Month: February 2019

I’m sitting in the BFI. The guy to my left is on a string of conference calls. He has a little moustache and a tie and ironed shirt tight to the flesh under his lambskin jacket. He looks like a finger puppet.

“Unique” he says, frequently. “Head up communications in a unique context accessing enterprise market pots.” Sometimes he laughs, but it’s a dry sound devoid of meaning, like someone dragging a stone on a bit of driftwood. It involves the word “ha”, but it’s like he learnt it by rote. Usually this dead laugh is triggered by his own content.

I’ve heard a lot of people talking like this recently. It’s a sort of learnt groupspeak. Signalling membership of some bullshit club. There’s always these pockets of linguistic consensus. It’s abject. But I suppose we all want to feel like we belong. And there’s money in this language. People pay for conferences where they all talk in it. It’s an industry. But this little fool somehow catches my interest.

I moved.

Now I’m downstairs in the bowels of a hotel, dressed as a New York cop. There are plenty of real cops here as well. “I want your uniform,” one of them tells me. They have spaniels to sniff out explosives. Some of them are going under all the tables with torches, rifling through plants, checking the artworks. These burly professionals look towards safety whilst musical theatre actors pretend to kill one another with knives to a beautiful wash of sound. “Bernstein’s a genius,” enthuses a stocky police lieutenant. “The sound. The tension within it. God I wish I could do it.” He’s not wrong. This is twice in a year I’ve been a cop in West Side Story. Last time I was psychotic Schrank. This time I’m ineffective Krupke. Inspired partly by the bullshit guy at BFI I’ve shaved down to a little vain moustache for the evening. Everyone is trying to get things rehearsed. The tech guys are exhausted. But it’s coming together. It’s an ambitious call, for dinner entertainment, putting on a musical with all these big numbers. But it’s a big dinner. There are some serious names on the guest list. Some major league players selling in the silent auction lots. I’m going to have to be charming, but the uniform is an open goal. It does a huge amount of work for me.

More time has passed.

A buzz of excitement. Every corner has someone spraying deodorant or adjusting makeup. People are busy even if they look relaxed. Someone asks me which aftershave they should wear. Others are rolling their r’s, sirening, regulating breathing. “I feel much better for that smint,” says someone. The Puerto Ricans practice their accents. “Fifteen minutes,” calls the stage manager, and the director is giving notes about positioning in the fights. I’ve checked my props, checked my costume. Having a moment of calm. I glance up and there’s someone in their pants directly in my eyeline. We are sharing this room with the police and people have been waiting for them to leave before getting their showpants on. It smells strong in here. Chemical. Familiar. This buzz. This weird community. It’s what I signed up for. Helen will be at the van by now, about to be me for Pantechnicon. I’m going to get my Krupke face on…

And I did.

I know I lied to an Imam last summer, but now I’ve gone one step further and lied to royalty. “Are you really an American?” asked the surprisingly disarming heir to the throne. I had been unexpectedly put in a lineup to talk to him. I’d been briefed to remain in character as Sergeant Krupke. “Yessir, born and raised,” Krupke responded. He was very pleasant. He loves the musical West Side Story. Later on, speaking to production, he apparently said “It’s so great that you’ve even got an American actor playing Krupke.” It’s probably the ‘tache. But I was surprisingly disarmed by him.

Momentary blip accommodated, and on we go. Thanks for the messages. I always find it’s better to lance the boil.

I met some extraordinary young men in my work today. One of them had been trapped in gang culture and had to move city to break the pattern. The other was self harming and battling serious personal demons at a very young age. Both of them have risen to a leadership where they are able to mentor other people. Both have great momentum and perspective, hard won in your twenties, precious at any stage of life. They’ll be involved in the thing I’m doing tomorrow. It’s a lovely thing and I’m still not sure how much if anything I’m allowed to say about it.

I had a full day today though. Rehearsal all day and I got to try on my police uniform. I’ve got the most phallic rubber truncheon you can imagine and it’s full of wet sand so it gently leaks when it’s warm.

Nice to have a uniform. Apparently it cost a load to rent. But it looks the part. I mostly watched people sing and occasionally demonstrated how impossible it is to rehearse “immersive content” (ie being charming to strangers while maintaining a pretend world ie what tiggers do best) We have been moving people from one end of a room to another while they pretend to be insane alien children and we pretend not to notice. It’s mildly absurd and Tristan and I as the old lags are having to try to stop ourselves from saying “It’ll be alright on the night.” I was caught by the director on more than one occasion running versions of “Just get over the other side of the room and pretend I’ve done it in character I’m bored of you pretending to be insane.” I guess it’s better to pressure run these things and be prepared if any of the audience do turn out to be mad aliens. But most likely it’ll turn out to be a delightful and amenable bunch of people with just the inevitable one or two psychopaths. And the way to deal with individuals and groups of people never really becomes apparent until you’ve met the individuals themselves and then it’s instinctive and instant.

On which subject I had another vanfull tonight. It was so full I couldn’t fit one visiting friend in, which felt churlish in the extreme, especially since I’ve been trying to persuade her to come along and play sitar. Still a great deal of fun, although some friend’s experiences had to be rushed. Mel somehow managed to stretch a fifteen minute session into 25 minutes which is extremely hard to cope with when there’s a backlog. I ended up having to turf a friend into the tunnel to make room for an unexpected oversold show. It’s difficult to do the people management and the show simultaneously if timings go kablooie. It’s hard enough when they’re on track. I found I was unable to keep the world and catch the people that fell through the cracks. We need a third person, but we aren’t even paying ourselves. My friend is making more to cover one night than I will for the whole run after expenses. Ahhh theatre.

… and the bulldozer slams in.

However many times the audition doesn’t go your way, it never gets any easier. I’ve had lots of lovely people saying lots of lovely things today but it’s all to the same purpose and I don’t need smoke blown up. We actors put our heads on the line over and over again in order to do the thing that we do. It’s not about being loved. It’s about being in a position to do the thing that makes us who we are. Which is why being told they “loved” you is irrelevant if the job went elsewhere.

I realised tonight that my support network is disrupted. Both of the people I’d normally unpack my shit to to are new mums and I know they’re crazy busy. Years ago we could call each other in floods of tears no matter what or when. Now their sleep is precious. I couldn’t involve them in what is, essentially, a very minor upset. This job – it’s just a nice thing that didn’t work out and worked out for someone else. But it confirms all sorts of patterns in my imagination. The last nice thing didn’t work out too you see, for arcane and inexplicable reasons. Maybe I can’t have nice things anymore, I think. And the confirmations and patterns and negative thought spirals squeeze stupid bitter tears. And I just want to switch out for a second.

Traveling and acting are my two big delights. The chance to do them both is like Al Catnip. But for whatever reason, the universe is holding out on that joy for now, whilst giving me periodical little kicks in the dick for good measure. Somehow it’ll work out… There’s a reason why etc etc etc

I can surely make some money driving vans and invigilating exams and flaying my skin off in the meantime! It’s gonna be fine fine fine! And so we lie our way through existence.

I’m sad. I’m just basically sad. I’ve spent the afternoon with a friend who is chemically imbalanced, and I’ve been pretending to be the sorted one for his sake despite wanting to eat my own arms. Now I’m home I just want to curl up.

And I’m working two jobs. I’m rehearsing in the daytime and I’m doing Pantechnicon in the evening. There’s no need whatsoever for me to be feeling anything other than completely valid and busy. But I guess we can’t control the chemicals. Who knows what the next few months will bring. Not what I was hoping for directly. But maybe there’s a reason it went elsewhere. It’s my job to find it and seize that reason, whatever it might be, or to create it.

Bulldozers are a tool of change. Something gets smashed, something else grows. I’ll be rehearsing all day tomorrow and then in the Pantechnicon all night. I’m busy and sought after. I’m just choosing to fixate on a lost job I gave myself the best chance at, because I love to travel and I love to work. The universe will find other opportunities… It’s the availability I’ve kept by not having all these kids like my emergency friends have. I just … I just wish that occasionally my decision would be validated beyond nice messages telling me how well I auditioned.

Basically I’m just sad. And It’s ok to be sad. Tomorrow I’ll probably be resolute. It’s all so fleeting anyway.

How delightful, to be home and in bed when I’d normally still be talking to strangers and burning things. I’m having a ball at Vault Festival, but I’m also glad to have a night off and an early bed.

You’ve heard me talking about this Vault Festival, oh constant reader. But you might not know the extent of how great it is. Yes, we have to accept that they take a minimum percentage of our box office, and yes that means that possibly we would end up paying them to make the show, but it’s a very reasonable deal comparatively. Considering we are in London, they are not taking the mickey. Edinburgh Festival has long ago lost the ground on which you can experiment with things and not end up in debt. Mel and I brought a scratch performance to the Vault, and so long as we have a reasonable turnover next week it will work out loosely cost neutral. They are hosting our show on their site and pushing it out there. Their volunteers and producers have been exceptional in helping us find the right audience members. We’ve never had an empty night. We can use what we’ve learnt and what’s been written about us to confidently expand the show and pitch it to festivals in the summer, knowing we have a good group of people who can make it happen even if Mel and myself are both indisposed. I have a friend covering for me on Thursday. She’s totally different from me and will bring her own particular energy to proceedings. I could cover for Mel as could anybody that understands Tarot and doesn’t frame it as magic hoojamaflip, like some actors I’ve spoken to who clearly grew up influenced too much by a certain James Bond film.

My days are now sunk into West Side Story again. We are doing it as part of a gala night. “Immersive West Side Story”. You can’t rehearse talking to pretend audience members with any degree of truth, but we have been trying our best to prepare people for various eventualities. Here is a selfie taken by my pretend audience member “Nigel”.

Tomorrow will be another full day of rehearsal with these lovely fools, with no evening show for me at Vault. Then on Wednesday I’ll have to rush from rehearsal to show. Thursday is still baffling me. I can’t get to Vault, so how does the van get on site. Mel can drive, but she’s only ever driven automatic and it’s much easier for her to offer a problem than a solution. She told me not to take the show off sale when I knew I’d be unavailable, but she’s not helping solve it – almost like it’s my fault for having something else to do. I’ve paid a friend to cover me but she can’t drive. Mel doesn’t want to move the van in my stead despite her driving licence. She calls it “stick shift”. She learnt to drive in America where every car is a go-kart. And thinking of my mum behind the wheel of a geared car, she could fuck the engine…

I’ll have to find a way to be in two places at once I think. I’ll have to rush from the venue to the van and back again. Unless there’s someone who can take the van from Leake Street car park on a private road to the entrance of Vault at around 6 on Thursday (5 minutes work), and then reverse it back at around half eleven (ten minutes).

Nobody in the arts can drive big vans with confidence. Anybody?

 

One more week of evenings in the van and it’s starting to be really lovely now. We are ticking over nicely and people seem to enjoy it. I’m certainly having a whale of a time. But the van is getting quite disordered.

My character is mixing hallucinogens, and unsure of his location in space or time, but very happy if a bit confused. It works as a catch all, as I frequently have to set up very quickly and get started on an evening of shows. Things get lost. I am currently convinced that a particular audience member nicked my pack of smokeless incense, but I’m also just as aware of the possibility that it’s going to show up buried somewhere. I’m holding off cursing her with boils until I’ve made absolutely certain it’s not in a pile of random stuff.

I could never live on a narrowboat, no matter how much I like being on the things when they belong to someone else. Working in this van has been a trial by fire. I can barely keep my area in order. I’ve created a marquis who is so confused and schizophrenic that it’s legit for me to lose things. But I keep bringing interesting stuff into the van  in case I want to give it away to audience members.

My key fell out of my pocket during a show last night, and I was extremely lucky that my nephew had slept through the departure time of his megabus, or I would never have got home to sleep yesterday. I gave him £50 for a plane back up to Aberdeen as it’s not about spending 13 hours in a bus, no matter how you try and style it out that it gives you time to work or think or whatever. He’s next door right now trying to stay awake as he had to leave about 3. I was about to crash when I remembered I haven’t written this yet. I’m often so chilled out after an evening in the van that I forget this. But I appear to have a last second impulse that kicks me out of the slumberdrift and into making words on my phone with one eye open.

Full time rehearsal in the day with no evening shows for the next two days, and then it’s busy busy logistical nightmare time until the 8th. I’m going to close the other eye and drift away. This week will be lovely, but complete. I’m going to get my beauty sleep. In my terrifying onesie…

There I was, enjoying my lazy morning. Me and Pickle snoozing. Contemplating getting up for coffee when a private number rings me. I don’t answer. Probably a cold caller. They leave a message.

“Hi Al, where are you? We are expecting you at work today.”

Fuck. So much for a recalibrate. I knew there was something picking at the edges of my memory last night as I went to sleep.

One of my ticking over jobs. Invigilating. Low down my list of priorities and with the acting work bearing fruit at the moment, almost completely forgotten. They’ve also recently switched to online payslips only, and I literally have no idea how to lodge them, thus I’m not even seeing any financial effect despite my hours in work. I should work that out, and hopefully they’ll be game to allow back-payments. Anyway, I had to blow half an hour’s wage in an uber, and arrived shirt untucked with two scarves and bleary eyes just in time to sit here in this stark ventilated room, under the cameras.

And that’s it. There is only one person taking the exam in this room. He’s an extra time candidate, probably doing a retake considering its a Saturday. When I have lines to learn this is a great job as I can roll them round in my head as I sit in a concentrated room, so long as I don’t accidentally leak spoken words. Right now I don’t have anything to learn but for extra parts in Macbeth for The Factory, and I think I’m doing another exam in the afternoon. I haven’t got my Macbeth cut script or I’d drill in Malcolm.

It’s at least peaceful here. And concentrated. I can write an early blog and then wind down this evening after the show. All I’m doing on Sunday before the show is lunch.

Macbeth is on tonight but I’m not in the squad because of Pantechnicon. Loads of my friends are going to the Castle Climbing Centre to play it in what will prove to be a very unusual space, and to a sold out audience. It’s good to see the squad is back online and punching. It’s a very exciting show and company to be part of and I strongly suspect that this climbing Macbeth will signal the return of the old regular Sunday shows in unusual places that formed an operational core of the company when we were regularly swinging.

So it’s busy. If things go according to plan, there’s a lovely warm gig on the horizon (NDA and carrying an interesting selection of bloggy difficulties, but I’ll find a way even if it’s just book reviews for a few weeks).

I’m rehearsing daytimes, performing evenings, and have a lovely Factory squad I can drop into so long as I’m up to date with my homework. This invigilating dayjob seems less and less relevant to the way in which I turn my time into money now. I’ve seen a few dayjobs come and go over the decades. I’m wondering if this one still serves the me that has emerged after walking Camino. I think it might just be a time sink. Roll on the lucky phone call…

I just got home and I’m crashing hard. The last few days have provided much that was lovely, but precious little time to stop and recalibrate. I woke up this morning and fought through the rain to a remarkable and historic hotel in the heart of London. I had left my card at home, and successfully made my first foray into mobile phone payments for public transport. We were on a scout. I’m involved in a company of actors who will be doing a lovely thing there before long. I arrived flustered having been unable to buy myself the requisite morning coffee. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a free coffee?” I asked someone. There was and it came on a silver tray. “That would normally cost £7” Brian tells me by text. Good to know. In the state I was in this morning it would’ve been worth it.

After a morning of sorting logistics and thinking about these interesting spaces we are going to be playing we went back to the rehearsal room and ran the play. It’s a beautiful piece, and gets me every time. My part in it is currently pretty small, but as the director said “We’ll work out the immersive content on Monday and Tuesday.” That’ll be when I come in to play.

Rehearsal finished at half five. Then I had to rush home to get the van and roll it in to Waterloo. We weren’t ready to play a show when we opened, but good humoured audience members allowed me to run around and get the cups from the cab, and my very dissipated and confused character allowed me to cope with the fact that nothing was where I needed it to be inside the van for the first hour of working.

We had a good intake throughout the night, capped at 10.30 by some excellent friends made at Wilderness Festival, who booked out the van and would’ve made it a party all night if tech didn’t show up to unplug us almost immediately the show ended.

It being February I went for a beer with them afterwards, and God I’m feeling it now. I only had one pint, as I knew I’d be rolling home, but now I’m home and the duty is discharged it’s rolling through my system, slamming me hard towards bed. I won’t need any more. After a month dry I’m a super cheap date.

I’ll probably drink a pint of water and pass out momentarily. Tomorrow morning there’s time to chill. I’ve got nothing apart from Pantechnicon in the evening tomorrow. I’m going to stay home, eat healthy food, feed the cat properly and wind this last week out of myself while building content and storing energy for another long week next week.

Fun to be so busy. More please! 🙂

There we all were, far too early in the morning at Waterloo, getting out of London around the same time that most people were getting in. The concourse was thick with rage as people tutted actively about momentary obstructions on the way to their little workboxes. We very nearly missed the train out to some place near Southampton. Five of us. Heading to a green screen. This is what I do for a living.

After an hour and twenty in the train I’m in Barry’s merc. I take the front seat. Barry and I get talking, but I’m in work mode. I’m quick to suggest I’ll send him my voicereel, as he is an active spirit and is clearly making lots of interesting things. They’ll need their “poor man’s Cumberbatch” voice before long so I’ll lodge it with them while I can, dammit.

We are disgorged at the studio. An old stable, surrounded by green, packed with working people. Coffee and strategy. Then hair and make-up. They always make you look great for camera. Even me. It’s like a little holiday from my base entropic state. Mariana works witchcraft with powders and creams and sprays and then it’s in front of the camera.

A shoot like this is about short term muscle memory. A series of gestures, in a sort of pattern. There’s no sound being recorded so you find your own logic, aided or hindered by Ed Wood style narration from various sources, (sometimes inside your own head). In essence it’s very like learning the steps for a really weird dance and then processing it quickly from mechanical reiteration to something with logical bridges and a sense. It’s seeking the moment where “step ball change, JAZZ HANDS” starts to feel like an organic part of a conversation in world. Patterning meaning into gesture into meaning.

They’ve booked a huge amount of crisis time into the schedule. At one point I sharpie the front of my shirt trying to work out how to magically open a book and get a pen lid off without three hands, and fudging the open pen into myself. While one of us establishes that the mark cleans out satisfactorily with a baby wipe – (he’s got kids) – someone else is already halfway to Southampton buying an ultimately redundant replacement shirt in Zara. Still we finish a good hour ahead of time. We bundle into the train back home before the snow and in time for the show.

I have a friend on standby to do my part in case the shoot drags. I’m happy to let her off the hook.

Showtime tonight, and hellfire it was cold. I didn’t want to leave the door open, and the volunteers were out there smashing it and making it clear that people can come into our rather strange but joyful van of tea and tarot. I tried to get tea to them in the breaks. I’ve got headspace during the show now for acts of thoughtfulness, which is just as well as West Side Story rehearsals go full time from tomorrow so there’s no more time for anything other than getting on with it in the evenings for the next few weeks. I’m also starting to find the joy and the logic with The Marquis. Learning the steps of the dance. Jazz hands!