheffield. After so long away this feels like a flying visit, with lots of work to do

Meantime, tomorrow I’ll be looking at marketing strategy for a show  we’re building at The Vaults. It feels like a fruitful time right now. Like the walk, all you have to do is break big things up into small portions and they become more manageable.

Anyway. A very worky blog today. But that’s where my head is sitting. It’s funny what this city and its prices do. You can’t be here for long before you start to think about how you’re going to tick over.

Today I’ve been thinking about commercials. I had an appointment to record a voice reel. I woke up in the morning and immediately listened to a load of adverts – slow on my research but better late than never. They’re not easy listening, adverts, but they are interesting to listen to mindfully when you’re thinking about craft. I brought up a few from my old school mate Cumberbatch. He’s the voice of Jaguar. He has very deftly and effortlessly voiced some insanely technical info vids. I don’t really know what torque is, but he talks about it as if it’s a thing we all should care deeply about.

Mel and May and Lucy pottered around the flat having tea and eggs while I listened to people with voices like mine expounding the wonders of luxury items and insurance companies and skincare products and all of these things that small sections of high earning humans sink their lives into.

Eventually I headed out to Islington, to a little house on a lovely East/West residential street. You ring the top bell, where an actor has tacked a little laminate with the name of his studio by the buzzer.

Inside it is a well appointed comfortable home, and he has a little enclosed stairwell area upstairs. It’s isolated from traffic and airplane noise, surrounded by heavy ancient delightful curtains and visible soundproofing. It’s for recording actors doing reels, and he probably gets himself doing fuck knows what in there too. It’s a pretty effective deadzone considering its in London. It’s much better than the corridor space and towels I improvise in my flat while Pickle shouts and the sirens blare. I like these home studios, hacked together in noisy cities by dreamers.

I went there to say lots of words into a very good mic. Now it’s down to him to make me sound the best version of myself. But isn’t it always? The editors and the stage managers? I know what I’m doing but they can knock it up a degree. I paid a lot of money but I reckon it’ll pay for itself pretty quickly as I’ve got a saleable voice and this’ll be a calling card going forward. All I need is one gig out of this and it’s paid for.

I had to bite my tongue a lot though. I’m instinctively dubious of anyone who asks me to conform. This guy knows the game though. His advice comes from a well practiced, living place. “Know your market.” is part of his message. And he hears enough voices to know what may or may not sell. I strangely trust him, which is rare for me when I find someone peddling services to actors. It’s usually done by broke people who did something once with X and went to Y place that we’ve heard of with Z. They’re selling subjective advice to equally frustrated broke people for the price of rent. If you’re the same personality type as them you’ll probably benefit. And you might make a friend.

After an afternoon with this fellow, I feel I have genuinely learnt loads about expectations, about delivery and technique. Maybe he’s a great teacher, or maybe he’s the same personality type as me. Without even hearing the finished product, I’m immediately satisfied that I’ve got my money’s worth. And I’d never normally say that, particularly as he’s not fucking around with his price tag. There goes Aldi Halloween.

Sure, he didn’t let me speak to myself in a million accents, which I like to do in the comfort of my own home. He kept everything very vanilla, very close to my natural delivery. But he surprised me, taught me, worked with me, augmented me and challenged me. And maybe – dare I say it – maybe being who I am is enough. After hundreds of miles. Hi.

Back to work, such as it is. There was an audition talking place at The Arts for a show at The Gate in Dublin, and they needed an audition reader / steward. It fell to me. A lovely way to ease back into the nuts and bolts of my craft. It is always so humbling to see other actors audition. People who have got very little spare time as they hack together an existence in this expensive city, and they’ve focused what little time they have into learning and working a scene so that they can do it once, under pressure, in a room full of strangers with no audience involved, out of context, starting from 0 and going to 100 in seconds. I was reading a 23 year old girl and boy, alternating as they saw men and women. It’s a beautiful poetic piece of writing from one of the greatest of the modern playwrights. Every actor I saw could’ve done it and done it well. They’d all learnt their lines. Their work and drive was visible. Sitting on that side of the table I was once again struck by deep affection for the rogues and vagabonds I live alongside – for the willingness they have to work so hard and so openly and give their hearts with no certainty of remuneration. The theatre bunged me fifty quid for a short job and I had nothing at stake so I was alright, Jack. The guys on the other side of the table though – they had loads at stake. Months of their life. The chance of a changing job. And they all went about it beautifully.

Afterwards the director asked me to play the 23 year old woman but I fear he was joking. I said I’d only do it if he let me keep the beard…

Then I crossed town to go and watch Hamlet.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to watch this Hamlet, frankly. It’s a very dear friend playing the title role, and I was quite seriously in the frame to be in the cast. They’ve been touring amazing places and having great big experiences. I went on the pilgrimage at a time where my diary was blocked out with the name of a job that ended up being worked by another actor for reasons I still don’t understand. If I hadn’t walked 700 miles I don’t think I’d have been able to watch the show at all. I did, and I could, and it was hard but it was lovely. I had a great night. Maddy was, as ever, entirely physically and emotionally committed and bold. So bold. Smart, funny electric work.

But then it all came out afterwards. I found myself angry, spiky, generally fractious, and unfair. I was machine-like in my attempts to fill myself with alcohol. I was on a huge avoidance tip, and making everything about everything but the thing that everything was actually about. I’ve got lots of messages on my phone from close friends asking me why I was a dick to them. It didn’t take me long to catch myself, but for a little while I was hurting, and hurting back. Now I’m sitting next to May who I just did my utmost to upset before she called me on it. And I’m glad she’s resilient.

Problem is we are now sitting in the freezing cold on my porch, watching the rain.

Brian is coming home and has keys, thank God. I haven’t got keys to my own flat, and when I get in I’ll be sleeping on my own sofa. I didn’t think this through properly tonight. Hamlet was a big noise in my head, approaching like a freight train, burdened with complicated emotions paired with the desire not to let them be visible so my friends could do their work.

I just assumed someone would be home, but Pickle can’t work the intercom. It’s helpful in one sense. We just had an argument brought on by my foul processing mood, and now she has to snuggle together with me because it’s freezing, despite the fact I just upset her. Thank God. Helps us let it slide. But the world is too cold for all these complicated emotions. I’ve just been in Spain for God’s sake. I’m not ready for UK November and I’m certainly not ready for UK November on my own doorstep after midnight when I’ve just been angry about broken dreams and the arbitrary nature of my job.

Which brings me to snuggling. After all the existential angst and cruelty and rage it’s useful to notice that the simple physical necessity of being close to another human to share warmth is a lovely thing. My legs are cold though. I need about three more humans to make this porch workable, but the two of us are doing pretty well considering it was bonking hail on my bald patch four hours ago.

And here’s Brian! HOME! Of sorts.