Month: July 2023

Och.

Another email with another job that didn’t go my way. I’ve always managed to resist the temptation to Google all the jobs I’ve come close to, all the jobs I cared about, all the jobs I thought I had nailed in audition and then nothing but crickets. It’s so tempting to go through email history and then see what fucker got it. I don’t do it as I think it’d probably make me angry or bitter or weird, and I’m still just about managing to continue to love what I do. Maybe it’ll just be the same guy, again and again. Some super happy guy who is in interviews saying “I just seem to have the magic touch! Now when I fly the Cessna from my private island to audition for Captain Arse in the Bognor Jalopy Theatre Christmas Extravaganza I don’t even have to worry about whether or not I’ll get the part. I just ask my agent to ask ‘Is Al Barclay auditioning?’ and if he is then I know the job is mine.”

I’m having a lovely time and I’m often so busy I don’t know which end is my mouth. Got nothing to complain about really. I just like to be liked I guess. That’s a debilitating flaw. Bah, and it’s not like I’m not valued for my work and what I bring by those that know me. It’s the pesky ones that don’t know me…

Last night I was happy working with new friends playing Gratiano again in front of Hay Castle. I’m very good at what I do. It was a great show and I’m happy with the contribution our scenes made to it. On the way home it made sense to stop and see the old man in Swindon. He’s 94. An actor too. A glorious man. Time is fucking cruel though and those years will always tell. We connected way back through a love of Shakespeare. He looks me in the eye at one point today: “there’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life,” he tells me, and there’s nuance in it all. Owch. I see him bearing the whips and the scorns.

My parents didn’t get old. My grandparents didn’t get old. I’ve met Death and I know the shape of him. But I am less practiced in watching age steal vitality from those I love. He’s still burning through the eyes even as he and his beloved fight the march of time as best they still can. All the things that make him joyful shine out there. I adore the man, and hellfire, he has existed and existed. He’s carried that spark. He still carries it high and in his truncated circumstances. Perhaps he will never act again now but I’m kinda feeling the same thing and I’m half his age. He’s still on his agent’s books… Once he nearly played Prospero at Sprite.

I’m home now. Capulet is done. Merchant ticked off again for now. Back into the fray. Dayjobbery vs bullshit vs ambition. If I make it to 94 and still have the recall for poetry that man has, at least something will have come from all the endless shattering dreaming foolishness. Life is never fair, and rarely makes sense. And so we muddle through it. And so we hope.

I’ve settled into this lovely big room near Hay Castle. It’s dark outside so I can’t see the lovely view that adds to the price. It doesn’t feel like anyone has ever slept here before. I booked it through Booking.com and they were surprisingly neurotic and intractable about check in times. I get breakfast tomorrow but only if I get there before nine.  After a show, that’s not easy.

Man I’m hungry. Hay on Wye on a Sunday might as well be the bottom of a crevasse. I’ve been spoilt no doubt by living in London, but I was so hungry I found an all night garage and bought a pot noodle. The only other option was a curry place, and they got my back up by turning me away to only takeaway at 9.29pm even though they said they seated people until 9.30. I tried to tell them I would order immediately and eat quickly, and they weren’t empty. They were weird and dismissive enough that I wrote my first ever passive aggressive bad review on Google. They’ve got the area by the short and curlies – there’s no competition for late night grub and they know it. I could have got a takeaway but I actively didn’t want to give them my money.

So Captain donkey is in his room. He’s poured water into his noodle. He will eat.

Just three days ago I told a room full of young men and women that pot noodle is not food despite the freeze fried peas. Now I’m gonna put it in my face.

There I was, in front of an audience outside Hay Castle. “oh the delights and romance,” the audience might have thought as five hundred year old flashes of poetry eructated from my mobile lips. I was humanising this Flashman type prat in Merchant. Now I’m eating his atrocious diet.

I might just let it congeal, fall asleep, and wake up in time for breakfast. I just don’t like going to bed hungry, even if the only other option is eating plastic.

The drive down here was lovely and perfectly timed. England started playing Australia shortly after I started and it was all winding up as I arrived. I heard our cricket team try so very very hard to do the honourable thing and lose again, but somehow despite their best efforts they inadvertently won. Thankfully some of our bowlers can bat. It’s not easy supporting England in this series, as it feels like they are much much better than they have been coming across. Still, I love a long game, and this Ashes still has life in it. We could have thrown the whole thing today with two tests left. I’m glad we didn’t. It means we can all listen to them fuck it up in a week.

This noodle tastes of nothing but I’m getting stuck in. I like a good meal, as you know. I’m definitely not having one tonight. But Merchant went very well and it was so nice to see the company again, so I’ve had sustenance even if it hasn’t been literal. Apparently Merchant might crop up again sometime in October. I’m game. I’m making friends. I’ll just have to remember how most of the world is still dead on a Sunday night, and pack my stuff accordingly.

Oh fuck.

I’m in the bar at The Swan.

Tomorrow I’ll have to drive to Hay Castle. Early. It’s a long drive.

I’m doing a show tomorrow. Playing Gratiano. In Merchant. I honestly don’t know if I’ll still know my lines. My focus has been this event at The Underglobe. A wonderful thing, and a difficult thing. Fights in a dinner space. Some exceptional physical control. As actors we have to be aware of the space we take up and why and how. I recently auditioned for a well known musical where I just let them see my body unconstrained. Didn’t get it. Note to self: pretend to be better than real. I feel foolish for enjoying that audition. I felt supported in the room but evidently I wasn’t. Didn’t even hear back from the casting director.

And so we muddle on.

I’ve been very happy to fill my address book with new humans. This tiny corporate gig is just a tiny corporate gig. But different people attack things in different ways, and it is easy to see the people who will still be slugging in a decade. These guys and gals are recent East 15 graduates. I’ve always loved that place. It makes possible people. Nobody is crushed by their own bullshit. I hope that a fair few of them will still be doing this silly job in ten years time.

I’m drunk again. Oh goodness me how I’m drunk. And I have to do something unfamiliar tomorrow. I’ve done it before. But fuck. I’m tired. I have to sleep before I drive.

Witness me writing this now. I’m missing out on “social time” to log words. I could just stop the hand to mouth. Why do we need to drink after a gig? There are other ways of dealing with adrenaline…

They’re talking about tattoos. I’ve never inked myself. I change my mind too often.

I’m gonna plug back in…

—

Nightbus. Well traveled route but they’ve moved the 11 route and so we are just on the 26 to Victoria. Makes sense as the fuckers used to ignore the St Paul’s stop anyway and just bust past us at speed in order to mock our optimism. This is an old and well trodden route but changed. I’ve carried so many of these events now. The bus routes shift but in the end there’s only so much London. Here I am, crossing that bastard again.

Early start. Oh I’m not good at them. The 6.20 emergency alarm was the one that finally pulled me from dreams. I was into clothes and out the door shortly thereafter and hauling through the streets of London towards the Applegreen in Vauxhall, which sells bacon rolls and a coffee at their pet Greggs for a ha’penny bit. I bought into the whole thing and then consumed it driving while Radio 4 was confused about the situation in Russia / Belarus. To me it seems pretty clear, that they’ve moved warheads to Belarus and are selling the narrative that Wagner Group are dangerous so eventually there can be a nuke fired from Belarus and blamed on Wagner. Make sure you’ve all got some max strength iodine.

Early start though so maybe that’s my imagination going wild.

By the time I’m at Arc Walworth I’m awake, and it’s a teacher’s strike so I’m gonna have to carry a fair amount. It’s year tens today, trying to help them find a career. Ben and I working together and we have history of working together. A chance to take a section of it and provide a different energy. We made it all interesting for those kids and maybe we changed some lives, there’s no quantifying these things.

Then to The Underglobe and man it has been hard work working around this event but it’s gonna be glorious. All so totally full on, but yes and yes and yes is what has got me to where I am. I’m tired right now but happy and I had time to drink a touch too much red wine with Jon and hug and think about old times before I retired to write this. He’s on my sofa. Old school friend, chaos buddy, enabler, partner, fellow weirdo. I love Jon and I’m happy we still get to hang out.

I’m in my bed now and sleepy, but last night I was dive-bombed by mossies and one of them just tried to get in my ear. I’m going on the hunt with a hand towel. The downside of living by the river. DIE, SMALL CREATURES. Sorry, Buddhists.

Early start tomorrow again and working till late so I was making sure everything was arranged so I could just walk into my clothes and out the door when I quietly realised that I had no idea where either of my sets of keys were. “I let myself in last night,” I reasoned to myself. “So they must be in the flat somewhere.” There are about three places I put keys and none of them were tenanted.

We are strange creatures when it comes to habitual things. I think I looked in the same places three times in the same manner, each time with a sort of innocence. “They’ll be there this time,” I thought. Having no flatmate is convenient in instances like this because it takes out the instant “blame” mechanic. “X person must have moved them” leading to a text message saying “Hi, just wondering if you’ve seen my keys”. I’ve been managing that instinct in myself for so long now that I’ve pretty much come to terms with the fact that it’s almost always my fault.

Drawing blanks repeatedly I started looking in really obscure places. The fridge. The cutlery drawer. The kitchen cupboards. Historically I have once left my keys in the fridge and once rang my phone and heard it going from inside a kitchen cupboard so it wasn’t totally insane but it was scraping the barrel. All the pockets of all the jackets. My sporran.

Leaving the door open I decided I would try my car, and before I even got out the block they were sitting there looking at me from the mail shelf and I have absolutely no idea how that could have happened…

I bought the keyring when I gave this spare set to Mel. We both agreed it was weird enough that she would remember the keys were mine. Now I have to carry it around in my pocket… I need a new lock though as mine is literally falling out of the door, and it’s getting tricky having so few keys left. They are all copies now and copies of copies don’t work. Banham won’t issue the original again as mum is dead so I guess I’ll have to finally do my own key and pay the fortune they want to install it.

Glad to have them. Everything is laid out. Early bedtime and double job fun tomorrow! yay

A rehearsal this evening but not a particularly strenuous one. Lines are still swimming in my mind but they’ll settle by Saturday. As things were running to a close I scurried off and jumped into Bergie. I had managed to persuade them to let me put him in one of the very limited parking places at The Globe, so he was on standby for this my escape.

I haven’t seen my best friend for months and this was one of her only days off. I’m absolutely knackered and don’t feel well at the mo – nothing too serious though as we established at A&E but I’m run down. The threads are showing. I drove through the gloaming and we met at distinctly unglamorous Pizza Express in Twickenham. Just a chance to sit opposite one another.

I got there at 9.15pm so the place was already close to shutting for the night. I sat. She sat. We are both knackered. Damn it was good to see her. They don’t sell any of the pizzas I used to like – Capricciosa and Veneziana. All things change. I had some square thing with sausage and I covered it with chili oil. We started trying to catch up.

They had to kick us out and then I took her home to a sleepy house. Two little ones and Rhys all sleeping upstairs, although Rhys roused himself. I am not good company tonight though. I feel slow and still heavy. I didn’t stay for a drink and now here I am back at mine and in bed and it’s not midnight yet. We used to be so rock and roll, she and I, tearing up the late night East End dives. Now I’m ready to go to sleep at ten and I’m okay with that. I’m looking forward to a nice soft happy slumber.

She’s only 26 minutes drive away at this time of night. That’s nothing on London terms. I’m just useless at staying in touch with people… Must try harder. That was a lovely evening.

Well I can gladly say that I haven’t seen Bournemouth at all! I slept there. I woke there. I worked there. I left my hoodie there with my spare car keys. And I rushed back to London to get to an evening rehearsal. I’ll have to go back and get the hoodie before long somehow…

I’m playing Capulet in a much abridged and adapted flowing R&J for an event in Southbank on Saturday. Tomorrow my diary has “Capulet” written in it. Up until just now I’ve been too distracted to think about it so I’ve earmarked tomorrow for the learn. When things are as scattered as they usually are, with multiple heads to wear, I have to partition and work out when to think about what. Tomorrow I’ll cram lines for this. It promises to be joyful. You can’t have a proper long rehearsal process for such things, but I’m glad to be involved and everybody is up for working hard but fast. It’s an extension of the after dinner work I’ve been doing for decades, and it’s a brilliant opportunity to meet and work with people right at the start of their career. My friend has been working with them for weeks now building fights etc. He had a hand in training them at an excellent drama school.

I haven’t had to show up to rehearse until tonight as he knows and trusts I’ll work quickly, but I’m happy to be there now and to meet a load of fresh actors. My address book needs beefing up at the lower age end – I’m frequently having to cast things and haven’t had a gig like this for a while – so says the mercenary part of me. But truly it’s nice to mix it up with fresh actors and remember the passion and craft that brought me to this delightful geeky way of living. It’s why I got excited about maybe being in that damn musical up in Yorkshire. We jobbers – we are as current as the people who recommend us and who we can recommend…

I’m one of two “older” actors in this very young company. My”daughter” is 23 and yep, that’s not just biologically possible but reasonably common for men my age. That first wave of friends having babies? Well done you lot. You’re starting to get your lives back. Hopefully your daughter won’t fall in love with someone from a rival family and get involved in some interfamilial nastiness leading to way too much death.

It’s gonna be delightful this potted Romeo and Juliet. And then it’ll be over. I think I’ll make some friends in the process. Another fleeting joy. Another splash of colour in the quilt…

Meantime I’m finally at home and can sleep in my bed. Rain outside. Cosy in. mmmmm. zzzz

Bournemouth. Not that I’ll get to see it. I’m in the Premier Inn in East Cliff, which is one of the Premier Inns that HATE you. “No sir, we can’t seat you for dinner without a booking,” they said to me half an hour before I watched them say “Wait one moment I’ll just check with the chef… yes we can fit you in!” to someone else who was in a suit. I called the staff out on it. They told me they were all new today and apologised like people who have been forced to. I didn’t get dinner. I’m inclined to agree with Aesop’s fox that dinner would have been shite here anyway. Still I would have liked the chance to make that call myself. Now I’m looking on Deliveroo and it all looks atrocious. So I’m gonna just go to sleep and rely on breakfast.

Dayjobberising once more, running a bunch of workshops about sustainable energy, yada yada yada. I’m excellent at it by now but…

This morning found me at The National Theatre Costume Hire. They have a vast trove of wonderful costume to rent, presided over by lots of lovely people and one total arsehole. I wandered around, found some interesting things, remembered what a total douchebag one of their members of staff was, and phoned the client telling them I could maybe help save them some money next time by renting them some of the stuff I now have in my flat. Nobody needs to rent costume from someone like that. The stuff I found was perfectly decent, of course, and has been around and around. I don’t really object to the high prices, they’re the National, they have great stuff that we’ve all paid for once. I’ll pay for it again, as they are not doing Angels rates. They just have one person working there who makes it their business to put your back up. Last time it was my own money, and I just… decided not to because of that person. This time it’s not my money and there are lots of us. We will go there, put up with that twit, and end up with half decent costume. I’ll provide most of my own just out of spite. Here’s what I found:

They want over £130 for it plus VAT though and if only I had access to decent long boots and a red cape I could do the whole shebang out of my dressing up box, slightly different era but not a job that cares:

You see too much of my flat in that photo.. Still, fuck it, I’m not hiding. And I’m still plumbing the depths of my dressing up box. But it is fantastic. I need a walk in dressing room. I crave a walk in dressing room. My day to day life would be so much more glamorous with one, and it would serve my work. Fucking Ponce.

I’ll finish this workshop, drive home, throw some gorgeous clothes into my car dahling and then drive to Bankside loaded up with the bling and go be fabulous at rehearsal. My weird life. Hungry. Goodnight.

Two hours drive from Brighton to Wasing. Two hours back. I’m not specifically a fan of Sigur Ros but Lou had tickets. Bat For Lashes was supporting and I bought a few of her CDs back when I fancied someone who liked her music. We frequently expand our music tastes because of our sex drive. I have loads of odd musical choices from people I fancied or had brief shenanigans with.

Sigur Ros was burnt onto a CD after Twelfth Night by Viola as we drove to London from Yorkshire after Sprite came down for the season. I had a laptop with CD burner and a vast catalogue of torrented music. Passengers would burn CDs. That might have been fifteen years ago? More? We were all doing it back then and we were young and maybe even a bit cool. I didn’t have shenanigans with Viola, just to make note. That was in my monk phase so I didn’t really see her or anyone else in that light. It took years for the lights to come back on. That Twelfth Night was a happy job for me and led to many lovely things.

Viola had just left RADA at the time, and went and got absurdly and deservedly famous a few years later. Back then we were all muddling along and having fun and being immediate. Much as we all still are, but she can do it with more money now, I guess, and more clout, but it’s harder for her to travel by bus. She gave me a good introduction to Sigur Ros through that mix CD. Some other weird stuff. Joanna Newsom… It was memorable. As we came into the 2am city they started a ten minute song. Some Icelandic guy singing in falsetto while everyone plays electric guitar with a cello bow. It was the one where he squeals “Tea-a-woooooooo” about fifty times like a satisfied owl.

A lot of the time Sigur Ros aren’t singing words at all. They’re making noises. It’s either high concept or pretentious depending on who you talk to. Emotive phonemes with no semantic meaning. Gobblydegook. They aren’t the first to sing nonsense phonemes of course. Gaelic folk with all the hi-dee-ibbly-gobbly-do, bibbly-abbly-goy. Blues with Rubber Biscuit. Even Leftfield in the nineties with their suspicious Djum Djim “Afro Left” lyrics where they tried to pass off getting stuck in “enga bungo” three times as “an unspecified African language” instead of bad improv. But Sigur Ros have given their gibberish a name. Hopelandic they call it, or von Lenska. Why the hell not? Makes it sound official.

So we drove to Wasing, and for the evening we were among hundreds of people as the guest of Josh, David Cameron’s cute hippy cousin who has thrown his estate open to the masses because the i-ching told him to. I went to a festival there in 2020. Not many people got to do that, but he somehow pulled it off in exchange for too many highly strung security guards causing more problems than they were solving. God we were all so neurotic. It was a wonderful festival though. And I enjoyed the concert offering tonight.

Bat for Lashes (Natasha according to Lou as she’s on the Brighton scene or was) turned out to be grounded and experimental and straightforward. She was playing with movement and meaning. I liked her. A clear set with frank addresses between tracks. Sigur Ros were timed with the sunset and played up a huge bright full moon with their mystic and unearthly crooning. You wouldn’t play their stuff at a game of musical chairs, but they set an atmosphere well enough to have made themselves rich from licensing stuff for telly. I’m happy they still tour, but I guess it’s a good way of being paid to see the world. We had a lovely concert. Better than sitting home watching Netflix, lying in a field while these curious arty musicians displayed their skill.

Sunday evening. Took a while to get back to Brighton though and it’s a schoolnight. Back to the random tomorrow early. For now though, one more night in earshot of the roaring sea. I’m off to sink into the swell.

I got worried and so I took myself off to A&E in Brighton and that’s been the extent of the afternoon. Of course it’s all fine but then one test leads to another test and when she said I’d need a chest X-ray as well just to be sure I tried to object just as I knew it would take ages. “That’s expensive for you, are you sure it’s necessary?” I tried, but she insisted. Need to rule things out. I appreciate that she’s being thorough though. If this was in America l would have to sell my car. As it is I just lose an afternoon, which is shitty as it’s rare to find time to hang with Lou, but with inexplicable chest pain and general heaviness I figure it’s better bored than dead.

Lou stuck it out with me for over two hours before I found myself trying to encourage her to go home. We will go for curry once I’m out. If I’m ever out.

Good talks though. The nurse that triaged me was brilliant and full of words. I assured her that I’m no relation to Steve. For the ECG I had a St John’s Ambulance guy coming in to help make up the shortfall. They are all so understaffed overworked and underpaid. People don’t strike out of nothing. I can loudly appreciate their work but that’s just like clapping in the window, and clapping in the window butters no parsnips.

So I’ll wait and they’ll give me the all clear but now they’ll have ECG and chest x-ray on my record from a healthy time which is possibly going to be useful for possible future unhealthy states. And they took 4 ampoules of blood so they can run all sorts of tests. Busy busy busy. I feel poked and prodded but what price peace of mind, and as Lou said I’d only be worrying if I didn’t get the all clear.

Still, it’s pretty stark in here. Bright lights and squeaky doors and sick people. A prisoner handcuffed to a guard with a broken nose. Rugby players covered in mud and blood. The very old next to the bandaged young.

On the screen in here, the passage of time is marked by Mark Formanek’s excellent 24 hour artwork “Standard Time” in which a large wooden digital clock is adjusted in real time by a group of workmen in hard hats with ladders. Sometimes they barely get out of shot with some of the more awkward changes before they have to get in again. It’s all filmed in Berlin with the TV tower central to the background. It pleases me because it’s ridiculous and difficult and futile and transient. It keys into my love of things ephemeral balancing things eternal. The sun is setting now at 17:19 and these guys are gonna start getting cold and needing light.

I’m done with waiting. But I’ve got to keep waiting. Hopefully not much longer. Hopefully.