Month: April 2023

Occasionally I wonder if maybe it’s not too late to be a dad. It was always in the plan somewhere, but it got shelved repeatedly and then actively pushed to the backburner when I felt my credentials being tested by prospective partners. I have no grandparents to bring to the table, and I work and live in a functional but largely unpredictable manner. My friend Carl just fathered his second, and his first came when he was older than me. “I had tried all the other adventures,” he said to me. “This is something new.” He’s got two daughters.

I hung out with my dear besty and her family today for Easter and I got a little snapshot into how much work it all is. Maybe partly my own fault for bringing so much sugar. We reap what we sow.

Minnie is in Twickenham at her parents house, and there’s a little garden. I channeled my parents. Another thing they did well was an egg hunt. The garden at Eyreton would be sewn through with eggs. I remember finding some in June that had been too well hidden.

I arrived with eggs, but not too many. Minnie had expressed concerns about sugar quantities. But fuck it, I’m a wildcard in that family unit so I can inject a bit of chaos. Eggs ended up hidden in the better bits of the garden. “The Easter bunny doesn’t like getting mud on its feet so didn’t go in the muddy bit.” Minnie’s daughter found them all, eventually, perhaps with some help.

Then we all ate a chicken in the garden. I carved it. Nom. I avoided cooking the gravy as her parents are pretty specific. They are both in their eighties or is it nineties now? You don’t get that far without having your ways.

Then we went into the park where I started to learn my limits with play. Magic food. I was a sausage roll. I had to roll lots. Then get garnish in my face (grass). Then I had to vanish when I was eaten (run away). The thing with games like that at the age of the tyrant who I was entertaining – they can last FOREVER. Add to that the chasing and after just one day of it I feel a bit funny in my shoulder. We eventually found the magic ice cream parlour which was less physically demanding as we could sit there as we repeatedly got served with disappearing ice cream of all different flavours, played by my friend’s daughter who also played the person running the van who insisted that this one definitely wasn’t magic disappearing ice cream.

Everybody was very much still awake when I said goodbye and went across London to do a self tape. Gotta be the quickest I’ve ever done. Improvised and for an advert. I would’ve sent the first take if I hadn’t said “costume” instead of “uniform”. Second was perfectly fine and just in the clothes I was wearing.

My friends the parents… How the hell do they do it? One of them is playing in a children’s show at The Unicorn Theatre and the other is in rehearsal for a big part at The Globe. One day with their kids and I’m knackered. Happy-knackered. But… knackered.

It’s the repetition thing that gets me. In miniature it must be like a long long run of a small part. “How do I continue to make this alive for me, the one who is doing the thing on repeat, without taking away from the experience of the people I’m repeating for?” There are ways.

One thing I will say that I’ve noticed over time: Children help the less playful people remember how to play. I’ve seen actors who were very stiff starting out become transformative with the constant play of parenthood. Clever ones who had no previous means of switching the left brain off.

The tyrrany of playtime. It helps us all forget our boundaries. We are suddenly serving an irrational master who thinks and desires faster and wilder than we do. I had excellent play today. More soon I’m sure.

Not bad for a day that started with me clearing up fox poo right from plum outside my door. I didn’t realise I have a habit of stopping for a moment in the doorway and taking in the state of the day. Just as well I do. The local fox has clearly marked us. Luckily I had a bag in my car.

All this play has got me pooped. Zzz

This season is an auspicious one. Who knows how long we have celebrated death and rebirth here. We see the world around us start to regain life and colour. Butterflies in the air suddenly, the birds are back. Plant life pushing up, with character and brightness. Tickety boo.

We have symbols we have inherited and repurposed for who knows how long now. On Friday we ate cakes. Death cakes. Soul Cakes marking the death of a season. My mum used to bring them out first thing in the morning. “One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns!” Buttery warm raisiny delight. I went and got one from Kemptown Bakery on Friday and happily munched it. We all know what happens after the death cakes. Rebirth time! Although today the body is in the tomb still. The dark takes a little while to remember how to be light. We can get it by being happy and connecting with family.

Tomorrow we celebrate Eostre again with her hares and eggs. An egg – the promise of life. Things are coming back at last, including the sun. We won’t be dancing round the maypole for some time yet, but it’s improving.

This season, the eggs are much the same, but the hot cross buns are weirding me out. You could probably get lemongrass and ginger buns if you looked hard enough. Chocolate. Blueberry. Caramel. Chai. Maple pecan. Apple and cinnamon. Greed. Rhubarb and Custard. Cheese and tomato. Cheese and chilli. Cheese and Cheese.

It’s only once a year. If we are only going to eat something once a year, how can we get bored of it enough that panels of taste testers at supermarkets across the country are paid in summer to say “ooh I like this one” about this rash of bunternatives. A bun is a bun is a bun. It’s got a cross on it. It’s fine. I don’t need the services of “Hi I’m Frances, the alternative Bun-Chef.” I just want a bun that tastes of bun. I only really want to eat it one day out of 365, although I’m happy for the supermarkets to get a few more purchases out of me in season. I’ll be loading up with eggs tomorrow. I’m not a man of great patterns. But I like all the faff of Easter and it isn’t rammed down our throats like Christmas.

Messed up the scheduling again. Happy Easter all.

Finally the day I’ve been waiting for. Up on Ditchling Beacon and lying on our backs in light bright enough that we took our shoes off. Lou got some freckles. The larks were up and singing. We only got summer in small doses through gaps in the clouds, but that was enough to kick-start it in my body. Even on a bank holiday we found a place to lie without hearing the screaming of the children or the droning of the ones who know about the thing and intend to share the fullest extent of that knowledge. Maybe I got the beginning of a tan. It was needed.

I have responsibilities towards myself and others though. I can’t just lie on my back until November. The things in my flat won’t box themselves up, but I’m on the edge of change in regards to my comfy but irresponsible living situation. I have to establish when I’ll have some time to do more, and then I’ll have to go about things with all the diligence with which I go about working for others. Invigilating, Event work, Pretending to be people, Training, Mentoring, Entertaining.

So I’ve bounced back to London. The pattern is often to work hard on the external jobs and then relax with Lou. I have a third responsibility that needs watering too. My life-admin. So I’m doing a spot of that over the Easter weekend. I might go see some dear friends as well, and maybe even family. But… there’s work to do.

Tonight though I’m sleeping on the sofa as I promised my bedroom to a friend when I figured I would be in Brighton. I’ll have to rehome the fish. They were great in lockdown but honestly I can’t be bothered with them anymore and it would be nice to switch off at the fuses when I go away. Plus they are noisy when I’m sleeping…

Thyme teas and walks by the sea. Eggs and spinach and fresh hot Tom Yum. No coffee…

Tomorrow I’m gonna have the mother of all headaches and it’s about time. Caffeine withdrawal. I’ve been living off that crap. Four or five cups of coffee a day, mostly buying out, and if I die and get a load of statistics and one of them is “total amount of money spent on caffeinemilk” then I’m gonna be shocked at the extent of it. Another day without caffeine and my head will hurt plus I’m off the sauce. Being sick like this is, perversely, a useful firebreak, because the first thing my body tells me is “Don’t feed me coffee or booze please” so I can usually use it to get my hand firmly back on the rudder regarding emotional crutches.

Ursula le Guin taught me that if you know something’s true name it has no power over you. She didn’t teach me that in person. Wish I’d met her. She themed complicated children’s books around the idea and then she let us think we had discovered the depth of the metaphor. I often think back to those Earthsea books. When it comes to the caffeine withdrawal headache I know it. I can name it. It hurts but pain understood is just a warning signal. I’ll just persevere and occasionally tick myself off for once again becoming addicted to coffee. I’ll break it again now. Then I’ll go back on soon. But, for a while – mayhaps until Eid-Al-Fitr which is only two weeks and I’ve got shit to do. Let’s see. I’ve made myself sick by working and playing too hard on repeat. Time now to make myself well by taking the play out and allowing this long weekend to settle.

Seaside Brighton in the calm. Nothing much to think about. Nothing to do. Didn’t even have to move the car. Suraya is a lovely Thai restaurant in walking distance from Lou. Hot food to break the mucus I’m fighting. And a can of Fanta to satisfy the sugar craving. I’m not gonna do everything at once.

It’s been warm-ish down by the sea. I wouldn’t necessarily call it sunmery, but winter is losing its hold at last and good riddance.

I’m gonna have chamomile tea and watch a movie and be asleep by nine. That’s mostly what I was doing three years ago when we were all in stupid lockdown. Unless… my goodness yes … were we doing The Tempest on Zoom? Ah. What was all that Covid stuff, eh? At least it was a chance to relax.

And Brighton again. The Fantastic Human Spring!!! Marvel as it boinggs all over the country – nay – the world!

I’m sick. Throat is hurty. Feeling run down. I’m trying not to cough all the time, and I’m feeling a little bit sorry for myself. Usually after a show I sleep for a bit instead of running all over the place. This thing has been stalking me a few days in the cold oily dampish maschinehaus of the Kirk. Post show slump. All the accumulated late nights and deep breaths of dusty air and shouting. A couple of days down? Just the ticket. I just had to get as far as Brighton and now there’s a warm soft bed, a fluffy cat and a Lou.

I have to stop myself from obsessively testing my voice as is my habit when I’m laryngeal. I’m not in the middle of a long run outdoors so actually I can just be silent and careful. I’ll likely not manage the silent bit but I’m sure Lou will be delighted if I can keep it buttoned. She’s surprised when I can do it long enough not to interrupt her.

Around Chessington on the M25 Lou began in her yogic way to remind me how pain and discomfort is a response that can be observed and converted. I’m aware of this but it’s also nice to have a good whinge.

Rest is the best thing now and its likely possible. I haven’t seen my diary but I’ve a strong feeling I’m done with everything but nuts and bolts until after Easter. I’ll be shuttling up and down London to Brighton and making sense of where I’ll be earning my crust come summer.

Early bed. Snooze. Everything better in the morning…

A Premier Inn in Stoke. The Purple Palace. It’s where I’m sleeping. It’s great. Occasionally for this job we’ve been in an Airbnb that has been picked for price. In fact, the last one I had no towel and the bathroom was shared with everyone else. I couldn’t wash myself in the morning.

The young men and women I’m working with are excellent. They likely have a strong future ahead of them. All I can do is facilitate their learning and help expand their understanding. There’s a great deal left for each of them to explore, and they all need to grow in different ways to make the best of themselves. I’m proud to be part of the mentoring team. I think they’ve assembled some pretty excellent humans for them to be mentored by, with rich lives. I’m stoked to be part of a team that is training people to this level. It’s an American company, and you can feel the America, because everything seems possible! Hoo-Ahh it’s the American Dream!!

The youth did hold up some extremely suspect human beings as “Entrepreneurial heroes”. Elon Musk, one of them said repeatedly, as if that was a badge of quality. As if they were trying to say something worse, another one said Andrew Tate. If you’re a decent human you won’t know his name. Sadly I do. Don’t Google him and add to the hits. He’s a chinless bald liar who thinks he’s alpha because he’s reworked the whole concept of “Alpha Male” to take out the science and replace it with ideas that can be followed by the legions of terrified men who look for his videos online. He’s a posturing wimp.

Then they name Donald Trump. And so we realise how the people who make the pursuit of money their primary motive are just ugly ugly people. Roly-poly ancient decaying Strumpf who has persuaded the desperate of America that he speaks for them, when really he just speaks for their self-protection instinct translated through himself.

And fecking Elon who doesn’t understand humans or nuance, who has made a ton without needing to care about how satire works, who has bought one of the biggest social media thing in order to destroy it.

I am trying to mentor these guys and that’s what comes out when they are asked? There’s definitely work to do here on compassion, even if I’m pointedly and deliberately keeping politics out.

It’s harder than it should be now, as someone gave them my surname and they found me online. That has humanised me to whoever might have found this link and it means that now I can’t write anything that I wouldn’t feed back to them in person, until that particular cohort is out into the world. Tricky. I already have much to juggle. I will never know how they got my surname. I think they just asked someone on the team but why they gave it out is anyone’s guess… I usually prefer to go by Alex in these circumstances anyway just to obfuscate. Who knows. I’m much more interested in the students and their education than the politics around it. You know this, oh constant reader. I do all the things. I do them and I do them well. I’m not a specialist. Acting is my primary. But… Jack of all trades. Master of one? Given a few more years and a couple more good cracks of the whip…

Lying on this big Premier Inn bed in Stoke, I’m finding it hard to fully process that it was this morning that I walked into a huge empty lecture theatre with no desks laid out in it shortly before I was supposed to be invigilating an exam in it.

Maintenance had forgotten to put the desks out. There were only four of us instead of five. 100 desks had to be laid out, and then all the papers and then the candidates to come in and settle… Also there was a partition wall down. We needed that out. Plus it was touch and go as to whether the desks would all fit. Chairs were stacked in the corners. The desks were all wheel locked and folded.

Different people react to things in different ways. One of us started panicking. Two of us immediately announced that they had bad backs / shoulders and couldn’t actually do anything and anyway it’s not their job. I took a deep breath and started laying out the fucking desks with an eye to making sure they all fitted etc. Panicky got a bit better, but he’s too organised for this sort of thing. He needs to know how things are gonna be done and by who but this was a time for doing first and thinking about the details second. Yes it’s not our job but fuck it, I’m not an invigilator and honestly I’m just ticking that job over in case my leg suddenly falls off and I have to make scratch money from somewhere other than running all over the place doing random crap.

The students had a nice calm room with only one mistake in it, easily solved. They had no idea the extent to which I had been haring around moments before. Maintenance showed up en-masse just before kick-off and took down the partition wall just in time. We nearly got driven off a cliff. Idiocy but I thrive when things are on fire.

So then I drove up to Stoke. Staying in a Premier Inn but rather than eat stinky burgers in some “gastro” pub I went to The Upper House. Former stately home for one of the Wedgwoods, then old folks home, then ruin, now in loving hands serving expensive but tasty food with a beautiful garden. I had venison for £35 and it was marvelous. Now I’m getting an early bed so I can be bushy tailed for tomorrow’s Engineering Masterclass that I am, of course, helping to run.

Life’s rich tapestry, eh? Blaaaaaarrggghle

I’ve been thinking back over the thing we made at Kirkaldy’s Testing Centre today. “Here’s a great big room full of dormant machines. Make a thing.”

Sammy and I have been at it for a long time, and we have learnt how to collaborate. She’s a brilliant individual – positive and forward moving. There’s a lot of stuff in my brain that I kinda know might be fun if it was out in the world. It takes the faith of a Sammy to allow me to extrude it. She’s brilliant and together we made a strange thing work.

We showed audiences that it was okay to play by dressing them up but taking the pressure off them immediately. It goes back a long long way this sort of work in my life. Back to Simon in the workings of Tower Bridge, just after I left Guildhall. Permission to Play. We didn’t have a clue but we learnt by doing, making little interactive gamey type bits at various events for humans. There was enough money to keep us coming back, just. We upskilled without really even understanding that we were doing so. We had to play with strangers. We learnt quickly and it was hard. Now it’s a skill I can never unlearn.

We all made something last week, and it seems that some of the thoughts I really wanted to be there made it through to the people who experienced it. The idea of giving your time selflessly for the safety of others. The feeling that we are so easily pulled away from being entirely honest by the prospect of profit. Short-term profit outbidding long term functionality in the modern world.

This man David Kirkaldy was obsessive about testing things, but it seems a very pure obsession. It wasn’t for profit or recognition. It feels to me like he built his testing empire purely because he liked to know all the answers. He wanted very much to truly understand what materials were capable of withstanding – so we could build our ambitious projects, but more thoughtfully, rigourously and carefully. A Henry Higgins of material testing.

When someone has that forensic collector brain, they can be served and they can serve the world when they find an early obsession and follow it through. Some just collect stamps or bottles or cards and vanish into sweaty obscurity. Others expand the boundaries of science through pursuing a detail deeper and longer than anyone before. David Kirkaldy was one of those. An obsessive with a helpful obsession, of knowing exactly how and why things break.

Bertha, his huge machine, echoed in an eighties children’s TV programme. Lovely Bertha. You are a lovely machine. And everyone who works with you will know just what I mean.

Bertha smashes and measures.

Bertha murders your girders and rends your rivets. Pulling or pushing. She needs hydraulics and a team of people. In modern terms she’s too much work to operate as even to reconfigure her takes manpower and time. The world is too fast for Bertha now. She has played some small part in her own downfall, by helping speed industry. So now she sits, painted racing green but very still and oily in her unusual wooden housing draped with chains.

I might not see her for some time now but she will rest in my imagination as I return to unusual dayjobbery, and the inevitable who knows what acting giggery. I’ve sent some cracking self tapes lately (and one I’m less happy with). Something is surely coming. Meanwhile back to the random.

And done.

Bergman is full to bursting. Moleskine capes and waistcoats. Dresses and bustles. A collection of Virgin Mary icons. Cow is dead sadly. Victorian theatrical periodicals. Stuffed animals. Curtains and sheets and cushions. A lamp. Paddles with “Fact” and “Opinion” written on them. Actually both in the plural this time as we had no quality control. My frock coat. Campbell’s costume. So. Much. Stuff. Just a fraction of what I have. But already so much. Enough.

We filled a dry building with bodies and we gave them a very mixed up creative response. I think we filled the brief. It was a long long time in the making but we can go home happy in the knowledge that we did the thing.

My brother Rupert showed up unexpectedly for the matinee where Lou was there too. There were also family members of a close friend. I walked out in character as Mister Kirkaldy, about to improvise my face off, and immediately looked into my own brother’s eyes. To avoid it I looked aside and saw Lou. I have no idea whether the sentences I subsequently uttered had subject object verb and all that stuff. I was mister WHY ARE YOU SENDING UP YOUR FATHER? Despite being half Scottish, “doing” Scottish has never been particularly natural. The other half is Spanish and until I started working in South America I couldn’t even really pass the time of day in that language.

Nevertheless, I saw it through. He’s a decent enough fellow, Mister K. The rigour and the passion for testing things properly… it’s a step away from this guy who just likes to pull things out of a hat and then try and persuade everyone it was magic.

The team? Sammy. Poor brilliant Sammy, putting up with my bullshit with compassion and kindness. She’s a worker and a fighter and a believer. I’m extremely glad to be her friend. We were essentially partners on this, but the way she coped with my vanishing and distraction? She deserves medals. Judith used to run The Nursery and host The Factory for shows. We put her in a tricky room downstairs. With the help of Cow it was made delightful. Siwan stuck into the lab, with all the peculiar vigour and wit that she brings to the Halloween tour, and brought her incredible craftiness to bear. Multitasking. My nephew Campbell? I made him do immersive acting when he literally hasn’t ever done anything close to that before, or seen much of it. If I wanted to maximise my weird uncle points, then I did just that by roping him in. He was game for it. David was the character time-keeper – the most rigorous of us all. Then Jude, Omar, Noah – giving their time to dress in big capes and hats and serve punch or tear tickets.

Good people. I will miss them.

It’s bedtime now. And it’s all done. Tomorrow I’ll have to empty Bergie. But this has been glorious. We are better together. Always. This has been a team game. And joyful.

I’ve got very good at making that punch now. Considering how incredibly potent it is, it is astonishing how much the audience seems to enjoy the taste of it. We could make it much weaker, sure. If this was a commercial theatre show, they’d be getting a lump of dogpoo on a washable metal slab. We couldn’t sustain the level of generosity we have if we were doing “The Bible” live on stage every night, but we could easily rework the running costs with profitability in mind and take out the boozy luxury.

Tickets are basically free, but I’m making this stuff from Kraken rum and Courvoisier VSOP. You might have read the quantities yesterday. Lucky lucky audience – but also they know it, so there isn’t even the tiniest sniff of dissatisfaction about the show. I could make the punch from much worse ingredients and it would add the same. The cost of a glass of that punch in a high end bar? You would be happy to pay twelve quid. You’d expect to pay seventeen. If you paid twenty you would mumble a bit before someone reminded you you are in London.

Time to start to bedtime. Caroline pointed out that we wouldn’t have time on Saturday to party as we had to do the break. She bought pizza and beer and we all stayed on to be positive about each other via booze augmentation and adrenaline post show. Caroline is our producer, the one who builds the teams. She comes out of the rave scene, but with a sense of order. She knows how to govern anarchy. I feel totally seen and understood by her in a way that is rare for me when mostly I feel people magnify an aspect. We collaborate well. She can help me order my chaos.

She was right to make the end of show party for us all happen today. We all got the “I love working with you” out of our system. Campbell and I then got a black cab home and they are cheaper than Uber now. After tomorrow it is over.

I have always loved to do work that is written on the wind. I’ve got this blog and maybe one day I’ll go over it… but the crap bit of the brain that seeks to look exciting can go swivel. I’m here. I exist. What’s next?

And I forgot to post this. Oh ethanol, the things you do.