Month: November 2024

Mel is downstairs again. I’m up here. I’m half tempted to go to sleep with the heating on as this morning was a battle to get out of bed, and the world was full of snow.

I’m going to trust the idea that the snow was an anomaly. I’ll switch off the heater. I’m happier snoring cold air than hot.

One show tonight, a matinee, and the effect of me being predictable for a change is really coming into my patterns. I had an old friend in again today. Last night a dear friend from Prep School came with her family and someone in the industry, Ruth, who had worked briefly with one of our cast. Phil and Sue from The Willow Globe were also in, and Simon Muller. And Mel of course. This isn’t even taking in the people who come and don’t tell me. I’m only in the second half but obviously I’m fabulous when I’m in. But every day is gonna be busy now I suspect. I’ve spent decades actively seeking the company of those who self-determine as edge dwellers. I love that space and that dialogue. Maybe I’ve been too unpredictable to really stop and gather and understand how lucky I’ve been to be surrounded by these great big glorious maniacs – Catherine coming with her school year, Ginny bringing everyone she could, Sarah rolling in despite being strapped. Kitcat might show tomorrow, but I’m not banking on it. Would be nice to see her. Only five days left.

Last night was boozy and I’ve been hosting again this evening and I’m tired and really not feeling up to even attempting to be eloquent about life. Mel is again in the shower as I write. The cottage is toasty. There is collaboration to be had. Maybe a Christmas thing. Who knows, but … these are friends that matter or at least Mel is a friend that matters and this is a shifted time. I’m not sure what is next in terms of work. I’m being careful about which aspects of my aargh lovely life I allow back in. But I remembered last weekend how much I love the events. That seems distant now, all the security wrangling, tool use, driving. I’ve been so happy as an actor. But the world is wide and I can’t sit on my hands too long… Glasgow? Milan? I’m always happier at last minute. But as I get older I start to honour the need for predictable dosh. Another acting job pronto please. I’ve sent some golden tapes so long as they can see past the beard…

Mel found the bagel. I didn’t even know I had the bagel. I suspect the bagel came into my possession because of Lou. I have eaten some of the bagel. The rest of the bagel will be eaten by others I am now abed. Bagels matter less. Mel is showering. Mel… Oh Mel. Where do I start?

Mel is simultaneously one of my oldest and strangest friends. I’ve just had to switch the boiler back on as she’s in the shower. She knows the tarot deck I work with so she and I gave a very cagey Simon Muller a reading that I had to pull myself out of as it was so fucking on point for what I know of his existence that it simultaneously blew my mind for what Alice the artist achieved before she thought too much about it, but also it helped me remember the collaboration that has always been at the heart of Mel and I, our jig, two chaos misfits.

Mel is part of how I found Lou – her flat in Hampstead, her snake in lockdown. Now she’s here, supporting me, totally. We collaborated on Simon’s reading and it was very interesting to see the differences but also the coming together. We both read it very differently but ultimately it was an empowering read. I deeply enjoyed the shared interpretation and I felt that the spread was such that Simon could never pretend the cards don’t have insight.

Mel is now on my sofa bed, as Michelle was, as Tristan might have been. She’s adapted it though, she’s actually put a tent up on it.

It’s impressive and I’m thoroughly behind it. My friend. I’ve missed her hard. She’ll be here a night or two and I’m not expecting her to try and black my eye. We pick our friends, and we stick by the ones who make us feel better. Silly Mel… We’ve covered a lot of ground and we have fought, but damn we get each other and make good things when we collaborate. I can hear her zipping herself in downstairs. She’s been in America, in Georgia. She’s not my only friend from Georgia so I get why she’s come back here. The woman they’ve elected in Georgia … oh my lord. Look her up. If she’s a potato then it is amazing how far she’s come. It she’s a human being then … she’s still in the creche.

Bagel or no bagel, election results or none, I’ve had a great night of boozy friends. I once again bought enough excellent wine to take me to the end of the week here and then shared it all in one night with friends. This time though I didn’t drink the lion’s share. I left that to friends who don’t have a matinee tomorrow.

I’m off to bed. Half ten isn’t early but it is when you’re still writing at 4:15.

zzz please don’t ring me early

The show would have just started on a normal night. I’m in bed.

We put the world to rights last night and in so doing we drank all the wine I’ve got, ate all the sausages and curry and naan, and a whole pack of cola bottles, laughed a lot and trashed the kitchen. I left the oven on all night by mistake. Yes I’d do it again, apart from the oven. I probably will do it again somewhere, maybe even including the oven.

5am sleep perhaps, and then up in the morning to meet Darren for brunch. Haven’t seen him since Paris. We went to Arkle, where Liam and Hester and Al were all munching healthily. I succeeded in eating about half of my chili eggs. Then we had a walk down the river and I barely got back in time to my digs and my poisoned body’s wholehearted rejection of the chili eggs. Shouldn’t have had something spicy. I never learn that one.

Back to bed and an argument with life. Do I really have to participate today? My body wouldn’t sleep but wasn’t really much into being awake either so I maintained a prone equilibrium between waking and sleeping, as nameless as the week after Christmas. It wasn’t comfortable or uncomfortable really it was just a period of existing. I called it time at about half past 4 and washed the guilt off in the shower, put a sharp suit on and walked to Avonside. Claire helped me nail a self tape, where the only real obstacle to the job is that the part feels like he might be clean shaven and Lodo has his Shakesbeard.

Waking up a little I rang Lou in the evening air and went to Lambs at Sheep Street. “No wine this evening?” asks the waitress and dear me yes I’m a creature of habit it seems. “Absolutely not, I haven’t been able to keep anything down all day,” I tell her and I see her worry when I go to the loo a bit later.

I ate my chicken and my soup all up like a good boy. Took plenty of time over it. I can say with a degree of confidence that it will now be broken down to liquids by acid and enzymes in my stomach and then broken into smaller and smaller molecules as it passes through my digestive tract. A slower process than one of the other options but ultimately a better outcome.

Five of us, sitting in a cottage on Waterside. It’s my cottage. We are talking about Othello. There’s passion and joy here. Will, Jules, Claire, Graham and I. I adore these people.

I’m in charge of the music. I’ve been playing Caravan Palace and The Cat Empire. We wanted something more chilled and so I’ve put on Liz Lawrence. Her first album. Bedroom Hero.

Liz was living in Stratford and got tangled up in the three year company here, alongside my bestie. She wrote these songs in these cottages. They have been part of my soundtrack to an extent she might never know. Occasionally she refers to the actors: “the queen wears her jeans when she’s watching TV, she yells at that screen “you don’t know what you mean!”

I love that observation. I know who that queen was. I watch TV and hate it when actors don’t know what they mean. It happens more often than you can possibly countenance. TV actors often have it learnt by rote and are just literally speaking random words in order. Sure you only get one take as often as not. But why not get someone who can act? There’s a whole team whose job it is to do the make-up and make you look nice.

But yeah, the five of us are doing the thing we do when we’ve had a hard week. I’m so tired. So tired. I hosted this drinks but I’m not in party mood. I’m playing my friend’s music and surrounded by new and old friends.

Al Liam and Hester all came tonight. People who have been so wonderful and bright in my life. I feel really really held, up here. Melody came to the matinee. I’ve known her since I was a teenager. Lou quite rightly identified that this is a rare thing, for me to be in one place and predictable. I love that so many of my old friends have come to play. I’m only really on in the second half. These guys are brilliant and this is mad fun and I’m gonna join in.

I’ve seen Claire before but never worked with her. She’s the BSL interpreter up here. I watched her sign one of the history plays with Min.

This evening and tomorrow matinee we get to share the stage with her. 24 actors will collectively tell the tale of Othello. Some will work harder than others, but all will get breaks. Shakespeare is very very careful about that. If his leading actors have an incredibly heavy scene to do, he wheels on various other curious voices for a few scenes just so they can recover. This acting lark can be hard work in the big scenes, and Shakespeare in particular. There’s a thing that happens the first time an actor plays the lead – sink or swim. We can get used to a line through the play like this gift of a one I wrote about the other day. If you’re a lead in something like this you have to WORK and if you don’t the whole show suffers immediately. Our leads all did the work bless them. It’s a shift, your first lead, and one you never forget. These huge parts, they take their deserved rest in the show, they have to keep their light burning, they come on refreshed if it’s Shakespeare, but often not as well as they might be as the director might have cut the recovery scene. “Why is this scene here? It adds nothing.” *pant pant pant*

Claire was on stage with us the whole time. She played every single part in Othello. BSL is a physical activity. She must have been shot to hell at the end of the show. They’ve translated it into sign language, she’s learned it, and she is relaying it live, and it must be such hard work. “How do you maintain your energy?” one audience member asked her afterwards. “Nerves,” she replied.

This company keeps adding to experience. I’m so happy they make the show so accessible. It only makes our experience richer.

I’m back at the cottage, with the oven on reheating a curry. Two shows tomorrow but not as early a start as today.

Full moon today in Taurus. Bullish. Bright. Hard. We had a show stop. “Is there a doctor in the house?” A panic attack, we are told. No surprises. We are water. This moon is pulling us. So in the interval, finally, taurean, Jules Fin and myself moved the bundle into the place I had prepared in the substage. Better to just guerilla than try to organise. It is dry dry dry. There’s no risk of badness and now it hangs next to where we all get into the lift to go sing about how God is with us. The Gods eat beauty. We have prepared this banquet in a bundle so they eat the contents of the bundle instead of eating us. They have consumed much already. The rest of it is under us, grounding us rather than pulling us up. A better place as we shift to the last week. Sweet Avon the Green Eyed Kiss (mcbundleface) stupid internet is in the right place.

It was press night for The Red Shoes tonight, so free drinks and sticky sausages in The Other Place. I had family in though, so we went to The Duck where they rang time unconscionably early. Different managements give different fucks and the current management are experimenting with how few fucks they can give and still operate. “I wonder if there’s a way to change culture,” I found myself asking John Paul, about the fact that it’s the pub of choice. They have “The Actor’s Bar,” sure. Usually there’s nowhere to sit in it post show, but you are surrounded by headshots of familiar people. Largely they are made out to “Pam” who evidently was one of the past landlords that gave a fuck. The current crop are exactly the type of publicans that think actors are a bunch of ponces and resent the late night rush after the show. Surely there’s a pub that would welcome us. Changing culture takes years but it is worth considering when a place starts to be entitled.

The Dirty Duck has such a deep tradition of hosting the actors. The new management arbitrarily pulled down a load of pictures and didn’t keep them either, it seems. Binned them. Including my old movement teacher’s husband. “Surely the pictures you took down were kept – they’ll be in a box in the cellar,” I said to Ross. Ross hates actors and weirdly thinks we should tip. He’s not American fyi. “They were thrown away,” he tells me without the conviction of knowledge, but with the certainty of someone who doesn’t give a fuck. “Oh really. If you say so.” Unless he did it, I doubt it. It would be senseless and arrogant to take them down and throw them away.

There’s definitely been something at play though. Headshots have been taken down and replaced with pictures of people’s dogs. For now there’s some unpleasant twerp in charge. They would sooner honour their random shit than give a fuck about shared history. The dog thing is such a dick move. “Actors are dogs hurrhurr etc” It’s unpleasant. I wish we could all just go to The Encore instead but…

We can’t change culture. The actors will continue to go to the Duck even if the management make it clear they aren’t welcome. It’s a shame but not a surprise.

We are in tomorrow at ten anyway. It’s not yet 1am and I think I’m gonna call this an early bed. So lovely to see Rupert and Bea and Lazlo. They got it, largely. They heard it. “DEAD PEOPLE SHOULD LIE DOWN” reared its head, but only briefly – I’ve been in a room with a few corpses over the years. They take up so much more space than a prone actor trying not to move. Let’s look at that for a change, even if IT’S NOT NORMAL. We sing the death. It’s pretty clear, if theatrical, that the character has karked it. And then they stand and watch. If you can’t cope with it that’s your stuff not ours.

Bed… Tomorrow is an important day for a new member of our company. One woman will be signing THE WHOLE PLAY very soon. We are encouraged to incorporate her. She gets very few rehearsals, so even if we swear about the lot of us being called at ten even if we’re only in the second half, I can see how it must be a total headfuck for her. I’m happy to lose my sleep to help. Not super happy. But happy enough. So long as I can get to sleep in the next half hour. *looks around for the actifed*

I went into Zizzi this evening, on my own, for a bowl of pasta that I could cook better myself. It’s a strange thing this delight in paying someone to do the washing up. It means I also have to eat what they come up with, which is largely not unpleasant even if more watery and smaller portion then if I could be bothered. We habitually pay these big businesses to make shortcuts on very easy dishes. I’m a terrible example of it. I go to Zizzi for their halfarsed pasta before the show, way too frequently, even though they don’t give us the ten percent off. I tried Wildwood Kitchen first though, and got a bowl of water with string and “sorry the ten percent doesn’t work on a Saturday”.

We have this remarkable pass that plays out well if we try and use it well – the RSC brings lots of people and some local businesses are kind enough to offer these discounts. “You guys have only got four days of your show left,” said the lady in Zizzi this evening and it made me feel sick. She’s wrong, we have a week and 4 days. But still. That isn’t much. In a week’s time she’ll be right. Fuck. It is winding up.

This has been incredible in my life. I knew about it in advance so things suddenly became possible. I could walk Kumano Kodo knowing I had an acting job coming up. I could take Paris knowing I had an acting job coming up. Without that security it is so much harder to allow freedom. I love my dayjobs, I love the people associated with them, but… This is my primary. I have to make my acting my primary. Always, despite gatekeepers. And I have binned SO MUCH for the fact I have to do what I do. Here in Stratford we have been reaping – we random fools. This has been glorious and will continue to be so until we are done and then we will always have each other, but we will all be individually back in the mix. I’ve definitely made some heartfriends, and deepened connections I didn’t think could deepen. I’m looking forward to the next, and freaked out by not knowing what it is.

A break from all the wandering around in the countryside, as apparently I’m supposed to be here to work. Just one show though, and a matinee. It’s a smart move by the company as it makes it possible for people to come see it and then get the train home. Much cheaper train ticket, no overnight stay. Kaffe and Joe did exactly that. So nice to see them. Both Guildhall lads, both Factory, and Kaffe was on the US tour with Claire and Jono from the Othello company. Four out of five of us in that pub after. Katherine was missed.

We were audibly tired. There were some big old accidental cuts. Some very odd cues. Two days off. The machine is very evidently clicking back into gear, and it needed oil. We ran a reasonably quick show, but that was the cuts making up for the long thought pauses.

Joe and Kaffe seemed to love it though, and were talking about the same things I have come to value in this piece of work we are making. The clarity, the lack of bull. I once thought I was gushing when I told an actress after a show that I loved her simplicity. She looked affronted. “Is that a compliment?” Yes, fuck yes, the more you complicate it the harder it is to care. We know deep down when we are being lied to even if we can’t always put our finger on it.

Lou’s last night so I wasn’t gonna stay in The Duck. We had a serious appointment with the cottage, with all the radiators on and a mushroom risotto including very well priced porcini from the Italian deli. Now the heating is off and it’s time for bed, earlier than I would normally but later than the last few nights. It’s been so glorious having her here. I don’t want to wish this job away so I’m not gonna count the days until I get to see her again. But it’s not that long…

Off to bed sober and before midnight. That’ll do.

Another bright day, another day with no show. It’s half nine and I’m ready to turn in really. Partly just from a fried brain after finally watching (and loving) Everything Everywhere All at Once, but also from another good old active strike out into the Cotswolds.

Broadway to start with, and the tower there, but it looked too expensive to go in even though I know it’ll go to maintaining the place. A day like this you can find things that are free, so we did. We drove to Buckland and eventually found a legal parking place within access of the walk up the hill to Burhill Iron Age Hill Fort. It’s not very well signposted. “I’ve lived in this village sixty years and I’ve never been to the barrow,” we were told yesterday. Much the same story with this hill fort. One of the pathways was completely overgrown to the point of inaccessibility. The other one was very steep and felt like a rarely trodden pathway. Some interesting mushrooms. I got my first strike of Meadow Waxcap, which isn’t particularly exciting to be honest. Lots of little brown mushrooms, and a few smoky spindles, largely the worse for wear, edible but not prized, looking like a bucket of eels.

Up the hill and past some very fluffy cows to the fort, which is largely someones field now. It was only really identified as having historical interest in 1960 and the way the footpaths are organised it feels like there’s one that we are trying to be encouraged to forget. It has been grazed a long time and will continue to be. Peaceful up there. Didn’t see anyone else.

Too late for posh lunch at Dormy House, where straight haired highlighted blonde ladies dine and serve in abundance. Instead to The Swan, where straight haired highlighted blonde ladies dine and serve in abundance. There’s a degree of homogeneity up here in these small villages. Some Avon Lady sold hair straighteners brilliantly back in the day and now it’s just the thing. Either that or straight blonde haired brood parasitic aliens have been at work up there.

The Swan is down in Broadway. It’s a village that specialises in taking your money. Grown up toy shops (not that kind) and chocolate shops and all sorts. I bought a present for a friend and lots of expensive chocolate and I’ve already eaten half of my swiss white chocolate truffles, largely as I’ve been writing this. mmmm nom

Back to cosy cottage time.

We are always just round the corner from something weird.

Lou and I had been up Belas Knap, looking in pasture for mushrooms, finding a Neolithic barrow. We sat in it a wee while – the four corners have openings.

Rain always threatening, but sun always winning today and by the time we got down the hill again we wanted coffee. We stopped in the tiny village of Winchcombe, to find a truly peak small-town English experience.

The high street buildings at Winchcombe are largely for sale. The remaining inhabitants might have inspired John Wyndham. We found hot drinks in a place where as many identical straight haired blonde women with lots of make-up as possible silently used secret ploys to make it as slowly as possible. “How’s the latte?” “Surprisingly they haven’t burnt it.”

Round the corner from this glacial coffee waiting experience – watch out for the dogwalkers, they hate you – you will find a meteor painted on the side of a building. “Free Museum,” it proclaims. “The Winchcombe Meteor”.

Upstairs there’s a room. It used to hold a harpsichord. Now there’s a bit of rock in it. The rock is in a single airtight glass container marked “Duran”. There are other smaller bits in other pots, but only one Duran. “only came outside to watch the night fall with the rain”. Not a meteor. I’m getting sidetracked by an eighties pop band. This rock is NOT planet earth. It’s 4.6 billion years old so it pre-dates the earth.

There is something really delightfully overexcited about the way they’ve gone about displaying it all. It’s like a town in the mid west where Billy the Kid once threw a horseshoe.

“From the Cosmos to the Cotswolds”. A bit of the space rock landed on someone’s driveway in the middle of lockdown when nobody had anything to do. “Here’s a laminated photo of a family standing proudly by a bit of rock in a driveway.” They have photos of the family “on American television”. “This is the spike they think Billy threw his horseshoe at.” They even have pictures of three guinea pigs. “These here critturs, these was the closest durn creature to dat dar space rock! It dun fell right by where they was sleeping. Shore woke em up if they was I tells ya.”

Next-gen-Patrick-Moore, Alan Cox… no Brian? The well known Cox without a beard who isn’t into rowing. The one who tried to get us all to repronounce things like Betelgeuse and Uranus by smoldering at us. Sexy star prof. He’s doomed to talk about it on a telly screen on loop all day opposite a few bits of the space rock. Normally they burn up, drop in the ocean, go unobserved. This one landed about 9pm on a night when everyone in the world was shut in their home with their nose pressed up against the window. They tracked its origin by its trajectory. The paving slab it landed on making a distinct “Bop, bop-bop, bop, bop-bop, bop-bop” sound – that slab is in the NHM now. Perhaps in 5000 years time scientists will employ knowledge of its structure to successfully detonate a huge asteroid before impact.

It landed in the Cotswolds so everyone had tupperware and freezer bags and got it bagged up so quickly it was barely contaminated. Pure space rock. A rare and interesting thing. Did your grandad find one? Is that the unremarkable bit of rock you found in his desk? Probably not, to be honest. But I bet there’s a household somewhere, a half forgotten story. “I was sitting out on my porch having a smoke…” SPACE ROCK.

This universe is so big. We have learned so much and built so much. Time is vast and we are swept up in it for now.

We went home and watched The Substance. It’s about objectification, self loathing and how we regret our youthful arrogance years later when we reap what we have sowed. It’s a body horror just on the right side of uncomfortable not to be too funny. Feminist Get Out. I had to have a bath afterwards.