I’m feeling quite pampered today. I don’t really need a cleaning lady, I could very easily do it myself. But all the washing up is done, all the clothes are washed, I’ve got clean sheets and the bathroom is nice. I had a wallow in it earlier to warm up a bit and now I’m luxuriating beneath my crisp new sheet, and the electric blanket is on. I even ordered Deliveroo. Brian and I demolished a crispy aromatic duck. Taste of the eighties. Gotta love that plum sauce and strange fatty bits of bird. “What type of duck do we eat?” asks Brian, and I tell him with confidence that they all taste roughly the same. And then I guiltily think of all the ducks I’ve tried to befriend over the years. Still. Tasty.
A fight director came in today, talking of fights and violence in real life. I think of the times I’ve been involved in actual violence, in an actual fight. Very few. Shouty bits. Pushy bits. Throwy bits. Apart from when Max and I used to roll around on the floor like wolverine, which felt natural as breathing until it stopped when we got too big, I’ve never really been involved in actual fisticuffs. A man offered to take me out of the tube carriage at the next stop and beat the crap out of me, but then when I stood up and said I’d prefer not to buy was willing to give it a try he backed down. Two guys calmly and quietly told me they were gonna break my arms and rub my face into the pavement just because they liked doing it. They didn’t realise the pub was full of my friends and Dean caught on that something weird was happening and solved it. In both instances I was cataloguing at high speed what I might have to do and how I might do it, while relaxing my body and tuning in to it. Both times the first punch never swung.
We spend more time in that space, just before the punch, than we do in the punch. As often as not the punch happens before anyone sees and all we get is the reaction. Malcolm kicked me hard in the bollocks and I was almost sick, nobody saw the kick. Tana knocked my down, I stood up and asked him why and he did it again. I stood up again and he knocked me down a third time. People saw the third one. I was still incredulous. He was huge. But Malcolm and Ang and I were twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. Max and I stopped fighting when we got strong enough to genuinely hurt each other.
I’ve seen adult violence rarely… been involved hardly at all. But it’s part of the job as people hit each other the whole time in stories. Plus back in the renaissance people carried swords so things got a bit stabby. There were likely more murders in Sussex in 1596 than in the whole of the UK last year. So Shakespeare is writing in a time where violence is more normalised. We are going to start looking at the moments where weapons are involved, going forwards. It’s quite fun when it’s pretend.
AlBarclay 