Month: October 2024

Michelle is engaged in a wonder wander. She’s been at it for a long time. She walks with a huge backpack. She camps at dusk, breaks camp at dawn. Those of you that followed my Camino, she was the ship. She was steady. I would normally pass her at about ten in the morning, four hours in, and then she would happen at wherever I had stopped about an hour after my 3pm stop. She walked with inevitability. We made friends over laundry and eye drops. I was still pretty new with contact lenses back then and I think I coerced her into squirting liquid into my eye as I lay on a picnic table in the middle of nowhere on our first meeting.

She’s here now to walk The West Highland Way, but she’s broken her journey in Stratford just to see this guy she met on the path as he does what he set out to do. My random life has really borne out in this job. The fact that the friendships I’ve happened into are rarely just about the bit where we make ourselves part of the story… it’s probably healthy. I’m happy to give her a sofa bed and a hot shower and to share this cottage with her. We have experienced some seriously basic albergues together on the occasions it wasn’t practical to camp. She was one of the lucky pilgrims who had my donation funded stay at a four person Airbnb where we could cook vegan food, courtesy of a reader of this very blog. Thank you. We have been geeking out about Shikoku. And she came to the show.

Turns out I can get house seats on the day if it isn’t sold out. She paid twenty quid for a doozy. We went to The Duck after and then chewed the fat back here, and she will get to christen the sofa bed after my punchy sabotage friend slept in the car.

I’m thrilled Michelle took the time to come here and witness this part of my journey. We have both been covering ground, converting energy, shifting. She found a dime in her pocket and knew it was her dead mother talking to her, and she told the tale to Jethro and I. By my left elbow as I write is a glass jar with a 2p piece in it that represents the entirety of creation, so long as you were there when Jethro and I took the universe apart and rebuilt it. Emblems like coins carry history and weight, and can be filled with all sorts of energy. If we like to work with these things, they are easy if random launch points.

We need to move the bundle downstairs.

How the fuck have I picked up so many glorious humans? This acting company is impossibly glorious, and then people like Michelle come as audience and help me understand that all these weird choices I’ve made have created some sort of a delightful web that makes sense. Tim made a ritual. This is a human show, as clear as clear. I’m so very proud of it.

There goes Lou, and with her the ease of self care. I’ll have to try and maintain it without her now.

The circle was broken a touch tonight. Fin couldn’t do the show. One of us, and the youngest in the acting company. He’s a Guildhall boy so I’m invested. He has big understudy commitments. He hopefully just had a wobble, but Johan did his lines tonight and we all realised practically how, if we are indisposed, someone is ready to step in and be brilliant. The show goes on. It was here with this company that Ed came on for David Tennant as Hamlet on PRESS NIGHT. The understudy thing is well carried and the understudies are well chosen, but this is a stressful time for them as they often have multiple parts. They’ll be understudying AFTLS stylee, when they have to talk to each other etc. I had to fight myself as Toby Belch / Antonio a few years ago and found it joyful despite having to hoof oxygen out of cans in Colorado. There’s delight in admitting the craft of it. But… it’s a hard thing to do.

With one actor down, the goblins got in through the gap. We could have held the space but maybe we forgot for a moment. The gold wall went to fuck and there was a show stop. This is when our glorious Cat has to go on stage and talk to the audience. We had a bit of juggling, the interval was shifted, and John is a consummate pro and just adapted. Apparently The New Real had a show stop as well that was so extreme they had to cancel. Christ… At least we can play Othello in an empty space. The tech is just happening because it can. There’s nothing necessary in the tech. We could tell it in a cardboard box. But we forgot to hold the space.

I’m sure our brother will be well. It’s sad and strange to have a gap. We did the show, but the air was pissing out the side of our bouncy castle until we noticed and stuck tape over it.

Bedtime now. I’d have been asleep hours already if Lou was here. I can’t keep my eyes open.

Two days off, and both with Lou. We decided to do as little as possible today and just nest in our little cottage, so inevitably we drove up to Dover Hill and looked at the sheep. It’s all terrifically Cotswolds up there and was a good chance for me to speak the little niggly things that mean nothing but magnify when you are making a nebulous creative thing with many people and you all care about it but you are all very different. Things like the bundle are polarising because everyone has a very different eye on magic and more people are proud to be rational and know it’s all bollocks than the hopeful fools who trust that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

An hour or so of wind and damp, sheep shit and grass, benches and flies. Screaming children. Gorgeous but for that and a blowthrough is sometimes all a man needs to wind down.

We went to Chipping Campden on the way home which looks like it has been built in one feverish weekend by a child giant with a bucket on the beach. Pictures of Withnail all over it, that actor’s cautionary tale, very alive in the local imagination. I was wearing a long coat yesterday and it was enough for someone to shout “Oy, Withnail!” at me. Oh I hope not. Charming and magnetic, I’ll buy that great yes fine, but Vivian Mackerrell was dead at 51. I expect bits of it were shot round here… If not it’s just the wine shop owner being a fan. “We want the finest wines available to humanity…” etc. So do I, yes, but in moderation perhaps?

Anyway we are back in our little cottage now. We ordered a vast spread of curry from Simla – loads of great veggie options, delivered fast. Now we are listening to om shanti music to keep in with Lou’s mild obsession with India, and to gear up for a massage exchange in which I’m gonna get the best deal as she’s a trained Ayurvedic masseur and I’m just an enthusiastic dude with two hands.

Dark now. The hour is upon us. The winter has snuck up and soon it’ll be a month and a half of Christmas again, get ready for the onslaught.

There was a marathon outside my cottage this morning. Lou and I walked into it and down the side of the Avon. A sharp and bright morning. A good walk. We mostly avoided getting caught up in the runners. Thousands of them, encouraged by enthusiastic clapping volunteers. Far too much energy for a slow Sunday morning.

Back into town and up to a friend’s house to put a blind up. Nothing like a spot of drilling. Masonry bits and wall plugs. I think and feel we got the thing in nicely, although maybe would have been smart to shore up the work with some screws. I think the wall plugs and plaster will hold it though and partly worried that screwing more holes into it will just weaken it. It’s not like the blind weighs a ton, and Allie is not going to be hulking it every night.

DIY and walk completed, Lou, Allie and I hit the One Elm for a Sunday roast. Ten of us including Jethro’s famille. A chance to break bread and break down the week. It’s been another lovely week and great to know we have no show tonight. We ate, talked and then rolled back to Waterside where the power kept cutting off. I’ve been breaking out the tarot cards this evening, but just for Lou, Arlo and Martha. It’s my spare set of the old grandmother cards I love, and it felt they were doing what they usually do. Mischievous fleshy colourful arty cards they are. I love working with them. Haven’t done enough recently.

Now I’m in bed. It’s barely 9pm for heaven’s sake. But bed feels like the place I wanna be. Three more weeks up here and some change. I wanna make the most of it. Who knows when I’ll next be here in this capacity – I’ll slubber the gloss of it while I can.

Need to write some postcards too. Time is starting to happen though, with no understudy commitments…

The weeks are long doing this, but now we are getting into the run and those of us without understudy commitments are suddenly looking at a stretch of time where we can land in Stratford and catch back the daytime.

Morning will be long tomorrow, heralding the darkness, and we will continue to tell this sad tale of male violence and misinformation. It’s great, it is totally to my taste, and I really actively challenge the people who are writing “I came to Othello because I want to watch a beautiful woman being strangled.” We are looking at the whole journey and trying to be relatable because if we push things to extreme places then the people who want to see the strangling don’t feel uncomfortable about themselves for that tendency. We are only doing what’s in the text, what the writer gave us. “Put out the light, and then put out the light,” but there’s been generations of violenceporn on this show and “I’ll take that job!” they cried, these shuffling clever men, only to be disappointed.

I’m downstairs in this little cottage. I needed a bite of haddock chowder. Lou is asleep and hopefully I’ll be able to creep in without waking her once I’ve finished this and necked my camomile tea. It’s wonderful having her here and now two whole days with no shows stretch before us. I’ll miss this show terribly when it’s gone, but right now I’m glad I don’t have to do it for the equivalent of a weekend. Sunday and Monday.

Tuesday they need some of us to help out with education with a Q&A and I’ve volunteered my services. It’s Birmingham uni – that’s where Min was before she trained – so maybe I’ll get to say something inspiring to a future Min… Either way I love meeting and working with young practitioners. There’s always something to learn and the learning always goes both ways.

I’m gonna settle down to sleep, take a leaf out of Lou’s playbook. Brush my fishy teeth and put myself out for the night. We even went to The Duck for a swift one after the show. Living on the edge.

The Rollright Stones, just down the road from here, and now I’ve got some space and Lou is here, I can go and spend time with the energies there. They’ve cut a road through the middle, likely on the site of an old path but the proximity of cars and the separation of king and court might have done something to take from the power of the place. It still resonates.

On one side of the road, the king stone. Fenced around as people were hacking off souvenirs. This is a dolmen. This is a petrified king.

On the other side of the road, the uncountable circle of stones, 74, 70, 69, 76 how many stones? The king’s court, also petrified. In the centre, a circle of roses and cookies and I know immediately who has been making such offerings, pouring such libations. No other culprit but our Desdemona. Magic with roses. The family business. Lou and I augment it. She still had some cacao beans from Costa Rica. I had some white sage wrapped up in a handkerchief.

Magic doesn’t work very well with the sort of hidebound intellectual that ends up agreeing to pack off to Stratford and write up a tragedy for the broadsheets. I’ve been avoiding it until my agent rang and told me I shouldn’t be worried about it. So I ended up breaking a rule, read a few and just found people who – if you put a whisky in them – would tell you about how when they played Iago at university they did blah blah blah. It makes me prouder of what Tim has done. If they loved it we’d be a museum piece, or pure trickery – either way deadly theatre. This is definitely alive.

Cassio is drunk downstairs. I’m in my dressing room. Soon it’ll be Vico time, but with Lou in town I’m getting this written in the show so I can maximise my time with her later. We will go briefly to The Duck after the show. It is, after all, traditional. The reviewers would certainly be happy about that.

I’ll be back up to the stones before I leave here, for sure, likely with offerings. I’ve started to sew little bright bits of magic into the fabric of this play space where so many people experience these words and these vast stories for the first time. The stones are a charging point. And off to the side of them, in close conference, the whispering knights – very talkative still despite being older than Jesus. We have more to talk about, they and I.

Lou is here! I kept forgetting she wasn’t watching tonight and wondering what she was feeling about various moments in the play. We are rolling into the run now.

Two shows today. Before the first one I went and concealed a small stone somewhere in the theatre, as has likely been done by generations of people before me. The key is trying to find a place where it won’t be in the way of anything and it won’t be changed. A little bit of sympathetic magic, maybe to try and encourage circumstances to bring me back over this way in the future.  For now though I can settle into the run, deepen the work and the company feeling, keep exploring and alert and alive, play the game.

These two show days are tiring though. I’m knackered. This evening though a change from the normal wind-down, as I just … rolled over the road and lo and behold Lou had the means to cook an easy meal. She has inevitably made things a little cosier in the cottage. Nourishment and no booze, a camomile tea, and I’m actually feeling pretty sleepy. We had a small evening walk by the river. Tomorrow she might go to The Duck, but it’s pretty mental on a Friday night.

Years ago she found a kimono for me and it has always been in Brighton on her rail. I forget it exists. Now that I’ve walked Kumano-Kodo I feel a little bit less of an impostor wearing it. I expect I’ll be strutting around this cottage wearing it after the shows in the next few weeks.

Not drinking and sitting in low light and camomile and I’m actually tired at half twelve so I’m gonna take the opportunity to fall asleep next to my lovely lady while that’s a possible thing.

It’s just midnight. Lou comes tomorrow!!! These late nights are gonna shift, as midnight feels really early still. I just had supper and I’m gonna get myself to bed.

It looks like tomorrow morning is tidyhurricane time, hopefully. I’ve been working through things but I let a lot stack up.

Glad I wrote when I did last night. Things almost took a pass that would have led to me playing Lodovico with a black eye this evening. I can’t be taking that kind of risk on this job or any job really, so it’s a person I’ll be holding at arms length from now on unless they give up booze entirely, and even then probably. The last message was still attempting to justify the behaviour. As they say though: “Not the FACE.” That rings for me in this part. “Lodovico is a proper man. A very handsome man.” A black eye, a thick lip, a broken nose? Right at the start of the run? What an incredible lack of care from someone I thought I could trust to be considerate at least that far, no matter the provocation or perception of such, to try and punch my face at the beginning of a run where I’m playing an aristocrat who speaks well… And then continuing to try to justify it the behaviour. Friends have been warning me for years. I’m slow to give up. But time is time and it seems I’ve learned something over all these years.

Graham might have got to come on as cover which would have been lovely for everyone as he’s such a delight of a man, but … reputation is a fragile thing – as the play talks about. I would never have forgiven them if that punch had connected. This is a powerful job in my life and getting myself into the way of that punch is a bad enough look for me. I trust too much and too long, it seems. But … this job is a phase shift.

Thankfully last night, which was lovely right up until just before bedtime, has actually taught me something. It takes time for things to get through my thick head. Sometimes the best thing you can do is walk away.

But yeah, we are into the run now, and Lodo even notched up in status this evening. I’m exploring the ceiling of high status while still being audible. There’s a certain point where you’re so important you put no care into if you’re understood or not because you know people will be hanging on your every word. I wanna get to just before that, so the audience can hear me in the Gods.

We sang “Ae fond kiss before we sever” to the magical bundle yesterday. We were literally singing it as my punchy friend arrived in town and tried to ring me. Magic is magic and that ritual had power. We had ae fond evening, the two of us. And now we sever.

It’s 2:23am. I’m sitting in a terraced garden alone outside a party. I’m wearing a three piece suit. It’s cold.

This afternoon we all stood around a sheet in the Ashcroft Room. It’s a powerful room. Wood and sunset, windows. It’s the most charged room in a very highly charged building.

We threw flour into the sheet for the moon. I’m wearing a moon amulet at the moment. Moon is instinct. Polenta for the sun. That’s all the masculine male fuck you stuff I walked away from but I’m channeling in my character. Roses with messages. Personal things. Entire bottles of wine poured on the floor as libations. A bottle of Glenfiddich. I put in a hagstone of chalk, a sliver of my Kumano stick, and bark of a coastal redwood. Then I put a small amount of my mum’s holy water and a large amount of Florida water. I had been stealthily running around with Palo Santo smudging everyone. Jules was running the ceremony, channeling. The room charged up. We bundled it all up.

I love the bundles. We love the bundle. People sometimes hate the bundles. It is a thing Mark Rylance used to do when he ran The Globe. I remember years ago someone being overly exercised. “It’s disgusting, there’s chocolate and wine and all sorts of things and then they leave it there. It’ll bring rats.” It won’t. The thing with ritual like that is that it is everything but it is nothing. If you are proud to be logical, it is completely fucking pointless. If you are happy to accept the possibility of magic it is the most powerful thing you can do. But these worldviews have become binary to many people.

Ideally we will have it under the stage, but for now it is hanging in The Ashcroft Room. I tied the knots, an easy bowline to start and then moored it like you’d moor a boat. My message was “To heal old wounds”. There are many old wounds to heal, not just for me but for us all. This Othello, this gorgeous ritual of a show, this teaches us we can do it. We can heal. But the knots were a surprise because one of my old wounds is about a boat company with atrocious HR who stuck the knife in right when I needed a hug.

I went to see the bundle a few times during the show. I sung to it once. This is a powerful thing because I want it to be. After I sung to it something in my nerves dropped away.

Friends old and new, my agent who is my friend all were there. Many aspects of this life I’ve strived to do as well as I can. Wonderful to have such support, both in and out of the cast. I am absolutely blown away by the company feeling, and the support I feel from my friends in this. I’m the kind but alpha male at the end of a messy tale. We’ve trusted Tim and he’s borne it out into something rich and strange.

I’m going to rejoin the party as it is fucking freezing here in the yard despite the stars. It’s late…

The early hours of this morning I started coughing. A tickle in my throat, just where the masseur had been working. It woke me and kept me up. Immediately the thoughts were into tomorrow and “will I lose my voice for press night?” I struggled to get back to sleep. I was up and down for ages. Thankfully no morning call.

This morning I went to Holland and Barrett and spent over fifty quid on vitamins and supplements. Fish oil for my actingbrain.. Immunity stuff, mostly though. Zinc and C and all that stuff and something made by bees which will probably help with hayfever… Vitamin D as it’s getting dark and screw you, winter. I’m gonna have a daily pill box like my dad. Fuck it. You go on the advertising for these things and every single model looks like they’re on death’s door. I’m surprised they aren’t selling pill organisers to younger people.

Then Lou helped me think about it. I had a monster of a four week cold in rehearsal. I’ve got my tonsils. I reckon a bit of something unpleasant was hanging out having a party on my tonsils and then the massage brought it to the attention of my immune system. There’s nothing now, so it’s dealt with I suspect, just in time for a Tuesday which is just the same as every other show but for the fact that clever people are gonna crystallise it in words and make it like it’s the only time it has ever happened. Oh it’s good though.

I went to a Q&A by mistake this afternoon. I just rolled in to the theatre early as is my habit, so I can make my body less stiff and my voice more free. There were chairs on the stage and Tim was mid flow, eloquent as you could ever be, talking about this process from his point of view. He is so clear. He really knows what he’s made and why. I’m really really happy to be part of it for that reason. The stalls were packed with people who look like they could be in ads for pill dispensers.

Here in Stratford, where the works of this magical brain have been charging up for hundreds of years, we are telling again a well told story. Tim has a clarity of vision that he has tried to transfer to us all. I know to trust him. I’ve seen the positive results of people trusting him just as I’ve seen the less positive results of people not trusting him. He’s a stupendously clever man who loves actors because we can bring the heart. Like many great directors, trust brings reward. There’s no ego with him, he’s just looking at the work, so you know that everything he suggests is worth pursuing as ultimately it’ll make you look better. I’ve gone with his process, I’ll still be working until the last show, I’m not here to tell myself I’ve nailed it – there will always be something to strive for. That’s life.

Bedtime now. This is an early bed and it’s still nearly one.