Month: March 2019

Well there we are. I’ve done my factfinding. It seems that The Isle of Man is still there. And the weather is as fast as ever. And a few people still want to tell visual stories. And so they bloody should. But the weather changes so extremely and so quickly.

Wind, calm, rain, hail, sun. We’ve had it all today. “When you write your memoir you’ll remember this,” says the director after I’ve chased down one of his bags that was blowing towards the river while he held the tripod.

It started with the wind. There were seagulls trying to make themselves flat on the pavement outside the guesthouse this morning. They didn’t even care that I was walking by them. Humans. We present danger to gulls, but only some humans. If the wind is actively trying to rip your wings off then I understand how you as a gull might make yourself as small as possible to ensure that the bastard wind doesn’t snag a feather and wrench you into pain, and risk the humans. In this weather they know that they’re more likely to get hurt in the air than on the ground. So there they sit, eyeballing my boots.

Weather is so sudden in this island. Massive solid slams of wind just happen, unexpectedly shutting the open car boot, rolling your heavy bay, easily blowing over the camera if nobody’s there to hold it – (someone always is). Even if the shot just involves walking across a street, if one of those gusts hit you, you swerve.

There was hail this morning again. In a beautiful bright day. The clouds just shout their moisture when they hit the west coast of the island, and if it’s still frozen then they can puke it out all the harder. I was in a car when the biggest hailstorm hit and it was spectacular. Trevor, driving, barely noticed it. Out of practice, I marvelled at the aggressive extremes of the environment, whilst he, in the driver’s seat, just levelly continued the conversation as if he wasn’t having to skate over an ice rink as he drove, ice slamming into his windscreen.

The place really is just a dot surrounded by a very nasty sea. Sure, dad waterskiied across it from Scotland to Ireland way back when, which I didn’t even know until his obituary. But he’d have chosen a very calm warm day, and likely have taken his time. Mostly, the Irish Sea is a cold and unforgiving bastard. It’s not like the English Channel at Jersey where my grandfather swam every morning no matter what the weather. Essentially, the Isle of Man is man vs weather. Lots of people just shave their head so they don’t have to care about hair. It’s almost constantly blowing.

My guesthouse filled up since the first night. Alongside me they took in “Four Poofs and a Piano.” It’s a revue act, by the look of it, and very good I’m told. Four musicians. Likely all pianists making use of that double-entendre. When I saw the name I assumed they must be local. They’re not though. They’re just marketing to a small town audience. They’re touring, bringing a solid act around the north. They’ve placed visible vinyl adverts on major interchanges throughout the island. And everyone was talking about them.

I thought about asking them about their marketing and their deals, out of curiosity, but I was just a guy having breakfast while they broke down their previous night’s show and it didn’t seem the time to put a producer hat on.

Here’s a break in the weather where the birds emerged to see what food the wind might have brought. Have a great week everyone. If you have a second around 17.10, send some positive energy my way.

I’ve finished work and I’m sitting in a little pub in Peel, close to my guest house. The director and I were going to go to Selby to have a spot of beer and dinner, but I needed to clock off. Something I ate is playing havoc with my stomach. I’ve been in pain for much of the day but keeping quiet. Maybe it’s some of the mercury amalgam from the filling the guy had to drill into. Or maybe it’s the three pints of Okell’s Ale I had with my supper last night. “Okell’s: only for locals”.

Also the cold has got into my bones. There’s a constant cold blast from off the sea. They packed up the camera just in time as the hail blew in. They have an instinct for it. “Hail’s coming,” they said. I saw no evidence of it. Then suddenly it was spanking down and I was glad to be under cover.

I honestly thought the film industry was going to explode in this island when I was living here as a kid in the nineties. You’d think it’d be the perfect regeneration, but owing to bad management and probably the wrong heads reading the scripts, it didn’t work out well. Now someone would have to do a Peter Jackson scale thing and find funding elsewhere. There’d be no help from Tynwald anyway. They’ve dropped 27 million or so in duff investments and caused so much rage that investing in film is a bête noir – or perhaps more appropriately a Moddey Dhoo. Who was reading those scripts? Who was greenlighting this huge investment? Here’s the problem. When there’s no art in the island, all the artists leave. So if there are creative decisions to be made it falls to bureaucrats or retired artists who are out of touch to make them. It’s a shame.

At least they tried. They made things. They employed lots of artists, many wonderful makers. But the formula didn’t cook. It all haemhorraged money. “Me and Orson Welles” ended up costing the island ten million quid. As an industry insider I know what Welles did in film. And to a generation above me, he was a game changer. “Who is your Rosebud?” someone asked me just the other day. But as a 12 million quid investment, nowadays? Not everyone reads Empire Magazine. A lot of people think of Pulp Fiction as a classic old film now. Citizen Kane is still a fantastic movie, but it isn’t being talked about. I watched it on a plane. But in dollars, Waking Ned total investment was 3mill. It turned in over 50. Nothing compared to Full Monty which was 3.5 and pulled in over 250. Film can do it. But who thought 12 million would come back?

This rock was huge as a Victorian seaside resort. It’s equally easy to get here by boat from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It’s right in the middle of the map of this little group of english comprehending nations sharing a weird history of antagonism and conquest. Psychologically the island could be well placed as a beating cultural heart of this island group. It hasn’t worked out that way yet. It’s a desert.

Online poker, banking, gambling and money laundering. Fat men in suits. Self importance. Nothing even slightly interesting on the surface. Although there are people with depth here, for sure. Some of my dad’s friends are highly charged, highly intelligent, still curious, still shifting. There’s an audience for interesting stuff here if marketed well. Because everyone is so so so so unbelievably bored and nobody brings shows and certainly nobody makes them. But the Gaiety Theatre is beautiful, built in 1899. It’s run by Tynwald/ IOM government again. The same people who are reading the scripts. The programming reflects their taste. They need an artist somewhere  “Who is the artistic director?” I Google it.  As far as I can tell it’s someone in a suit with 3 other jobs, going “yeah whatever”.

They’re just receiving. It’s sad. This island – particularly Douglas – is made of empty accommodation. There’s room for a few big projects…

They deliberately planted a load of monkey puzzle and palm trees in the early 1900’s in order to make it all look a bit exotic. They can somehow survive in the shitawful soil and freezing wind.

Even though there’s nothing much here, again I’m tempted to come back and try and make some change. I’m not writing about what I’m involved in right now. I’m glad someone is making something and I’m going to support that enterprise, in my home island.

They’re doing something creative because they feel the lack of that in this island. They’re right to try and make it work.

I’m part of the problem though. I’m too hungry and too optimistic to stay here. I can’t drop the vigour of London for the beauty of Manannan right now. And when/if I can, I’ll be probably be too old for my voice to be relevant.

“That’ll be £204 sir”

Hideous. But I’d pay it again in a heartbeat.

My flight to The Isle of Man is at lunchtime. There is a sudden break in one of my molars. Night-time grinding of teeth. A bit snapped off right by the tongue root. Ow. Seriously. Ow. The tongue is a strong muscle.  The break is sharp. Every swallow forces the side of my tongue into the jagged fangs of the toothcrack. Sleeping is fitful, and punctuated with painful wake-ups when I swallow. Eating, I discovered, was to be avoided entirely. I considered painkillers, but in this case the pain is doing what pain is supposed to do. It’s warning me. “You’re shredding your tongue! Stop it!” I’d sooner sleep badly and not eat for a bit but keep my tongue intact than dose up on codeine, lose track of it, eat steak or dream of eating steak and wake up with a mouth full of my own blood and half my tongue grated off by a rogue tooth.

Mouth pain is hard to think past. It’s so close to the brain.

Problem is I only had about two hours in the morning to find an emergency dentist before I had to get myself off to Gatwick Airport and fly. I’m heading to the Isle of Man, where I’m going to have to do some filming that involves talking to people. Talking to people involves using my tongue. Using my tongue involves pain… It might come across as an interesting character choice, to lisp through the shoot occasionally wincing for no clear reason. But better to have it fixed so I have the option of doing the lines some other way if I’d prefer. Problem is, half an hour of dentistry at short notice is never going to be cheap in easy distance from my flat. But £204? Good God. Still. I’m out of pain now apart from the damage on the side and root of my tongue.

I’m flying to The Isle of Man on someone else’s ticket. He’s filming a short out there. A friend of a friend. “My actor mate grew up on the island” led to someone phoning me from the island, which led to a short notice offer of a flight over here. I’ve got no checked luggage, but I might buy a bagspace for the way home as I have a couple of things out there that I’d like to have over here instead.

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Now I’ve been checked into a windy guestroom overlooking the sea in Peel. I just went for dinner with the director. He’s a good guy, trying to make something in an island devoid of artists. Once again I feel that pang I felt a couple of years ago when I came over here and looked at setting up a company and realised I’d have to BE the scene. There is none. It’s tempting, but time consuming.

There was the brief possibility of a film industry here back in Waking Ned days. There’s the infrastructure to make stuff here. There fuckloads of accommodation empty but for one week of the year. The tax breaks are not what they used to be though which is why the focus shifted. Most of the artists just leave.

I’m the first guest signed into the guesthouse this month, but as a result they’ve very kindly upgraded me. My room is beautiful. The wind is coming in hard from the sea and the rain is up. Home weather! It’s only half seven. I’m going for a stroll down the seafront in the tempest. Then … beauty sleep without tongue grating.

Nice to see the windy island again. To briefly drive the old roads. To say hello to the fairies. It was only halfway through dinner that someone tells me “You know I’m a dentist, right? You should’ve told me. I’ve got a clinic in Peel.” Arse.

I’m beginning now to make my way through the remains of the lives of strangers. It’s odd work, as there are about 4 humans involved and everything is higgledy-piggledy. So I’m jumping era with every bag. Victorian plates are mingled with 1930s plates and letters and a lamp from maybe the 1950s and an unworn Pringle pair of socks from Harrods. It’s all covered in soot from the fire, which must’ve been huge. I got quite a lot done today but it feels like I’ve barely started.

Brian grabbed an etching of London and we loaded an old bedframe in to throw away. I went to the dump first thing, to make enough space for me to work in the van. My hope was that I could sling all the junk immediately and then stay there and work through the rest of it gradually at the dump. But the guy I met last time was on me like a burr. He has to be. “I took my eyes off one guy the other day,” he tells me “and next thing I knew he’d dumped a load of asbestos.” He’s making me very aware that I can’t stay there forever, especially as it’s windy and the door is flapping. Also he’s trying to make me rush. He has the same tendencies. His house must be full of junk. I’m trying to avoid taking anything into mine unless it’s going straight somewhere else…

I make my way back through London and park outside St Luke’s church. I don’t want to call attention to myself by sorting outside my block. Mostly there’s junk in that van, but it’s interesting junk and I don’t want some drunk tit throwing it all over the pavement at 4am hunting PlayStations.

One of the first things I find today is a hardback book of “Churches of London”. St Luke’s is in it and I’m parked right outside. Seems like a sign. I bring it over and give it to the woman in the café. She seems pleased. I’m not checking what it sells for on Amazon. Good to remove the notion of cash value from this work. I’m just going to look for other values like joy. I was paid to take it, and it was marked for destruction. The book collection is wide and, unless you’re a power seller on Amazon, kind of pointless to sell. I’m keeping hold of ones I like and I’ll be finding homes for many more. Charity shops after friends.  There are lots of books on embroidery, and on the history of fans. Someone loved their fans, that much is clear. There are some beautiful ones in random boxes, some ruined ones in sacks, and a broken one in a frame that belonged to the wife of a general who died at Waterloo. I wish I had an empty ground floor room for a week to put this stuff in piles of like.

One person collected busts and one person fans. Depending on the result of this sorting I think I’ll be able to fill one whole room with smoke damaged Victorian plaster busts, and at least one wall with mounted fans. But I’m going to have to get more efficient, especially as I’m very busy the next few weeks with day job. Nevertheless a good first day, and I realised a little way in that the dad was in “The Quatermass Experiment,” – early BBC sci-fi – which another friend of mine Toby could pick on Mastermind as his special subject. I just got off the phone to him and now I’m on high alert for the original call sheets. They’re just printed sheets of paper with locations and times and names. But he’d love them. If they’ve been saved  that’s one more random bit of joy from these objects, and this is before they’ve been made fair game as theatre props. As they say, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. And it feels the right thing to be doing, and a pleasant use of my downtime. If I can find enough small objects with value, then my hourly wage will be acceptable. The clients all enjoyed the notion of the stuff going back into the world their dad was from. And first thing this morning I found twenty bucks.

It’s a useful discipline for me, this sorting, as a lot of the things here align with the things my brother and I are not looking at related to our bereavements. We have dedicated whole rooms to piles of boxes we’ll never do anything with until we die unless I do. I’m trying to keep the stuff that will be useful for theatre and categorise it, and get rid of the rest. But it’s a war with myself and my instinct to preserve interesting things. I still miss some of the things that were thrown away in The Isle of Man. But I’m a hoarder and I want my space back. This is me doing for someone else what I kind of wish I’d had time to do for myself back then. To say goodbye to the bulk of it and personally select a few talismans to carry forward.

I can’t quite believe I’ll be back on the island I grew up in tomorrow, staying in a guest house in Peel. But more of that when it happens.

Another school, and this time thinking about careers. Year 7 once more, getting them to write their first CV – eventually. It starts with asking them to think about their top ten dream jobs. “Footballer” is one that comes up a lot. But more and more recently “YouTuber” is common. It used to be “Celebrity” but that’s not there so much now. By year 7 though, you hope that steps have been taken to move towards that goal.

If a kid says footballer I’ll ask if they’re on the youth program for any clubs. Often they are, and often for clubs they don’t support. Geography and parenting plays its part. Just as often they love watching football, and on a first question they’re drawn towards what they love watching. When “What are you doing for fitness?” meets “I play Fortnite” then it’s a good time to encourage some wider thinking.

I remember these career days at my school. I would put “actor” in every box and then eloquently defy anyone who tried to switch my head. I spoke to a young woman like young me today : “So you only want to be an actor. But even very successful actors have gaps between jobs where they do other things. You might not want to split your focus, but actors can find themselves with time on their hands, and they use their skills in many other spheres of life. You might consider having another income stream running alongside the acting.” (Like mentoring / van driving / invigilating / construction / after dinner speaking / film set driving / ASMing / fixer work / repurposing / Carrying / Proof Reading / Script Reading – to name just a few of mine in the last couple of years, and those are the ones that spring to mind before I start to apply thinking. Because to be excellent you also need to be flexible about self-identity. And yes I’m calling myself excellent.)

I didn’t feel telling her I was an actor was the right thing for where she was in her growth towards herself. Who knows if she’ll end up one of us. The “Footballer” “actor” “youtuber” bracket is often shorthand for “I’ve really not thought about this and I don’t want to and I’ll fall into something.”

Through the day we encourage kids to think a bit more about their value system. What they need out of life to make them happy. We get them to make steps towards writing a CV. It’s a lovely day, and unusual for the kids. They were great today, although primarily because their teachers were massive authoritarians. They had been trained to obedience through habit and fear. Lots of standing in line. Lots of hard words from teacher.

But today for the first time I’ve experienced in an inner city school like that, lots of them ended up with “politician” as an option. One kid had “Prime minister.” Usually I don’t see these kids contemplating a life in politics. But in terms of understanding what the bulk of people have to cope with, I’d sooner vote for that kid than most of the examples of thoughtless privilege who are eating our future right now.

It’s all academic if we’ll be dead in two generations. But even after the extinction some humans will be left I guess. Good to make sure they’re thinking.

So the stuff I took out of storage? As you know, constant reader, I put it in different storage. If I get it out within a month it won’t be a problem. But that’s how they get you. I have to make sure they don’t get me. I’ve got under a month. People who like sorting out old things and have too much time on their hands, hit me up. I’m dedicating a fair few days to this around my work. The first one is Thursday.

I had to put it in storage to empty the van. I had sofas to move, and then the family I was dealing with needed someone to clear the rest of their storage. They paid me this time round, so I now have a second load of Victorian set dressing, a load more books and records, and some bits of furniture and electronics that are incontrovertibly valueless and that I’ll have to pay to chuck. But I factored a trip to the dump into my invoice. I’m learning.

I’ve experimentally listed two shoddy electronic items on eBay – pet grooming tools – not because I expect them to sell, but because they’ve never been opened and it makes me sad. They were bought, forgotten, and then thrown away decades later. Technology has changed a bit since they were made. There’s a VHS tape included with the dog hair clippers with grooming tips that nobody these days has the means to watch. It was put there to add value, but it takes value away by making the buyer feel that it’s dated. Ditto the ionic brush, which wants one of those rectangular 9v batteries (and doesn’t bother mentioning it on the pack.) Nowadays instead of buying batteries you have to remember where your charger is. A different obstruction. And instead of making sure you groom your dog near a plug socket, you have to leave it to charge for hours when you first get it, but then it works wirelessly until you lose the charger.  These old items are perfectly serviceable and it’s part of the problem if we just throw this stuff in landfill because we want new new new. But we are conditioned to think that new things are better. I wish we could destigmatise re-using things. Especially when so many old things look great and work great. The idea that you only use second hand if you can’t afford brand new – it’s not good for the world. We are dying here.

In some fields we are leaping forwards daily. In others we have long stagnated and teams of people in the related industries are innovating packaging or pushing new “pentapeptides” in order to persuade suggestible people to upgrade their emotional placement to the “new better version”. (I’m deliberately using an old example from the cosmetic industry. They were introduced so mawkishly it stuck in my memory.) But we’ve been buying shit for years to make ourselves feel better. And things moved so fast for a while with the Industrial Revolution and the technologies that followed that our ingrained modern habit and expectation is to see the thing we prized being completely outclassed in a few short years by the upgraded version. We covet or buy the upgrade, which in itself is improved upon so quickly. But my dear friend’s dad uses a wall mounted “Spong” manual coffee grinder and it’s a beautiful thing that still grinds the beans as well as any shiny electric pretender. Let’s try and reuse things. Fix things.

Hopefully I’ll find new use for lots of the things I’m digging through. Huge amounts of classical vinyl… Someone wants it.

I’ll be off to the tip next week. But before then let’s see where we can put things that isn’t in here.

 

I’m upset about Keith Flint from The Prodigy. I didn’t know him. Almost certainly danced in the same vicinity as him. Probably banged up against him physically while raving. “Alright mate” “Nice one mate”. Could’ve stood behind him in the queue for the bog. Maybe exchanged unknowing greetings. “You ‘aving it?” “Yes mate!”

I don’t immediately recognise friends if they’ve changed their hair. “We’ve met before,” comes out of interactions so often I try to avoid introducing myself. I’d fall back on the old actor’s “Darling, how are you” if it didn’t feel insincere.

I barely recognise people I like if it’s been a while. If the context is shot then it’s impossible. Famous faces and I’m fucked. That round in the pub quiz where it’s someone’s eyes and someone else’s mouth? It’s like looking at pictures of frogs. “That’s Patrick Flump!” says everyone and I go quiet. I can’t do it. I mostly just don’t care, and haven’t watched enough telly. Give me context if we have something to talk about. “Hi Al I haven’t seen you since we did one day reading 1970’s instruction manuals as part of an experimental theatre project in North Wales.” I’ll love you for that. “We’ve met.” Audible full stop. Oh fuck you. Don’t make me guess or I’ll only make you feel more insecure. “You know me, Al. How do you know me?” “I can’t remember when we met. I was probably drunk?” “Yeah. That’s what you said last time.” That’s a genuine one from ANother attractive blond male actor of my age. Who I wouldn’t categorise or dismiss so quickly if they hadn’t given me reason to.

But back to Keith. I wouldn’t know Keith Flint if he kissed me full on the lips without the hair and makeup. Maybe he did. Unlikely. He might have hated me if he had me on paper. Harrow. Establishment. We were all listening to Wendy James at Harrow thinking she was subversive. Then he danced in with his eyes and his fuck you and – well – I didn’t look back.

Music crosses the boundaries we make for ourselves. The Firestarter video with friends from school. They reacted like he was an alien. “He’s mental,” they dismissed. I just thought he was having a blast, and comfortable in his own skin.

He was huge. Mobile. Dangerous. Weird. A disruptive frontman for a group with actual edge. They spoke directly to my age group and they partied with us too. The dirty older brothers. “The Prodigy are here, just dancing.” “Course they fucking are.” And they kept doing it. They kept partying as we got older and had responsibility. And we kept partying right with them when we could. There was a moment of slack, but when they rolled in with Invaders Must Die it was like they’d never been gone. Omen! Dear God yes. “The writing’s on the wall!” It’s not just about the lyrics, this music. It can’t be. There’s only a tiny bit of content per song. It’s about the volume and the variation. It’s about the attitude. It’s about the dancing. Music to fly to.

When we were teenagers dancing in weird places at short notice, they were bringing that party to the mainstream, and still showing up when they could to get stuck in. “I got the poison. I got the remedy.” They really did have both. And they spread both.

The Fat of the Land sold well in America. And those warehouses and fields in London that are so familiar from the videos went out global. A generation of men and women not that much younger than Keith Flint will be mourning with me. Very few celebrity deaths hit me hard. The last one was Leonard and he said goodbye with an album. Keith just took his life, when you could argue things looked good for The Prodigy and for him by extension.

That anger that makes people the fire… So often it’s self directed. Fare forward you pissed off beautiful dark weird spiky legend. You helped me climb down from myself. I’ll see what I can carry forward for you. Your early death is only a complete waste if we don’t learn from it. “Music for the Jilted Generation.” Oh boys, boys, what did you know?

Meanwhile, if you need me I’ll be dancing in my living room.

 

Today was definitely more fraught than it needed to be. All I had to do was take two sofas to Aylesbury. I got in the van and drove to Putney to collect them. My friend who was helping hadn’t checked his WhatsApp since 7.30pm on Friday. I rang him. “Are you coming?” “Yes” replied a voice from the bottom of a well.

I got in the van and drove it to Putney. On arrival the key wouldn’t come out of the ignition at all. Stuck fast. After some patience and jiggling I got it out. I went up and sat with my sofa friend, wondering if my helper friend would show up. Miraculously he did. I went down and moved the van into the loading bay. And then the key wouldn’t come out of the ignition no matter what. It just … stuck. I tried everything, to no avail. I tried to switch the engine back on. It would turn the engine over after some coaxing. But no way was it coming out. Fuck. “Well, at least I can drive it.” I say to myself. I was in a private driveway at the time so it was pretty safe to leave for a bit, although an expensive place to break down. If that huge van can’t move itself it becomes a massive problem. Like a dead elephant in your hallway.

I manually locked the drivers door and went out the passenger door, quietly panicking. I went upstairs to get the sofas, with the key left in the ignition. That driveway is soaked with CCTV.

Once the sofas were loaded in, I was back to worrying. I carefully coaxed the key to ignite the engine and went on my way. “I’ll just drop off the sofas and then work out how to fix this,” I thought to myself.

And then I looked at the range. 50 miles left before I have to take the key out to open the fuel tank. It’s 80 miles to Aylesbury and back.

“I can get there, drop off the sofas and at least get paid for the job, then pull up somewhere in walking distance from a garage and refuel with a canister”, I’m thinking. That way if I can’t get the key out or back in, then the van is not in a thoroughfare or at the petrol pump.

But … I’ve got a passenger. I’m not alone. I might be happy to sleep in the back if it comes to it but they won’t be.

“It might not be as bad as you think,” he says out of nowhere. This is my depressed friend being optimistic. I realise I’ve been catastrophising. If we are going to get stuck it’d be better to get stuck in London than get stuck in Aylesbury.

I pull into a petrol station near the newly Japanese “London Pride” brewery. I’m so nervous about this situation that the van is steamed up. I’ve been driving in the freezing cold with the windows down because I’m hyperventilating and my breath is clouding my view. I switch off the engine. I try to get the key out of the ignition.

I am as gentle as I can. I lose hope about 4 times. I resist the temptation to force it. After what feels like ages it suddenly just … pops out. It’s bent like a banana. Really badly bent. How? I take it into the station and gently hammer it flat with a screwdriver borrowed from the cashier. Fucking Renault, making their keys out of tin. I successfully refuel with my newly flat key. I put it back in, and am delighted to be able to drive away.

It’s not good though. Every time I stop I have a negotiation with the ignition. There’s damage in the barrel perhaps? We get the sofas dropped off, leaving the key in again, and we return home to his. Once there we cover the key with WD40 and insert it to get some oil in the mechanism. It’s a bit better now if the key is a certain way up. I fear I’ll need a new ignition barrel before I return the van. Expense… But that’s fine. It’s been turning over nicely, this van. I don’t think I’ll ever regret borrowing it. I’ll see on Tuesday if the ignition is settled after the oil and the time, and I’ll make sure the key is properly straightened before I use it again and cover it in more oil for good measure. I love having this van in London. But you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth I guess.

Useful to remember not to go immediately to worst case scenarios…

Jack and I went to Big Yellow Self Storage today with the van. I have two days of van work coming up. I can’t use the thing if it’s full of bric-a-brac. I went and got a starting deal on a storage pod, giving me time pressure to get the stuff sorted, and a chance for Jack and I to touch base with what I’ve managed to get hold of, through the frame of Christmas Carol.

We have the most amazing haul of tacky Victorian plates. They’re all extremely patriotic, these plates. Pictures of Victoria and Albert and Gladstone and Nelson and other statesmen of the time. Men with muttonchops looking constipated and women with bonnets looking as if someone’s standing directly behind them. These are simultaneously wonderful and awful plates. Christmas Carol this year will probably involve the audience eating from these authentic Victorian pieces of decorative nonsense, loved by patriotic Scrooge, no doubt. Although as a precautionary measure I might ask someone if any of the plates are worth loadsamoney as they’ll likely get used hard in Carol. If there are loads with value then we have a budget for Beowulf! I suspect they’ll have very little value though. They’re just costume plates. Dressed up to look fancy but not actually fancy.

If you’re a ceramics enthusiast then this is a goldmine of interest. I’d love to learn the provenance of some of this. It’s lovely to know that this plate collection, maintained by theatre people, will find a life in theatre. I almost want to thank the lost owners for curating it for us. I think they’d be thrilled to see it go to good use. I would be. I’m going to invite their kids to see Carol and hopefully to eat off their plates.

We took our time to look at things, and to photograph them, and still got everything packed in reasonably efficiently. I took a lot of photographs. Sure there’s plenty of pure and simple junk. Also a lot of interesting looking junk – stuff that will be well used as set dressing for immersive shows. Stuff with personality but no real worth. Suitcases and ceramic Queens and candelabras and tiles. There’s a filthy rocking horse that looks more like a donkey. If anyone fancies cleaning it I’ll drive it round for fuel as I can’t imagine it’ll be much use in any of the stories I’m planning on making. It needs a damn good scrub though. How does one wash a rocking horse? Manually, and painstakingly I fear. Anyway, It’s yours if you want it. It doesn’t have smoke damage. The major issue with much of this stuff is that it’s heavily smoke damaged. Carrying it makes your hands filthy almost immediately. There was a fire in the house it came out of before it went to storage. This is what was loosely saved.

The best thing about today was working with Jack. Had I been alone I’d have had an interesting but far less fulfilling day. Sharing discoveries with Jack, dreaming possibilities for things we found, making spot decisions on random items… All of that was fun in company. I enjoy doing things so much more when I do them with someone I get on with. I said to Jack as I was driving back home over Chelsea Bridge that I honestly have no idea why I’ve let myself stay single for more than a decade now. Life in company is both cheaper and more fun. That’s why I was a serial monogamist for years. Rather than this committed bachelor I seem to have landed in.

Next week will have to be about moving this stuff quickly out of my storage and finding the right home for it. It’s free from the dump. Now it’s time to repurpose things. And yes, if there’s anything with huge value maybe I’ll sell it to make budget and repay storage. I’m not here to lose money. But I’d sooner repurpose things as that’s the service I offered. So I’m going to make sure that as much as possible goes towards theatre.

This is renowned Shakespearean actor Al Barclay checking in with you from Waterloo. Hello. I should warn you that I’ve consumed a large quantity of alcohol in a short space of time. Ah yes. My work tonight? Oh I had work. Work. I had it. Is it work? Yes, dammit. Yes, it’s work. (It was hard, if I’m frank. The unknown is tricky. It’s why I decompressed into this delightful ebullient state of mind that you find me in. I always have a hand on the tiller. Although right now it’s not the steadiest hand.)

“Good evening,” I cried to those beauties with their plates of thoughtless meat and their tasty tasty clothes. Oh they all looked so correct. All the women in glorious dresses or trouser suits, expressing all the colours, delightful. Homogenous men in drab colours, aping Beau Brummel, the man who killed colour, slouching in the same old shape and pallette centuries after the poisonous shitbag died of Syphilis.

My job? I’m the interference. Even though I’m in a uniform. My threepiece is navy blue. An acceptable colour for a man, according to inherited convention. I’ve got my tophat and my green ringmaster coat in a carrier bag but these humans aren’t ready for green yet. Man in green? Pervert. Navy is the way forward here.

I stand up in front of these humans I’ve maybe even met before at a film premier connected to their company in LA two years ago. The context is way out of whack and I’m clean shaven. Still I avoid self naming, as a casual Google search would bring the curious into a thought-hole of my own creation after 777 daily blog posts not including this one. Plus I don’t like promoting myself. Probably more of the latter than the former if I’m frank. Maybe I should’ve grandstanded…

I realise just before I start talking that there’s no lectern, rendering my bullet point notes useless. I can’t stand there visibly reading from an iPad. I’m a “renowned Shakespearean”. I want to share Titania’s speech about how the seasons are topsy turvy. It would be current with this week’s weather. “On old Hiem’s thin and icy beard / an odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds / is as in mockery set.” But Titania is one of the only parts in Dream I haven’t played over the decades. I find myself cutting it entirely for safety. I didn’t want to appear as anything other than totally certain, and I’m not certain about Titania’s lines despite multiple Oberonning over the years.

When you stand in front of that many people, and then you inhale their attention into a singularity, you really need to know your pinpoint to remain the shining tip of the pyramid. Thankfully I do, but dammit I’m not – yet – as internationally celebrated for my work as would be helpful in that context. If even 10% of the audience knew me from off the telly box – doing any old stuff – I could’ve been considerably looser with my content and we all would’ve enjoyed me talking more. As it was I had to use discipline and lots of adrenaline, which takes time to wind back out.

I tell them tales. Tales of life and the art to which I’ve committed my headspace. Tales of the war between the ones who fear and the ones who breathe. As the pyramid tip I sparkle.

When I pass the Rameses mic to the client, I pass him an attentive room with it. And then I sod off and walk to Vault. And at Vault I decompress way too quickly, pull in more pints than I’m comfortable counting, and generally put it all away. Now I’m off to sleep. Zzz

Only took one photo today…