Month: October 2025

I feel like I’ve had an actual evening, post walk, and still I’m in bed earlier than usual, but … we absolutely zipped through it. Just Girl Guides in the audience so no pubs, and I’m having to edit on the fly. They aren’t paying enough for me to rewrite, so I’m just making live calls based on how wired they seem to be. On the heath I have a fair amount of pretty adult material so instead I find myself telling them all to get in the bin, getting selfies with them at The Pergola, talking about different ways of dying… Weird evening.

Halfway through I had to extend it a little while in order to try and give Jo and Siwan time to do the things they would normally do in while the audience is in the pub. I ended up talking about the rather odd habit people once had of eating powdered mummy, and of Flinders Petrie’s head losing its label. Lots of new kid friendly material. Thankfully there’s a lot of junk stored up in this brainbox. By the end of the evening I was spent.

The day started brilliantly at Dishoom King’s Cross with Lou who might be knackered but is on fine form at the moment. I had a spicy breakfast and it set me right up for the day it turned out to be. Without that I don’t think I would have had the mental wherewithal or the patience to cook my own dinner just now.

Ben had booked me for 2pm plus van, so after breakfast I nipped straight to New Cross and picked up a long wheel base transit. We moved a load of boxes of books to a storage place in Acton from another storage place in Acton that absolutely reeks of farts, is falling apart, and costs much more. Heavy boxes though and we are not as young as we once were. We got it done but it didn’t make me ready for that army of thirteen year old girls waiting in Hampstead. I barely made it to the pub in time to start. Usually I’m there hours before. Drove the van there, I had transferred my costume to it when I picked it up. Good thinking as Jo still had to pick me up from outside the King Willy

I sat inside gathering myself, and just before I started thinking through my tour to work out what to change for the guides, I felt guilty and went outside to see if Siwan needed some help with Front of House. She was literally saying the words she says that cue my character and fuck I was NOT ready but Off I Went. She could have fucking messaged the group… If I hadn’t sauntered out at that very moment she would have been eaten alive by those girls. I started before I was ready and it meant I had to work harder in the long run to get them to focus. Had to wind myself up while working. Nothing I haven’t done before. I had a similar group two years ago. You can just bin nuance, set fire to subtlety and use call and response with great care as every question opens the floodgates.

I have to sleep. Tomorrow is very unknown. I’ve not really got the images to know if I’ve pitched this right and I’ve got a horrible fear that I’ll get there and find it is a load more stuff than I’m expecting. It’s another disposal job, but from a few shit photos.

Let’s see…

If I ever commit that billion pound heist and go on the run from the law, my extremely vocal hatred of the cold would help Interpol narrow down where to find me. It’ll be somewhere on the equator, not fucking Svalbard, that’s for sure. It keeps getting colder and darker and I don’t like it.

That said, tonight was strangely wonderful. I was openly pissed off about the weather, bringing a crowd of oddly dressed humans through the wet dark Heath. And they kept laughing and giving energy back the whole way. And even though I was drenched – we were all drenched – when it finished, I felt warm and enervated because of their generosity.

It’s a big ask, to follow a stranger onto the Heath on a dark rainy night. We were out there in the worst of it. I moved a few scenes so the audience could stand under a tree and get whatever shelter they could find. I’m surprised and very pleased they all had a lovely time in the rain. Last night it was perfect weather and the Botox Twins fucked off in the interval. Tonight it was rubbish and everyone came into the King Willy at the end beaming. Phew.

I’m home now, cooking supper for a change, bath is already run. I’ve been reading a lot about Zack Polanski at the moment, the green party leader who is surging in the polls. The algorithm sends me things as he is known in my world – he was an actor in a number of immersive shows produced by people very close to me. I met and liked him. Now he’s enough of a threat to the political status quo in this country that various mouthpieces are attacking him for schoolboy things like his teeth. He’s keeping very much above it all, and he’s very very quick and well researched. His rise to power is the single best argument I’ve ever seen for the right wing to invest money in grassroots arts. Had there been enough money for his early Immersive shows to pay well and run and run, he would still probably be very happily practicing as an actor, and not threatening complacent people. The work wasn’t there, so he rethought things and came up as a shitkicking politician with the skillset and wit of an immersive actor. More power to him, I say.

Ah I’ve been eating as I write. Marinated some steak and had it with chips and peas. Another heavy meal at the end of the day and I’ve had nothing else but soup, but I’m trying to economise and I have no appetite before I work, never have.

It’s quiet in the flat with the cats. Blanket is on and I’m gonna go cook in the bath. I get to see Lou at breakfast tomorrow briefly. Then a typical schizophrenic day… I’d best work towards going to sleep.

And so to bed.

Lovely crowd tonight apart from a couple of people made mostly of botulism and scorn. They ordered a big meal before the start despite being advised not to and made everything start later while having a competition with each other about who was going to look more angry about having to rush their dinner. Two people though, swamped by the rest of the crowd who were having a fun time and got it. I think the weather is going to shit for a bit tomorrow so I’ll take an evening like tonight anytime. These final few long nights before they close the darkness in – they’re precious.

Siwan has to do all the admin and she’s getting fed up of it. Not only having to sell tickets but also having to put up with people writing annoying emails before and after the fact. I hope those two people behave themselves on Design My Night as I could sense they knocked Siwan out of her happy place, and good socials are the lifeblood of such an enterprise. People like that are the contributing factor to Siwan making the image for this year a gravestone with the text saying it is the final outing. I think we might find a way to revive it to be honest. I might have to buy it off her.

Saturday night in Hampstead and I’ve never seen so many coked up folk. Maybe its because I’m sober so I can see it clearer, I’m not in the head-tunnel that only looks towards the next drinky. We had a smooth run though, no eejits trying to disrupt things, just a pair of lovely stoned kids who enjoyed watching Jo being a Victorian ghost.

On the way home I took advantage of our sober late night Muslim community once more, stopping for a mighty fine shawarma at one of the crowded places on Edgware Road. You’re always better off when the kebab shop isn’t aimed at students – whatever that elephant’s leg is made of it is better by far than the stuff they ran for DNA at Reading University according to an urban myth when I was there, and found 28 different meats including seagull. Lies of course, but believable when presented with those grey strips of deathpaste. Tonight it felt like something you could call food even if you were in a foul mood like the bloatyfaces we had tonight.

I’m enjoying having the days free before the work at the moment. It’s a late finish but I’m beginning to find a rhythm. Maybe a bit late to eat all that meat again – my dreams last night were wild and my sleep was restless. I think tomorrow I’ll experiment with a big meal beforehand – I always just worry it’ll make me sluggish when I need to be firing energy. But worth an experiment. I’ll be drinking a load of Gaviscon before bed tonight.

First official walk of the year across Hampstead in the darkness. I do enjoy it, but it takes more time than it needs at the moment. I prefer to get to places of work early. It’s a well oiled habit, crucially important. I was late once for an audition at Spotlight despite that habit. I walked to Sloane Square. It was closed. I ran to Victoria. It was closed too. I panicked, tried to wait for a bus, realised it was pointless, got an expensive black cab through terrible traffic, left it at the top of Piccadilly and sprinted the rest of the way, got there only five minutes late because thankfully I’d left plenty of time. I got into my slot but the casting director was miraculously running on time, and typically she was well known. “You should always leave plenty of time,” she said down to me and I bit my tongue. She never got me in again. Sliding doors. That was maybe twenty years ago. Funny I remember it suddenly as I write, I can’t actually remember which casting director it was and there’s no way she’ll remember I was late. It’s all very doesn’t matter, but nevertheless these things sometimes roost in the corners of our memory and sap tiny tiny bits of happy from our days until we notice them, causing them to immediately crumble to dust.

The “being early” thing currently means I’m getting to The Old Bull and Bush two hours before we start, and I don’t like being in pubs when I still haven’t fully kicked the hold of the alcohol on my daily habits. And I’m about to go on a long walk when I get there. Perhaps I’ll start to bring my book.

Only fifteen in the audience for the first night so they moved pretty quick. It’s nice the guide personality I’ve made for myself. I’ve made him just a slightly madder version of me in a top hat, so I have license to grind various axes in a silly way. It was very very dark on the heath tonight but we all came through fine and despite some brief interactions we haven’t picked up any streetlife types who know we are regular. They’ll emerge I’m sure.

On the way home I illegally parked outside a Kuwaiti place in Knightsbridge and got a mutton curry takeaway. “Do traffic wardens operate at this time here?” I asked, and they didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I showed them a picture. I immediately went into Extreme-E getting things in Saudi mode. “Oh, police!” “Yes police for cars.” “No no not at night.” I thought the wardens might be nocturnal there near Harrods just because there are lots of rich kids who do stupid shit with imported sports cars in that area. No ticket for Bergman, and we drove home with mutton curry.

It was an excellent idea, I just scoffed it: falling off the bone, great quality, big portion, loads of veg too. While I waited in the restaurant I realised I was the only person in there that speaks no Arabic, even though it was packed at 11.30pm. Sign of a good Arabic place. Nom. You can get so much in this city.

A lovely morning filming. I was auditioning early afternoon and hadn’t had time to prep for anything, which was disconcerting, but still managed to keep my head on what we were doing. It all went by in a flash to be honest but I think we got some good bits. I was knackered but had to rush across town. In person auditions are like gold dust, and this was five of us at the same time. All strangers apart from one friendly face from The Factory. Into a room for chemistry reading. I panicked. They were all panicking too. Auditions are horrible when you want it cus you have to fight the tendency to try and show everything in a short space of time and thereby show nothing. Ooh it was full on and I left absolutely shot to pieces with sour adrenaline.

Drove across London to get some tape for Lou. Ordered a dirty chai in a hipster joint. Drove to Clara’s to have a look at it – that’s a restaurant deli I was involved with building. It looks fab. I was gonna have lunch there with Lou on Saturday but they cancelled us.

Drove home. Then bounced out pretty much straight away to see Mike at The Chelsea Arts Club. It is crowded in there still. Lively. And at my age it is always nice to feel you’re bringing the average age down. I was on the non alcoholic beer and didn’t last long. I’ve got very drunk in there before – I usually do. I got fidgety being there post audition. Wanted very much to get some liquid forgetty juice. But I can’t be in avoidance right now, have had too many setbacks this year, I have to point forward and fire myself into life.

Mike and I mulled over some ideas around the things we like to do and the need to make money. I got him a pint and thought about my mum’s old actor mate Jack Hedley who took me to the Arts Club as a teenager to try and talk me out of it all. “It’s a hard life,” he told me. And it doesn’t get any easier. The estate agents I was at school with could buy me with their tax bill.

Home now. Saw an article posted by Captain Shouty #235574 on my social media. This particular Captain Shouty really doesn’t like people who don’t look like him. The article he shared was framed with a disparaging comment about “the ‘be kind’ brigade”. This is where we are now, where small minded hateful rhetoric has been so mainstreamed that people who think that perhaps we shouldn’t be horrible are dismissed like that. I honestly don’t know how we are gonna get out of this, where kindness is openly framed as contemptible. I think we might just generally be doomed. So hey, lets make art and BE the BE KIND Brigade and keep it up as they tear us apart because they’re scared of those pesky things they’ve made up, or that all other people are secretly as selfish and rapacious as they are.

Maybe a hot bath.

Oh fuck it. Another death. Richard Ireson.

Agents have been a complicated journey for me until I found Esta. But it started well, with Richard Ireson and Frazer Ashford up in Coulsden with Narrow Road. Frazer was new in agenting but working closely with Richard. There was personality and I felt understood – I find I respond best to personality. It was a good few years before various factors began the remarkable agent waltz which saw me dance through Amy and Nicola and Sarah and David and Iona and people whose names I have actually forgotten, who were sometimes getting me in for parts I honestly wouldn’t have played in a million years and other times just sitting on me waiting for me to wither or jump. Some were great but had to quit or pull back for a multitude of reasons. This is a tough tough industry full of people trying to make it look easy. It takes its toll on people’s mental health. We stick together, those of us who still get up and start running again. There’s a lot of love. It’s why so many of us call each other darling.

Lou loves the Mike Leigh film Nuts in May and Richard plays a cop in it. I saw it with her and recognised him and loved it. Frazer went not so long ago and I’ve just heard that Richard died too. Sad news on a dark evening. I’ll miss him.

I’m recalling tomorrow for a Shakespeare. Still doing this stupid job. He gave me a lift at the start of it bless him. He was one of the people that knew I was gonna keep fighting and keep believing and keep growing no matter what. I loved him for that.

I’ve sent my love to his son. He’s carrying the torch like a hero.

I helped an actor friend of mine move house today, from Folkestone back to London. She paid me, but I kept my rate low as she’s an actor. She’s moving back into town too! Means she can come to Factory sessions 🙂

I helped move her out a few years ago. The exodus is flipping. It’s like my mate Tom who stays on the sofa from time to time – he’s gonna be coming back before long, I betcha. The vortex of this city keeps pulling. I get it. Part of me is looking away now, but even sober I do love this crazy town. Haven’t been out in it like I used to, to five different house parties in one night, but the city changes and I’m getting older, and reminding me once more, the spectre of death just around the corner for us all in the scheme of things. I watched the original Producers with Lou the other day and wondered if anyone in it is still alive today.

I didn’t know about Richard dying, it was a while ago now. I’m not in regular contact with his son and his client who is my friend – we aren’t as close as we used to be these days. Sad news though. He would have affected many actors running a big agency like that. There is a sense of family in all this madness after a while. Many will be upset by the news, announced more publicly today. Another good one. Damn. Fuck you, death.

Just made it to bed by midnight. I’m gonna need to come up with a better way of going about the Halloween Walk tonight. It was the dress rehearsal. My car was parked at the start, at The Old Bull and Bush. But we finish at the King Willy which is miles away. If Lime Bikes or scooters stopped anywhere near the Bull it would be easy, but they don’t and I’m in a cape and hat. I’d feel like a target walking back across the Heath. So my plan was to wait for Jo who usually used to leave the pub before me. But turns out I don’t want to be in the pub at all. Without booze it’s just a choice of sugar and it is all so insipid and unwanted. A lovely lady bought me a ginger beer and it was horrible and I smiled and when Jo left I jumped at the chance.

Jo hasn’t the space for me in her car, just for my clothes. So I left them with her parked outside the Duke of Hamilton and I wandered off into the dark to get to Bergie. Walking north to drive south.

I’m home now and tired and I’ll need to rethink that as I’m gonna do lots of those walks in the next few weeks. It’s fun while it’s happening but it seems without the draw of getting mildly sloshed as we go that it starts to feel more like a job than a jaunt. Let’s face it, in the end I’m doing this to make some money. And a little bit of me longs for what I was doing this time last year. But everything has a season.

A tiny little dress rehearsal audience tonight, just a few people, make it intimate and playful, find my way. I’m making this up so there’s nobody hanging over me but me, but that doesn’t stop me getting judgey. I’m still finding some of the gags, some of the moments. Sometimes it’s down to the other people there and playfulness. Other times it needs to be tidied up.

I’m knackered though. “If I was you I would have found a way to get one of those little microphone and amps,” says John, who was at Guildhall with me. “But I know you, you can always be heard, and you can keep it up forever.” Yep. Poor Lou. But being a foghorn doesn’t come cheap. It’s muscular. And I’m not as young as I used to be.

Early start tomorrow though, something different again. I’m enjoying this autumn and snatching my downtime when I can. I think I’m gonna brush my teeth and take something to shut my head up and set an alarm.

I would normally be half cut by now, so in the end it’s probably for the best I’m not drinking.

Monday. The actors day off. Brighton. A relaxing place by the sea. Lou. A very chilled person. All the things.

Inevitably we went to a sauna. I brought my Gucci Slides wot I bought off Vinted for a few quid, and the pair of Topshop trunks that Frank left at mine and replaced. If we ever go to the sauna now, Frank and I, we’ll have matching Topman fire shorts.

We went to Luna Wave up Beaconsfield Road and at this time of year with the dark closing in it is glorious to just lie in heat and let your endorphins pretend it’s summer. Of course they’re obsessed with the things in Scandinavian countries – anything that can stave off the cold. I’m sure they’re atrocious for the environment, but … no more so than air con.

I’m feeling absolutely zoned out and Lou is cooking risotto for us both so this is my window for writing. Every day she’s closer to heading off to Saudi, so I’m trying to get my daily scribblings done when she’s otherwise engaged to get maximum time with her.

I might be living here a fair amount when she’s gone, but there’s a recall for a tour that’ll put me on the road again, out in one of the most recent world dictatorships, I’ll likely have to archive a few dozen of my blogs before the visa application goes in, including this one. So I’ll have to say one of the keywords I’ll be searching for. America.

I’m feeling so very relaxed, it’s wonderful. This little happy flat with this very particular cat. I’ve just brushed her to within an inch of her life and pulled off a whole cushion stuffing worth of catfluff. I reckon we’ll be in bed by nine tonight and I’m up for that. The dark is closing in, so the morning is the best part of the day.

Fingers crossed for my little tour landing. Still got to do a recall. I’m really hoping. I could do with a bit of creative focus, and it might not be a career job but it is certainly a life job…

Dad’s 100th birthday meal. He was largely absent. Probably off racing powerboats or rally driving somewhere, diving for treasure or cutting some deal on the golf course. Or he’s been dead 25 years. I can never keep up with him. Rupert and Bea hosted it.

When I first got wind of it I thought it was unlikely I’d be able to get there. Lou is shooting off all around the Middle East for months soon and I want to spend time with her – which largely involves being in Brighton and the vicinity because of the fluffster cat. But I thought I’d invite her and see if she could make it, and it worked well. She came up.

Rupert is the head of the family now, the head of the clan. Family was always terrifically important to my dad, and when so many of my immediate relations died in a short space of time when I was young, I found myself propelled out of that world and building a chosen family held together with dreams and alcohol. Rupert stepped into the actual family void. We even had a road trip. It’s delightful.

Family meals could often be oppressive and formal growing up, but now there’s a lightness. I remember when Lou first met Rupe, it was just after the Kirkaldy Museum play I made with Sammy, and she had noticed him in the audience. “I immediately saw the smile in his eyes,” she said and it’s a clear observation. He didn’t always carry that smile in his eyes but he does now.

We all had good food in his gorgeous home. Lots and lots of Barclays, and Lou. It was great she came. Lazlo my nephew is pescatarian so he made salad and fish for her while we all ate steak and mushroom pie. Then a walk in the square.

I really want to somehow get a copy of the key to Rupert’s London Square. They are very restricted, as the locals don’t want people shooting up there at night, or throwing beer cans around. It’s like Chelsea Physic Garden in there though, perfectly manicured, peaceful, bright. At the moment though, the Amaranthus Cordatus are out – “love lies bleeding” – and they very much want you to go away:

Coffee and back here. Long old drive but we are by the seaside with mistress fluff and early bed with chamomile is calling.

Pockets of things to forget, all over this flat. Sometimes I am motivated enough to look at one of them a moment and usually it turns out that pretty much the entire contents of an area have been put there not because they’re precious but because they are not good enough to sell, I don’t like them enough to display, and they’re not bad enough to throw out.

Today the mood was on me enough that I cleared through a fair amount of it all. The crap got chucked, the mediocre got recycled, the good got consolidated. Now I’ve got much more space in my living room and one or two things in a different place, and just one thing I’m curious to get looked at for value.

Brian was brilliant helping out. It’s easier with two. I got disillusioned a few times and trapped in memory a few times, but considering I like moving energy there’s an awful lot still stagnating around me in this place. I’ll need a few more days like this for sure, but this was a good one. It still feels like I’m surrounded by shite, but we are going away from the piles and not towards them.

We had a proper hoarder downstairs in the block for years. He’s gone now. I helped him into his house one night when he was drunk and had soiled himself after a fight with a taxi driver. There was nowhere to move. Piles of encrusted junk everywhere, little corridors in them, to serve the daily pathways. I noticed things of mine that he had pulled out of bins just lying there. I think eventually his family jumped him and put him in a home and then it all went into skips. Probably a huge amount of absolute rubbish and one good thing. Problem is, the best thing was probably hidden in an old sock in the broken washing machine, and everything on display was junk. But in the end it’s all just stuff.

Brian and I went in the car to the dump. Could’ve taken more stuff, I got home and clocked some old paint pots I had just not seen, but it is clearer in here, and I’m not gonna get pissed off about anything we chucked today. I’m getting better as I get older which is a good thing. Processed too much stuff from too many people to make that old common mistake of attributing value to everything. Most of it will go for not much plus work.

So I’m chilling out in the early evening, watching the last few episodes of Breaking Bad with Brian and Maddy who have absolutely nailed that series and are doubtless gonna get into Better Call Saul next. Uncomfortable but lavish telly.