A short interview after work today. A film guy has been trying to reach me for ages to talk about a tour I did twenty years ago. It’s for a puff piece for the company website, most likely. The tour was the first one for a company that still exists. It was carnage. I got a call on 7/7/2005, about six hours after the bombs in London. The actor playing Malvolio had been sacked, and they needed someone for the next night. I had played the part at drama school. It made sense at the time to say yes as I wanted to get the hell out of London. I joined the circus.
It was a hell of a summer. Twelfth Night is a happy play. I never met the guy I replaced but he found my blog once and was very strange and threatening in the comments section. Feste was a shamanic guy from Brighton who was actively channeling things but very actively wanted everyone to know about it. Orsino and Olivia were my good friends, and I’m godfather to their son. Kaitlyn as Viola, and her boyfriend, ex Milky Bar Kid Antony, who replaced Angry Larry as Sebastian. Mark, always running a scam, as Toby. Lovely musical Angelo as Andrew. Alan… A really motley crew. Not many of us are still acting, and a tour like that can do as much harm as good to a young actor, as you work hard, the reviews are positive, but you come home with less money than your started with and realise it is not going to be sustainable long term. The last section of the run was up at Edinburgh Festival. We were sharing beds, with a rota and one person on “pull or die” every night. We ran it in one of the C-Venues. 3 Weeks Magazine posted an unexpected 5 star review on the morning of our last show, very possibly written by lovely Gyles Brandreth who had seen it and enjoyed it. He was playing Malvolio down the road.We played the last time to a packed house, a strangely validating experience. Then we all went home stone broke. A lovely summer. But not a profitable one. I had taken and maxed out a credit card. I had to start getting creative with dayjobs. It was that or pull the plug.
These things forge us though. I didn’t even tell my agent at the time, and she got me no meetings so no harm done. August is a quiet time. Better by far for me to be learning by doing, but it was an expensive crucible. Some friendships were deepened. My relationship suffered in London. I didn’t wise up and value myself straight away either. Eventually I did, but I always had this harebrained model based on the way old trades used to work. I thought of myself as an Apprentice working to Journeyman. There’s no rep system. That show was part of the tapestry for me, learning the nuts and bolts live. I’ve credited them on my biog for the RSC as they are still going, paying properly and providing much needed jobs.
So I got filmed talking about it. I wrote a very angry blog just after the tour, but it named names. The producer / director sent the camera guy to me, asking for me to talk about the carnage. That’s to his credit. We all learned on that tour. It’s always worth doing it if you can… That was just an expensive one.
AlBarclay 