It’s coming to an end now, this little period in Jersey. Just a month. When I’m setting snooze alarms on my phone in the morning, fifteen minutes feels like a long time. With that in mind, a month is endless. And yes, it has been unfamiliar enough that the time has not been filtered away through experience. The show exists outside of standard measurements, as it always does. But the noise of life around it? That has not rushed by.
Showtime is a strange time extension. I’m there forever and it is gone in a moment. My first action of the show is to page a curtain for Will. Then he gets the measure of the audience and I get to listen and key in. By the time I’m in and humbugging I already know what to expect from them. I’ve been watching them with him just as I did with Jack. Then I flicker in and out of reality, and time goes odd. I’ll be deep in text one moment, and then I’ll be flying with an audience gift the next. I’m in wide angle showhead then, listening for random, focus outside myself, looking and listening and knowing that the text is so deeply embedded it comes when correct. I’ll then be solid in that showhead until I turn to look at Estelle le Brun, who had no idea two years ago that she would still be in the show. She’s Belle, Scrooge’s ex, projected in the mirror, second take, lines not quite right. Scrooge fucked it up by being too venal and she’s taking it out of him. I often find myself thinking “thank fuck. I’m out of the woods” because the lonely childhood and the everyone dying bit are the only bits that cost me. Once Past is done I can stop channeling and start playing, but Past is hard work as it is quiet and painful, and there are hundreds of potential hooligans out there necking wine and up for the craic.
Only a few days till Christmas. I had a lovely breakfast today with the people who bought my grandparent’s house. Granville. I was always sad it was sold as I probably would have moved here if it hadn’t been, but mum and Peter wanted spending money and I was but a teenager. I was always told I’d get Peter’s place when he passed, but he changed his mind once mum died I guess. So I’m in the Premier Inn.
Lovely to see the Blackies. To feel some sort of continuity. There is community in this island and family if I go looking. I’m just so busy with this show. BBC Radio Jersey live and online at 10:15am tomorrow. I’ll likely blither. zzzz
AlBarclay 