Month: August 2024

First week done. What a ride.

After rehearsal, three of us went to a little dinner party held by a mutual friend, who is now running a company in Oxford very close to my heart. In fact it’s the company under whose umbrella I did the work that has very likely led to me being here. We were breaking it all down, this rehearsal week and what it is doing. Very quickly and effectively, with a good solid slice of trust, Tim is building an ensemble. It’s the best way to make theatre. It’s a leveler, and gives everyone a voice and nobody THE voice.

Tomorrow morning Othello and Iago are called, and it is as natural as breathing that their two understudies will come in as well. The work is enjoyable, and it means they’ll all be on the same page. I won’t be coming in. I haven’t stopped since Paris really. Tomorrow will be about nothing.

This evening though, it was lovely to be at dinner, in a slightly different context, surrounded by intelligent women. I was the only man, but for Helen’s teenage son who was mostly upstairs playing games. I did my best to keep my mouth shut and listen, and found it worth my while. Plenty of talking in rehearsals, plus I’m knackered. And I’m not drinking. It’s a little earlier than I planned to test my resolve in a public place, but I was perfectly happy with a single bottle of Peroni 0.0. Being out and not drinking though, I get tired earlier. At ten I made my excuses and jumped on a Forest bike.

You’ve got to be organised with Forest bikes. They’re incredible and everywhere in London, just parked randomly. You need to buy your hours in advance otherwise they skin you for it. My commute is pretty short but still … I’ve spent £20 this week and that’s including my free intro minutes. Next week I’ll buy a package in advance. It’s definitely the most convenient way to get in, but it’s another of these things where you get punished if you can’t plan in advance. There’s too much like that in the world. Chaosmongers have to spend more. The system is designed to make us want to be predictable. “They’re turning us into batteries, man”.

A really lovely week. The company is coming together. Tim is a remarkable force, and he’s assembled a delightful team. And I could sleep for England right now.

This morning we all got shown the model box. “We are looking at this psychologically.” Suggestions of an era, but largely the laser will be focusing on people, interactions… that observation that Shakespeare absolutely nails – a theatre writer that works his way step by step through complicated but entirely human thought patterns. We are working our way through them as well, as a company. We are learning the thought patterns together, we are building an ensemble that is already halfway there. We are trying to make a safe room to fail and to succeed without attributing value to either endeavour.

God damn it is fine to be in a rehearsal room again. It would have been nice to have gotten a job like this earlier in this long career, sure. The company has profile that even the most willful jerk can’t throw in the bin. Perhaps some doors would have opened as a result, some earlier confidence would have been gained to disarm the jerks. I remember some meetings early in my career – even interviews at drama schools. “What will you be doing in twenty years?” “Working as an actor.” “What if that doesn’t work out?” “Trying to work as an actor.” “There are lots of other things.” “I don’t think you understand how determined I am.” “hmm we shall see ” “Yes. You will.”

This is just one job, sure. The actor brain in me is already thinking “How do I ensure momentum?” This is a nice job, but after Bright Young Things the floor opened up and swallowed me whole, and I can’t allow that to happen again. I’ve chased this vocation long. I’ll be running until I can’t run anymore. But a few more opportunities would have been an incredible thing. Maybe my showcases at Guildhall didn’t cut it, maybe I needed to get honed in the fires of longing for a meeting, any meeting, and making/finding work for myself to improve my tool use while I waited and hoped and watched and hoped and participated and hoped. I used to write long mawkish earnest letters, but nothing ever came of them so I was disheartened. Now I show my belly here from time to time, and worry that by showing the cracks I’m taking risks. As if I have to be better than real better than real better than real, where the job is actually to be a person, to be flawed, to be honest, to be human. I care about this work. I fired myself into this work and my friends and my passion kept me in it.

This is one job, until November. Then who knows? I’m frightened my wonderful agent will retire soon, and her good associates keep on getting headhunted at the moment which is extremely disconcerting. But I feel held and understood, seen and supported. That’s a lot to get – it’s what you should get – from a relationship with an agent. Even that took decades to find and she’s 74 now.

The psychology of the piece… Yesss. A big old cast and they’re all lovely. I’m lapping this up and looking forward to the day every day. I’m at home. From time to time I find myself tearing up a bit cos I can’t believe this is happening, and not just for me, I’m surrounded by fellow soldiers and we have all been seeking the bubble reputation e’en in the cannon’s mouth. Only a few days in. A long journey to come. But thank fuck for this job. I love the event work, and it has made my life possible, but this is the counterpoint – this is what it all feeds. And maybe it’s true what I tell myself, that we need the struggle to properly value the moments when it bears some fruit. I’m definitely gonna value this.

Lou showed up in London. This is a rare occurrence and one to be celebrated. Being in rehearsal I don’t have much time to check my phone and I came straight to her on the bike so I’ve got a backlog of messages as long as my arm right now and no chance to clear them. It’s making me anxious. The show was announced today finally, and lots of people have got in touch, largely to say congratulations, but with a good weight towards the “about fucking time” angle.

But yes, hooray. I’m feeling very happy to be playing Lodivico in Othello for the RSC up in Stratford from October to mid November. Autumn by the Avon, doing something I love at a well thought of company and with loads of glorious humans. It’s gorgeous so far and I hope it continues to be so. Actors can be a funny lot and fear near opening causes all sorts of strange behaviours, but I’m hoping this will be a safe company and a happy one. I can’t smell any nastiness.

We finished and I jumped straight on one of those little Forest bikes. They accelerate themselves immediately to about 25 miles an hour, and their limiter is about 27, so they just predictably fly down the road when you touch the pedal. It’s surprisingly satisfying. I think that’s my commute sorted, although meeting up with Lou tonight means I don’t have one waiting for me downstairs tomorrow. Worth it though to see the lady. We went to The Ivy Chelsea, where they have two courses for £19.17 at the moment. With no booze it is a cheap date. Beautifully upholstered chairs, great food and it’s sadly coming up to the last month that we can sit outside in a T-shirt and eat and be comfortable. Still, winter isn’t here yet at all, and I am gonna do my utmost to tan up before we start the long journey back to the dark.

Tomorrow I’ll get stuck into all the lovely messages. For now I’m keeping this short, and I won’t be fannying about on social media, as I’ve only got Lou for an evening. Having her here is a rarety, and it’s great. Soon I’ll be so swept up in Othello I won’t have the headspace so she’s timed it very well…

A month of predictable hours whilst living at home. A strange and beautiful luxury. I have bought food for the fridge. This evening I just had a simple bowl of pasta but I’m in admin hell. Tomorrow Lou will be coming into town and I’ll meet her after rehearsal. But largely I’ll be trying to impose a good routine upon myself.

First day today, start as you mean to continue. I woke bright and early, juiced up four oranges and a grapefruit and didn’t have a cup of coffee. “Think of what you’d normally do and do the opposite,” said Natalya after the ceremony. This sort of thinking is making it easier to rejig my self medication. I’m not being a monk about it – I had a cup of black tea with milk at 11am – but I’m just trying to stop doing mindless things for a while. I drink coffee for habit as much as for addiction, as what is an addiction but a habit? I’m not gonna make myself angry and headachey for rehearsal – the caffeine withdrawal headache hit my brain at the same time the sananga hit my eyes. You can’t have a headache anymore when your face is on fire. I’m not giving up anything forever here, I’m just breaking bad habits for as long as it takes for me to know they can be safely addressed. Although right now with the medicine in my system, even the smell of alcohol is poison.

I took a Forest bike to work, which is now parked outside the flat. It flies to Clapham, and if it’s still there tomorrow I’ve got a lovely start to the day. The day itself was a tonic. What a brilliant room to be in, surrounded by creatives, making a very deep story together as best we can. I sat between Kevin and Nyasha, but it wasn’t table work or readthrough. I’m glad of that as readthroughs often cause some actors to just cement their performance and then drag it through the rest of rehearsal. And table work becomes a safety anchor that can weigh the whole show down with ideas over practicality. We were working together as a company, and people were standing and talking their lines with enough game involved that there wasn’t room to be clever.

There’s a movement teacher in the room, a voice teacher too. There’ll be songs. I’ll be back on bass duty.

It’s wonderful to be in that room, and there are enough familiar faces there that the ensemble is already half made and just needs us to be as welcoming as possible to the people we don’t know. I’m good at that. And since my guy doesn’t speak until the end of the show really, I’ve got time to just be positive and inclusive and wide and dumb and try and make it a happy place. I think it will be, I really do. I’ve seen companies go south, but it normally drips down from the top when that happens. It feels like we are in safe hands here.

Hot bath and a cup of yogi tea coming. It’s eight and if I play my cards right I’ll be asleep by ten. A new adventure into routine for a while. As yet an unbeaten track to the rehearsal rooms in Clapham. I could walk there in an hour though, and if the weather is nice I have a feeling that’s what I’ll do. If it’s shitty there are all sorts of options, and I’m tempted to look into electric scooter offerings in the area as that was an elegant solution at Halloween up in Hampstead.

Today I sat with the play. I still don’t think it has been announced even though I found my name on a publically available brochure online. But until it is announced I’m holding back on identifiers. I write a daily blog, it’s helpful for people to be satisfied I’m not going to blab things. Not that there’s much to blab really. David Beckham won’t be making a cameo. As with the plant medicine, where it was blindingly obvious what it was but I never named it, so I’ll have to be with this play until I get the official all clear.

It’s an interesting one though. As I’ve read that extraordinary old play, I’ve been thinking about misinformation, which is at the heart of it. With the tools we have these days, people can create evidence to back any number of half arsed theories. In politics, in history, in science, the internet is driving towards misinformation backed by forged evidence, knowing how easy it is to trick even reasonably clever people with a bias. And most people have biases – inclinations to believe certain narratives. And you can tip people’s biases too, with the right falsification at the right moment. Show a Mulder (I want to believe) the right forgery and they close the door to discussion. It backs up what they suspected all along. It’s easy to call them idiots, but they aren’t. Yes they’re dupes. But it’s a pandemic of dupes. More and more people are attaching themselves to made up stories that help make order out of a world that is so much more random and chaotic and ugly than we would like it to be. And because history and the mainstream narratives are peppered with expedient lies and bent optics, it is easy to substitute another lie to seeking minds without much critical capacity. “They’re lying to you man. They want you to believe what they want you to believe so they can manipulate your actions. I’m showing you the definitely actual truth thing so you aren’t a sheep like them and you can follow me blindly instead and do what I suggest.”

This play digs through these mind games, shows how trusting we can be of the wrong things, how evidence can be falsified, how we can be so easily misled.

Bath is run. They’re playing Graceland in the park over the road. I’m gonna wind down.

I’m just home. There’s a concert over the road in Battersea Park. Showtunes. It’s coming loud through my window. There’s a chicken in the oven. Ratatouille and roast potatoes. Gonna chuck in some broccoli and contemplating how to achieve decent gravy without opening a bottle of red wine.

After we closed the ceremony this morning I persuaded Natalya to blow some tobacco up my nose to just ground me enough to drive home. Now I’m home, starving and drawn out, happy and knackered, glad there’s a day before rehearsal starts to just reintegrate with the world I can hear coming in through my window.

An incredible night last night. A night that lasted a thousand years but held lightly and safely. Stumbling through revelations in the darkness. A thousand years gives time to contemplate so much, to reorganise and re-examine long held notions. This is a strong medicine but a good one, and one that promotes life. Not like booze that just numbs into a circular blindness and demotivates. Action is needed in many aspects of my existence. Stopping this weekend has helped wind back the spring.

It is not of our soil, this grandmother vine, but it is of this earth, and for this earth and fit for purpose. The dense thick taste of it, essence of tree. The community of it, essence of humanity. Beautiful music and soundscapes all night, gongs and more portable instruments, at one point two literal actual Royal Pythons, carefully stewarded, curious like Hex. I had one on my face awhile. That was just sensation. Part of the journey but not part of the shift. Much discussed in darkness, much exposed to light. There are no words for this, and to confine such things in writing is to put water in a jar and say it’s the ocean. I could express a remembered snippet, describe an interaction there in the dark with my eyes in a mask so I could see. But as with so much that draws me, it is a fleeting experience, written on the wind, what will stay will stay, with us. And it is a personal journey that we all undertook last night, together. Made better by the fact we were sharing it. But different for us all.

Just inches between our sleeping mats, our journeys overlapping, our energies spilling over and back inevitably. Live music playing as people weep and people laugh and people purge. The purge is noisy by nature, the brew it brings up is far more toxic than the one you drink, it calls a shout as it comes, hard to resist, part triumph part disgust as it surges up the spine into the bucket. Momentarily unpleasant, but just … part of the weird process. All these brave humans looking for a shift, hoping to go deeper, trying to turn corners, comprehend griefs, settle into themselves. I was proud to momentarily be in that strange and sparky tribe. This is a thing that makes no sense, but it is a thing of great beauty. And now I’m going to sleep in my own bed. I ate my dinner half way through this, washed it all up, now it’s dreams and a calm tomorrow.

Here again in the sunshine, calm and surprisingly well rested. Eighteen punters, eight people on the ceremony side, and I cant help but think I’m on the wrong side, just receiving. It’s not my job. Nice to dip into it from time to time though and drop all the helpfulness and find out what I need and go towards it. I need excellent financial advice. That’s what I need. I didn’t have to illustrate that by blowing money on a weekend in Hereford and a load of plant medicine, but it’s good to put it into relief. I’m out of debt again because of the Olympics, but only if they pay me which they might struggle with now because of incomprehensible monolithic bureaucracy. Plus my bed is covered with letters where I’m being fined for not paying fines because I couldn’t afford to pay the fines for the things I couldn’t afford that I couldn’t afford.

Sun on the top of the clouds and burning through in patches. Wind in the grass and the reeds.

These guys are a lovely lot. Lots of stuff going on. Messy old lives we all lead. Here we all are with all our mad shit and all our clarity, sharing both with each other.

Last night was something of a purge. My stomach was empty but still filled a bucket. Stumbled outside and “mindfully” slung it into a patch of nettles before rinsing the bucket and doing it all again three hours later. Sometimes you forget that if you’re trying to bring new things in you have to make room for them first. Purging is good for you, kids!

There’s Sananga involved here as well, and I’ve brought some hapay which is basically hard snuff. I haven’t had any hapay as it grounds me and I’m still looking to air and fire right now. The Sananga … you lie on your back and they put it on your closed eyes. Opening your eyes is nothing but pain from then, and all you want to do is close them, so you open them and open them and it hurts and it hurts and somehow it all comes good and there’s definitely a metaphor in there somewhere. I love the stuff but I fucking hate it and I can feel it on my eyes but I know damn well that it solved my blepharitis years and years ago, and I’ve been wearing my lenses too long so why not fill them up with painplant medicine? Which sane person wouldn’t solve mild anxiety over contact lens use by lying on their back and having a stranger pour agonyjuice into their crying face? “You curled up like a bug,” says Rob who was next to me. “It was that or scream the place down.”

I’m happy to be here, and happy I came. I haven’t necessarily been very sociable but it’s not what it’s all about. I just ate a big lunch and I’ll probably be looking it at all in a white bucket in six hours time. All is well, all will be well. I’ve got so much work to do. And I need to pay someone now, the right someone, to help finally dig me from all my financial buggery, because that someone can’t be me. I’m too shit at it and it doesn’t feel like that’ll change in time. Plant medicine and singing doesn’t do the paperwork.

It’s a couple of minutes to 4pm. I’m sitting on a wooden bench outside a converted barn in Hereford. My hands smell of Florida Water and my hair smells of palo santo. Over the fields I can see a little church spire, and beyond that the rolling hills of Wales. It’s sacred country out here, lush and ancient. It only took four hours from London, and just as I arrived I got an email telling me that the A1 form rejection I had from the government means that I’m gonna have to do some complicated bureaucratic gymnastics before I get paid for France. On a normal day it would make me feel my usual combination of sick and powerless, such as I have grown accustomed to. As it is I’m dropping the need to care, for now, so I can go do some healing. Medicine won’t solve bureaucracy, but maybe postmedicineAl can.

Loads of people here. We are very tightly packed. I’ve brought some objects of significance but I’ve had to organise things very tightly in my little space. A tiny airbed, a duvet, things to contemplate. People have come from all over. Liverpool. Bournemouth. Estonia. I thought I had a schlep coming up from London with two passengers.

I have a feeling it’ll all kick off soon and I know I won’t be wanting to write anything once we are go, so I’m here now, taking my mind off the fact I’m hungry. No food today but for a few slices of mango. I was looking longingly at blackberries just now. Before long there’ll be a taste in my mouth like nothing on earth.

Nature and space, here. The air is moving but there’s sun. Apparently there might be a storm later which will be interesting if it develops. For now just late summer and the sound of small talk.

I’ve got myself here, got over myself to get here, know what I’m here for. The unknown is still a big thing to contemplate. I think I’ll sort out water, make out my mattress is inflated, do the admin things and then get stuck back into the intentions and all the oojiebojie crap that has got me here.

Invoices will come good one way or another. What an absolute ballache that’ll be. But that’s not for today-Al…

Long quiet day today. I drew up my invoice for Paris but haven’t sent it cos I feel weird about it. I think I’ll just have to get over myself in that regard. I worked like a train, and just because I kinda enjoy not having time to think doesn’t mean that I’m not doing skilled work. “You enjoy it” is the principle under which thousands of actors put money into producer’s pockets at the start of their careers, often working hard for so little compensation that they end up having to do something else long term. Ali has been doing this event stuff for longer than I, so I should trust his judgement. I just pathologically try and make sure my working relationships are positive and I don’t like surprises. It’s the only way we get anywhere, keeping it positive and doing great work. The few times the positive has gone sour I can feel the domino effect into other jobs. People talk.

I’m still on all the WhatsApp groups. It’s weird. I’ve muted them but I’m aware of all the things people are needing. I’m having to stop myself from getting involved. It’s all building up towards the Paralympics. I’m only out of it a few days but it is already starting to feel like a world away. Line learning, Shakespeare and now I’m off for two days on a little country healing retreat before rehearsal starts.

Right now though I’m in bed and it’s just gone nine. I’ll be asleep in an hour I hope. Just gotta wait until the chamomile is drinking temperature. Behind me the muted street sounds that let me think it might still be summer because the window is open a crack. In front of me, Dreamland and chamomile.

I’m warm and cosy. I wish I’d been able to spend longer with Lou, I’m thinking of her and little Tessy over there in Brighton. But I’ve got clean sheets here as well and I can guiltlessly starfish and snore like a chainsaw.

Long monologue written without a great deal of thought and the need to be perfect on camera with barely any time to prepare and good lordy bunghole I should likely have outsourced that one. The money didn’t balance the work. I wanted a get out early when I realised it was a thought frame with some bits of legalese and other bits of just words. “Likely he will be checking his notes,” I tried, to no avail. “Will there be an autocue?” I didn’t have full context. This is a student piece. This makes sense of why they are asking too much for too little, but I would have done well to know that going in.

I’m still surprised at myself for having learned as much as I did with the time I had. This overlapped with Loutime at the end of Paris. I’ve seen nothing of her and we are still so busy. For me to do it properly would have involved two good days of structured learn time, with sleeps programmed in. I chose to give my thoughts to Lou instead of the text, so the text suffered. It’s a lonely job, line learning. I’m fine about the fact I was remembering on camera. But right there, that’s three students who won’t have me on the top of their list when they hit the industry. insha’Allah. “We’ll fix it in post.” They’ll have to. But they were always going to. Long takes, odd thoughtwriting. I did what I could and I did it well for camera. But I didn’t manage to go straight through.

Hey ho. I am not my job. I detest not doing it to the best of my ability but I’ve been too busy and they didn’t know what they were asking for. Fine if I can just give the thoughts, but when I discovered they needed to be phrased as they’d been hacked I switched out a touch. Still turned up, I think. Avoided the trap on the other side of work like that, where you wiggle your face and voice all over the place and look thrice titted. I’m happy to have been erring on the drop-side instead of the clown-side. Still, I wish there had been two more days in the world.

As it is, I drove up from Lou this morning, plungered most of it into my head, spat it out, went home.

Now it’s bedtime and it’s lovely to be back in London because but for a short power nap I literally haven’t stopped at home for months.