Month: March 2022

My kitchen is full of sunflowers. After we broke the gig, Tristan and I rolled home late in an uber XL and filled the boot with as many of the decorative garlands as we could carry. When he woke up this morning and left he only took a few. So I’ve been trying to find new homes for the ones left. Many of my neighbours now have a few stems. I took some across London with me when I met a friend in order to brainstorm some writing projects coming up. I’ll be taking the rest to Brighton with me tomorrow.

I was feeling pretty rough today. I haven’t had a hangover for a while, but that was definitely happening. I was dizzy all morning. I’m starting to feel normal again now and it’s one in the morning. Time for chamomile tea and bed.

This evening was spent looking at art. Just over the river from me, my nephew is directing The Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park. Bloody well done him. I went to have a look around and see if I wanted to buy anything.

Last time I went to The Affordable Art Fair I was a little disappointed that the only things I could afford were the prints and they weren’t on display. I wondered about the name of the fair. Going there again I get it a bit more. You have to put a price tag on an artist’s work because the value is subjective. In any subjective medium, the value of the artist is partly determined by how highly the artist values themselves. Stated value largely determines perceived value.

Much of the affordable art I saw was a grand or more. I was still open to splashing out for something I liked, but even though they say that paintings hold their value, my experience of selling them second hand at auction doesn’t correlate. Most of my most disappointing sales have been of paintings. It has led me to a place where I’m definitely not going to buy a piece of art unless I really love it. This evening, on a brief foray, I saw lots of art that I liked, but nothing that grabbed me by the balls. Likely I’ll go back again on Sunday and I’m not out of the race. I’m cautious. I’m not gonna buy something because I think it’ll be an investment. But I remember a girlfriend of mine buying a painting that I bet she still loves, and I imagine it has held its value too. She had it over her bed. If something strikes me that much maybe I’ll have a punt. Although I have so many paintings still stacked under my kitchen table. Disappointing sales meant I stopped pushing them, either in auction houses or online. There’s no point working out the artist’s name and then researching them and writing a spiel and then ending up having to send an awkward package via Hermes because somebody snagged it for the minimum. If I hung them all up you wouldn’t be able to see the walls here. They can’t stay under my table forever. I don’t need any more art.

At least the sunflowers are ephemeral. They’re pretty for now. They’ll do.

The music has started and my work is done.

This is an unusual one for me. Normally show start is when I peak. But today I’m Art Department and I’m tired. We are at Camden Roundhouse. We have come together to build a charity concert. I’ve been here for twelve hours. Now I’m here for to enjoy the music. I might still need to fix something, but if I did my job earlier I won’t need to. And I did my job earlier. We all did.

Huge bolts of polyester silk in blue and yellow. We cut it and hung it. A superabundance of sunflowers. We scattered them artistically around the space, keeping back many to sell to the public as a symbolic donation focus. It’s a lovely feeling to have some ownership over a space. I’m particularly proud of my sunflower garlands on the pillars. They pick out beautifully in the light.

Yuri Yurchuk just sung some beautiful opera for us. The crowd is certainly not as spare as some crowds I’ve been part of here. It’ll likely fill out further as well. Considering how last minute this all was, it’s come together well. There was a thought that we might try and paint the centre of 1500 sunflowers blue. But this was announced shortly over 24 hours ago and there aren’t that many of us.

Franz Ferdinand isn’t even on the playlist and they agreed to join today. It’s an evening done with heart in the traditional London manner. This is why I have persisted with this city so long. I love last minute heart. Tom Baxter is giving just that as I write. I keep having to stop writing just to let it wash over me.

It’s not much for me to have done considering what’s happening over there. But we do what we can, and I’m an artist. Making stuff is part of how I express myself, and making ephemeral last minute stuff has always somehow been high on my list of things that make me feel like me. I was part of a hasty team today. Hasty team done good.

The programme is pretty full. Chrissy Hynde will be playing later – I saw her in soundcheck. I’m tired so I’m not sure how long I’ll last here but hopefully I’ll see her set. It helps that I was building things during sound check as I won’t get FOMO if I leave to go to sleep.

Jack Garratt is now playing. These lovely charismatic musicians are mostly here for just one or two songs. It’s a big ask at last minute to come and play what is shaping up to be a big crowd here at The Roundhouse. I haven’t stood in a crowd this big for years.

Text DONATE to 70150 says the banner. I’m likely going to go and pay a fiver each for two of the sunflowers I’ve been throwing around all day. I’m going to switch my phone off. Joseph Toonga just did a beautiful kinetic piece called “Born to Protest”. I am going full audience from now.

That was fab. Chrissy Hynde is a legend. Camden Council pulled the plug on Franz Ferdinand. They had a finale planned. Buggers. Nevertheless, a lovely thing to be part of. I’m totally exhausted. Props to the people who organised this. I was just part of the machine.

A long day of dayjobbery. Some of my friends are teachers. I don’t know how they do it. That was a full day of it, running a pretty chaotic workshop in an inner city school. They were sparky as they always are, but I had to stay energised to match them. Now I’m absolutely battered. And it’s another early start tomorrow doing something completely different. My habit of saying yes means I’ll be up super early again and off to Camden to help hang a load of Ukrainian flags and build towards a last minute charity gig. Musicians helping out as best they can. I try to avoid thinking too much about the whole Ukraine thing as it’s vast and upsetting. We’ve seen it before, and we will see it again, how much damage a single ego can wreak… At least tomorrow I’ll be applying myself – at a discount rate – to helping make some positive energy in all this.

Various friends of mine are doing all sorts of curious things to try to help. There seems to be a large number of people going on Airbnb and renting out rooms in Kyiv that have been left listed. They have no intention of staying, but Airbnb are waiving their fees in the Ukraine so it’s a way of trying to get money to people there – but money isn’t food and its gonna get hard for the people left now the Russians are trying to funnel everybody behind enemy lines. I can’t believe there’s a land war again in my lifetime. And where will it end? Is he eventually going to roll all the way to Berlin?

The Russian narrative seems to be that this is a military action to liberate people… So other friends of mine are writing on Google restaurant reviews in Russia, trying to explain the way it looks from our side to the restaurateurs of Russia, perhaps in the hope that, were they to really know what was going on, the people of Russia will rise against their little Tsar. I’m not so sure. People are very happy to eat what they are given. For decades now globally the majority of people have taken the path of least resistance. We are complacent.

Anyway, I’m tired so I’ll start ranting if I’m not careful. It’s gonna be another short sleep. It’s midnight again. I’ll be on the tube tomorrow once more. This morning, that was an experience… Morning tube has always been an angry place, but now there are factions. The people in masks are fuming about the people who aren’t, and the people who aren’t are often contemptuous of it ones who are. We can’t even come together on something like that. No wonder Putin is relying on us wringing our hands while he just gets what he wants again.

Ugh.

Hopefully if I go to sleep I’ll have nice dreams. I’m too tired to be in a good mood. I didn’t take any pictures I can use. Boo. Night.

I was having a lovely relaxed time of it learning lines in bed right up until I went and upended a brand new huge great mug of frothy coffee all over my big soft feather duvet and lovely light coloured sheets. My Fitbit likely witnessed a sudden spike in heart rate as I went in a second from peacefully mumbling other people’s words out loud to swearing copiously while running around in my pants trying to get the wet off before it soaked through to the feathers. I think I managed to prevent the worst of it.

The learning is for an audition. Just a self tape but these things … God knows how far they go and who sees them. I can’t really think of them as “just a self tape” anymore as they are swiftly replacing in the room auditions. We are now totally used to a process that used to seem so much of a huge faff for us.

After my morning of linelearning, interrupted by the coffee spill, I drove over to Emma’s. She’s in Camden. If I’m going to do a self tape I’m usually going to call her or Tristan, and this one felt like one for her as I wanted to have time to faff about eyelines and camera angles and light and so on. We have learnt that we can be patient with one another in these matters. Nevertheless we have to erect a background and a temperamental tripod and a load of lights. The self tape issue is rarely the performance – it’s the stuff like eyeline and lighting. Had they foreseen that things would go this way for auditions I have a feeling that the top drama schools would have a series of third year workshops in basic filmography. Where to put the lights, where to get the actor to look etc etc. I was happy enough to send a take this evening when Emma suggested that it looked like the person I was talking to was sitting in the middle of the seat in front of me. Playing it back I could see what she meant so I adjusted it. We got it done quicker than I had anticipated in the end, which is good as I’ve got a whole day of dayjobbery tomorrow. The deadline is tomorrow afternoon, and I’m not going to emerge until long after it’s gone.

This is a happy tape to send. It’s going to one of the “I wonder if they even know who I am” class casting directors. They do! Yay!

But my hit rate was always high on in person meetings. If they happened I had a high chance of landing them.

These tapes are going through doors that were previously shut. Some of the names on the emails have been people I’ve marked as interesting artists on a global scale. I felt a strange release with this one, because the day the filming starts is the same day that, if I don’t get it, I’ll be flying out to do the next race for those crazy lovely madmen at Extreme-E. So either I’ll be doing a lovely job or … I’ll be doing a lovely job. I’m hopeful that this might swing in my direction though. Acting has to remain my primary.

Now … its late at night. I’m home and I’ve sent the WeTransfer to my agent. Tomorrow I’m out way too early for my liking and going to a school in the congestion charge zone so I’ll have to take the damn tube. More of this talking about sustainable energy malarkey, so probably correct that I’m not driving there. It’s a decent doctrine to be preaching. I’m tired just thinking about it though. Probably should just follow that feeling to bed. No bath. No chamomile even. I’m already down to six hours sleep and even if I do fine with two hours repeatedly, I’m not good with five hours for some reason.

This place used to be The Tabard. Now I think it’s called Chiswick Playhouse. It’s a pretty relaxed room in which to watch a show – you bring your glasses up from the pub downstairs. It seats close to 100. I’m at the back right. I speculated that there would be a return on the last night of a sold out show. There was  I’m here to watch Jazz Emu…

I can’t remember the last time I came here. A long time ago. It has rebranded but I don’t think it has changed much physically. I’m glad it’s still running. The London pub theatre scene is a great and odd scene. You get a very broad mix of shows. People trying things out mix with people putting on things they know well. Showcases and artists and weirdos and comedians and musicians. I expect the last few years have killed some.

This place is buzzy tonight. Nothing on stage but a sound desk with keyboard and a load of dry ice, but every seat in the house is full. We haven’t been able to do this sort of thing very often lately. I’m looking forward to something different. Then I’ll have to head home and be well behaved. My friends have to do the get out – its their last night. And I have to make sure I turn up tomorrow for this self tape that came through while I was in Harrogate.

It’s already twelve minutes late to go up. Likely waiting for latecomers. You can be a bit loose in a venue like this. I used to be in this sort of place twice a week. This show is an hour straight through, and I know nothing about it, and I’m hoping my bladder will hold, especially considering I’ve got a pint between my legs.

“Do you know him?” my neighbor asks me. No. I don’t know Jazz Emu. I know some other people attached to this show, but I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s all about. Judging by this crowd, he’ll be fun.

It’s starting! yay theatre!

—

So that was wonderfully weird. And it turns out I was at the final night for the theatre as it is. It will be under new management. The end of an era. The pub will still be called The Tabard, and the space still has to operate as a theatre. Interesting.

Jazz Emu is a whole world. I was happy to live in it for a night. He’s a delightfully odd self effacing electronic-music comedian type. He’s made a frame to play inside and he invited us all to come with him. It was huge fun. I’ll catch him again I suspect.

Stopping on the way back down from Yorkshire at a service station made me realise how terrible those places are for anybody who cares what they eat. I can and will make do with a KFC or similar artificial hideousness, but Lou is careful and there really ain’t much for her. Marks and Spencers have a good deal as pretty much the only vendor of actual food but even that was pretty poor today. And the roads are back to normal – the crowds are back to normal.

We made it back into London before the evening traffic, and it was a swift run back down the A1, but I was hungry when I got home. Out of solidarity I couldn’t really grab a dirty chicken burger, so I just had a few snacks and drove faster.

The day started with great luxury. I’ve been in Harrogate many many times over the years, particularly in that happy decade of summers that were filled with Sprite Shakespeares in the grounds of Ripley Castle. They were busy times though. If I was in town it was usually to get something. I was rarely there with time to spare, and added to that, the wage wasn’t good enough to inspire profligacy. They were happy and important summers for me, but it was always a negotiation with the agent to accept them and I never came home feeling like I’d made a good stash – especially on the boozier years…

This morning we had some leisure time in Harrogate. I wanted a treat. I took Lou and India to Betty’s.

Betty’s is just the ultimate twee place to eat. It’s on a corner in Harrogate, and if you want to go there you’re going to have to queue up. We arrived at ten to nine in the morning and joined a queue of a good twenty groups. If we had arrived any later the queue would’ve likely been so long it wouldn’t have been worth it in the cold.

It was set up by an expat Swiss confectioner called Fritz, who changed his name to Frederick just before WW1, married the daughter of an industrialist and put her money to good use. English breakfast and cream tea fayre with a Swiss twist. India and I went the whole hog and had a tiered “Imperial” breakfast. A glass of Bircher muesli. Two slices of cinnamon cake with clotted cream and fruit. A couple of pastries. Rosti with egg and protein of choice. Coffee.

Behind me as we sat were polished up versions of lots of the type of teapot I sold in large quantities for not very much on eBay a little over two years ago. In bulk for decoration is pretty much the only use they have really, the majority of them. Or pouring tea of course. They looked nice on the shelf but I found myself thinking that the current worth of the whole shelf of teapots probably amounted to the cost of the breakfast. That’s not to say the pots are completely worthless. But I paid it with pleasure. I was the one that wanted to go there. I was happy to foot the bill for good company while I shoved tasty food into my face. And arriving at that service station on the A1 some hours later, I was glad that we’d started the day up in Harrogate with some top scran.

I’m back in London again now, and I’m gearing up for another schizophrenic week, thankfully punctuated by a lovely and interesting self tape due Tuesday, going to a director who has taken the time to write publicly that he sees and appreciates the work we all put in for the things. (It was the first thing I found when doing my due diligence research). I’m glad of him saying it. Makes me hope the part lands so I can work with him. But then… well I hope they ALL land. Of course I do. For all of us! Ha. It will.

The last few times we’ve been up to Harrogate, the Turkish baths have been closed. They’re open again now, at the end of this long winter. Lou and I booked for the two and a half hour session at the end of the day. Why the hell not since we are here anyway?

It is so cold in the world, and we have all battled through a shit summer and a long winter. Perhaps not surprisingly we were in plentiful company as we began our journey through the different spa rooms. I’m not disappointed to see lots of people. It inhabits the place – gives it life and more personality. It’s not as big as it was. Lots of the original building has been eaten by Wetherspoons, and a Chinese Restaurant. Still, they’ve kept the most important parts.

There’s underfloor heating, and the walls are warm. Mahogany changing rooms, with bright fresh-painted mandalas and crescent moons decorating clocks. Leather recliners next to the frigidarium – the coldest room containing a long plunge pool for when you overheat. It feels old and considered, not twee. I like it here. An ancient cleansing ritual reinterpreted by Victorians but with lessons learnt and passed on from thousands of years ago.

The Romans really made sense of this form of bathing and relaxation, but the Victorians got right behind the blend of decadence and engineering. Mosaic tiles for beauty and easy washing, curved walls for water run off and safety, and all these different rooms. After the frigidarium you can shift into one of the warmer rooms, and then move back and forth as you please. They are hard, these rooms, but hot. You have your towels but you’re sitting on marble, stone, wood or just tiles. Soft seats would get pretty horrible pretty quickly. But you sit and you warm up. You can get water in little paper cones from a little brass tap. All the plumbing feels Victorian and old but in a good way. Even the loos are The Venerable Thomas Crapper. You find ways to let it wash over you. Your body gets cleaner and warmer.

We alternately cooked and cooled and cooked and cooled for ages. At the heart of the sauna is the laconicum and it’s HOT in there. At the end of the day when it felt like it was cooling off in there I checked the thermometer and it read 68°C. Off to the side is a steam room and I couldn’t take full breaths in through either my nose or mouth in there it was so hot. 68 is hot enough but that steam room was maybe even more – a blinding eucalyptus scented pressure cooker. I was in heaven, gradually cooking myself like a sausage, occasionally plunging myself into the cold water for a second just “because I think it’s good for my skin”, going back to languishing in heat. At one point Lou had everybody in the Caldarium shamelessly adopting yoga poses – legs up the wall. It’s hot and unfamiliar there, but it’s inevitably quite a social experience. You aren’t pretending the other people aren’t there – you can’t, you’re sitting in their sweat sometimes. You’re surrounded by all these different bodies of all shapes and sizes, and the people living in them are happy to pass the time with you like you’re at the bus stop. It’s an odd mix of intimacy with yourself and small-talk with others. I found time to retreat into my own head, and time to talk about the different parishes in Jersey.

Now we are cosy and sleepy, back in Harrogate. I feel so warm now – heated through to my bones. I’m about to sleep hard and well and long. A treat, the Harrogate baths. A real treat in this cold. My throat feels funny now. But I’m gonna sleep beautifully.

I’m sitting in a living room in Harrogate listening to Lou and Annabel talking about dresses. We are staying at Annabel’s. She’s made me a dressing gown in the past for Scrooge, and it was wonderful. Her daughter India was part of Christmas Carol for the years at The Arts Theatre. We nipped up here as I still have unfinished business with Tennant’s Auctioneers, and the world has been so shut and neurotic it has felt like too much to come up here and start poking things in the auction house. “What happened to X?”

We had a glorious Turkish meal earlier this evening, and now we are waiting for India to get back from Leeds where she’s been at a class. I’ve been sitting here for about an hour, and have uttered two words in all that time. “Shepherd’s Bush.” I’ve got nothing to add to what is an extremely detailed, passionate and involved conversation about dressmaking. It’s fascinating – it’s wonderful hearing these two people geeking out like this sort of thing. I have my topics as well, and sometimes I love to find somebody who shares them. Annabel and Lou are both on topic right now. They can both talk about fabrics and dressmaking for England. And they are doing so. Clothes. Dresses. Fabrics. Another little corner of the world that took virtually none of my attention and headspace until I found these excellent people in my life.

This evening as we walked the streets of this little old market town we could smell the woodsmoke in the air. We wandered into the foyer of the theatre this evening as we looked for a place to eat. They let us in without batting an eyelid, just to look at the interior. Some comedian has been passing through so the door was open. A similar thing to the feeling that has made me come back up to Tennants at last has been flitting through this town. Last time we came up here it was neurotic as hell, but we all were. None of the restaurants let us eat with them because we hadn’t booked. They had space, but they didn’t have headspace. Now this evening they just let us wander into the lovely old theatre and take photographs of the woodwork without challenge or permission.

Now I’m just writing as they talk. I’ve got nothing to add and they are enjoying the conversation. Best use of my time.

I won’t get to stay up north very long. We’ve booked the spa tomorrow night and I’ll be busy at Tennant’s tomorrow morning. But hopefully I’ll have a bit more time to enjoy Yorkshire. I do love it up here. Many happy summers of my life were spent in his neck of the woods. You can’t have that sort of experience without leaving a bit of yourself behind. I like to come up here and just connect with the energies again.

First thing in the morning somebody asked me to be a cat for an hour.

This is at Central School of Speech and Drama. I’m a guinea pig for training movement directors. They are practicing their craft on us. We are just having to respond honestly.

Wendy made me a tiger for hours back at Guildhall for the animal project. My body remembers it. But this body is so much older and heavier than the peak fitness body I had in my early twenties. Even then it was exhausting. Now, after two years of corona, with less oxygen because I have a fucking mask on my face… A hard start to the day, but at the same time a happy thing to know that this old body can still sustain it. I’m just one six month run of a good physical play away from peak fitness… Hester would always give me the running-around parts in Sprite shows up in Yorkshire, knowing that I greatly prefer the accidental fitness to the gym. This is just one day of my life. By ten o’clock in the morning I’m pooped.

I have a break though. Coffee in the market outside the school, and a moment of nostalgia. Ben is here as well and we share parallel lines. We have been running alongside one another for decades, occasionally holding hands, occasionally looking away. He trained at this exact institution though, unlike me. I’m just examining the difference between my tiger-body then and my tiger-body now. He is treading corridors that were full of possibility back when we were younger. He’s back at the old school. For a moment we share the time we’ve walked through this world as we stand being friendly in the square outside Hampstead Theatre. Both of us have kept at it. Both of us have had huge wins and huge gaps. Both of us are still there, still there, still there.

Various stints at Wyrd sisters happen until suddenly I’m Macbeth in Act 5 Scene 3 with the armour. Exploring weight and groundedness and the surrender of being dressed. Then more sisters and movement codes and elements. It’s interesting stuff to explore – crucial stuff to explore. It’s much of what makes live theatre live. My body was less of a precision instrument than I wanted it to be. I’m dead tired now. Happy tired. A tiredness I remember from the first few weeks of rehearsal when there’s a movement director who is pulling louder than the call of the table. These are good practitioners being well trained. I hope they go on to be involved in interesting and powerful work in an industry with new life from somewhere.

Driving home the news put all this theatre stuff into sharp relief. Tight voiced experts trying not to crack their voices as they coldly agree that yes, Tsar Putin might be crazy enough to push the button. If we survive this newest hideousness, there’ll be so much material to make work with. It was an hour and a half to drive home from Swiss Cottage, and parking my car up there cost me £30 for the working day, in which time I had to move it thrice. I’ll still see a profit from all my writhing around but parking is fucked in his city. Not that money will mean anything when we all live in a radioactive wasteland. I’ll be better off with a good tight body and the ability to fight the cats on their own terms.

My cat this morning probably looked like a pig.

I got back from Bristol and parked up outside mine in the late afternoon, and good thing too. Now its evening, and the road outside my flat is a jungle. I was going to head into town to see Jack throwing some ideas around, but there’s no uber in this crap so I’d have to drive in myself and nobody in his right mind would get on the roads when its like this, and less so knowing I’ll have to pay the congestion charge. Traffic in both directions outside my window is backed up as far as the lights and bridges. Everybody with a job and a car has used their car to get to their job, and with lockdown restrictions dropped I bet you this week is the week that many of the people who run offices insisted that whoever’s left of the workforce comes in physically if at all possible. They’re all coming home tired. So, of course, Tfl has organised a tube strike. God knows what they’re striking about now… Maybe they’re asking for fares to be lowered? They are already ridiculously expensive. But with all the people in London, you gotta believe that a tube strike is a sure fire way of causing absolute carnage across the capital.

It’s raining as well. I was going to drive to the shop, but I took one look at it and walked. I bought myself a chicken kiev. It’s an atrocious attempt at solidarity, and it’s a cheap easy meal. I’m knackered. Sleep more or less completely eluded me in the Premier Inn last night. The school was excellent though thank God, and considering I’m talking about engineering and sustainability I felt a good deal more kosher having just been part of the team that made a sustainable race in the desert. I’m still wearing my wristband, like a teenager who has been to a festival. It helps me remember the warmth and the work. I should take the time to draw up my invoice…

On the way home I had two calls, both seeing if I was able to do something fun. One of them was a delightful bit of mentoring in Somerstown. The other was being a (mercifully unrecognisable) dancing goblin for a week starting tomorrow. Yes really. In a mask. “You’re the first person we thought of!” And honestly, I wish I could be that goblin. But I’m off to Yorkshire on Thursday, so both lovely options had to be thrown out. But then I got a third call and it looks like I might be going to ANOTHER crazy distant place at the end of April to get plugged into more electric car insanity. Watch this space. It won’t happen if Disney calls (and they actually might). But it’s starting to feel like this year, after the long wait through COVID, will be a properly adventurous year again. Bring it on, I say. I’ve needed it, and I’ll do all I can to make it happen. The world is big. This is helping me stick a few more pins in the map.

Tonight though I’m going to get into a hot bath and go to bed before ten. Tomorrow is gonna be extremely physically demanding – I’m providing my services as an actor for training movement directors to practice their craft on. I’m expecting multiple warm-ups that take my post pandemic willing actor body to the edge of vomit, and then lots of Laban efforts. I reckon I’ll be glad of a long night down, so I’m getting one.